Oklahoma Students Unveil Memorial To British Fliers

The strains of “God Save the Queen” rolled from the southeastern Oklahoma hills Sunday in honor of a memory awakened by a group of rural school boys and preserved by their aluminum cans.

The siblings of four British airmen who died when their planes crashed here exactly 57 years ago watched solemnly as the boys unveiled their tribute - a granite slab ensuring the memory lives on among the forest of pines where the planes fell.

A 21-gun salute, a wreath presentation by a British dignitary and the fading of “Taps” brought an end to what started as an ordinary class project at Rattan Elementary.

“It is good,” Rattan sixth-grader Chris Cochran said simply when the ceremony was over.

After getting the suggestion from a friend at the Library of Congress, Rattan teacher Beth Lawless asked her boys’ reading classes two years ago to research the crash.

The class scoured old newspapers, sought out official records and made contact oversees in their effort to find out what happened when the planes went down Feb. 20, 1943.

They learned the two Royal Air Force AT6s were based in Terrell, Texas, and were on a training mission in preparation for World War II when they crashed in foggy weather. A third plane made a safe emergency landing in a nearby field.