United States Air Force Brigadier General Clyde F. McClain
and U.S.A.F Major Jess Edward Montgomery
Class of 1939


 

  
Clyde F. McClain  and Ed Montgomery in 1939

A note from Sue Montgomery, '60 (your webmaster):

The following is a short article I wrote for RootsWeb Review, a genealogy magazine with a subscription of over 500,000.  At the time it was written, Rootsweb was the host for our Tech Alumni site.

What happened here -- my miraculous connection to Clyde through the thoughtfulness of Bob Young (also '39) --  has made the time spent creating and maintaining the Tech Alumni Website much, much more than just  worthwhile to me.  I consider it all the payment I could ever hope for.  I know, too, that there are lots of other stories of connections across the years because of the site, and that is also a great cause for thankfulness.

But, here's the story . . .

     THE FEELING OF A MIRACLE

     by Sue Montgomery  iamsue@gotown.net
        Denton Genealogy: http://www.DentonGenealogy.org
        Arsenal Technical High School Alumni, http://www.ATHSAlumni.com

Well, it has happened again!  It doesn't seem to matter where on RootsWeb family tidbits are located, connections constantly are being made. This one has the feeling of a true miracle for me.

I am the youngest of eight children and the only girl. We were spread out over 21 years and my oldest brother, Jess Edward Montgomery, was already in the Air Force training for World War II when I was born. He went on to become a highly decorated pilot in both World War II and Korea and later was a member of  the Strategic Air Command (SAC). As you might guess, he was a hero to his little sister -- always flying in to see us in a shiny jet plane wearing his handsome uniform. But more than that, he was a loving and warm big brother to me and I adored him. In March of 1960 during his last tour of duty in Italy just before his retirement from the Air Force, Ed was killed in a peace-time plane crash at age 38. I had just turned 18 and was about to graduate from high school.

All of my brothers and I attended the same high school, Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tech was originally built as a Civil War arsenal and has a beautiful campus of 76 acres with many of the original 1860s buildings still in use today. The enrollment is huge and was even larger back in the 1930s and 1940s with 5,000-6,000 students attending at the same time. My brother Ed graduated from Tech in the class of 1939 and I came along in the class of 1960. 

Last summer I created an alumni website for the school at  RootsWeb in the School Alumni Community and it is becoming very  popular. A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from Bob Young who graduated in the class of 1939. I asked if he might possibly remember my brother, but with such a huge enrollment back then, he did not. However, he did have an old friend who had also gone to Tech and went on to become a Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force. My new friend Bob wrote to his old friend the Brigadier General and mentioned my brother Ed Montgomery. 

A few days later I received a long message from retired Brigadier General Clyde F. McClain, who is now 80 years old. He told me the story of being Director of Operations for an F-100 unit of the U.S.A.F. at Aviano, Italy  in March of 1960 and getting a call that an old classmate of his had just landed on base and would like to see him. The old classmate was my brother Ed and the two friends spent the afternoon touring the base and reminiscing. Ed was invited to stay with his friend and family for the next two days and they had a wonderful time -- touring a little in the nearby small Italian towns, playing bridge, eating at the Officers' Club and just relaxing. Then they went to see Ed off as he left to return to his base in southern Italy.

The next thing they heard was that Ed's plane was overdue with no radio contact. The weather was not good in the area that the RADAR indicated was the probable crash site. It took two or three days before the weather cleared and the crash site was spotted.  The Italian military sent a rescue/recovery unit in and determined that all were killed on impact -- less than 100 feet from clearing the mountain top. . .

. . . When now I consider  that with all the millions of people on Earth today, and after more than 40 years, I would finally hear such a detailed and loving personal story of the last days of my brother's life being spent with old friends, I'm absolutely amazed.  It gives me and my surviving family a wonderful feeling of peace and thanksgiving to know after all these years that Ed's final few days were lived in such a happy way.  Miracles still happen, and this is one of them.

Thanks to all of you Tech Alumni who have made this site welcome in your lives and have become such great friends after all the years away from the campus.
 Blessings to you all!

Sue

The other players in the story:

Bob Young, '39 and Sue Montgomery '60