Silent Witness

Just past the Gander cutoff, as you travel south on the TCH toward St. John’s, there is a gravel road on the right that leads down off the highway to a clearing. In the clearing is a bronze sculpture of an Amercian Paratrooper holding the hands of two young children, and boy and a girl, and the three look out over Gander Lake. Scattered throughout the several acres of parkland are little American flags, of the type you see people waving on the 4th of July.

The trooper is a member of the US Army 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles”, renowned for their WWII exploits leading up to the D-Day landings, The Battle of the Bulge, and “Operation Market Garden” which was immortalized in the move “A Bridge Too Far”. Heroes all.

And so today we stood on the very spot where on December 12, 1985, Arrow Air Flight 128, carrying 256 people – 248 members of the 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles” on their way home for Christmas  having completed a peace keeping mission in the Sinai, and 8 civilian crew. The plane crashed on take-off, just 400m beyond the end of the runway. There were no survivors. Heroes all.