Donn Clifford of Phillipston clearly remembers the day when a military jet crashed in town.

Clifford was 11 years old on June 14, 1960. After arriving home from school, he received a call from his friend Bobby Casavant about a F-104 military plane which had crashed across the street from Casavant’s home, on the corner of Lincoln Road. Clifford and Casavant quickly headed to the crash site.

“When I got there it was not on fire, although the firefighters were there. We were able to get down around the plane and I was able to get a couple of pieces of the plane. All of a sudden we were shooed out of there by the Phillipston Police and Fire, as the military had called and said it was a classified area. It was during the Cold War. Everyone was worried about security then. The second piece I had (of the plane) was bigger but I threw that away as I thought I would be in trouble. When we got shooed away we went up and sat across on a small hill beside Bobby’s house,” said Clifford, adding that the first, smaller piece of the plane he had taken, he brought home with him.

A newspaper reporter then snuck down through the woods and took several pictures of the wreck, Clifford explained.

“The police chased him, with an officer firing several warning shots in the air. The fire chief, Eddie Yates, tackled the reporter, grabbed his camera and yanked the film from the camera. The reporter was really upset when they kicked him out of the area and ripped the film out of his camera,” he added.

“The picture would have been good for the reporter, for the paper, but the plane was a pile of junk. It wasn’t going to show anything useful to an adversary, but because it was a classified area they weren’t supposed to do it. It was a big deal for the kids in Phillipston, it was the 50s-60s, not much happened. It was Phillipston, it was a big deal to see the reporter and the film ripped out of the camera,” Clifford stated.

As for the pilot of the jet, Major Emmett S. Barrentine of Memphis Tennessee, Walter Goddard—who was highway superintendent at the time—saw the pilot bail out by parachute.

“The pilot landed on Searles Hill Road, about a quarter of a mile from where the plane crashed. I think the pilot was a little shocked at how close the school was. The first house on Lincoln Road was 500 feet away. The school bus at the time did two runs. We were on the first run, the second run was the north end of town,” Clifford continued. “There were still children at the school. I think the pilot was a little upset when he saw that.”

Clifford donated the first piece of the plane he acquired that day to the Phillipston Historical Society.

Carla Charter is a freelance writer from Phillipston. Her writing focuses on the history of the North Quabbin area. Contact her at cjfreelancewriter@earthlink.net.

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