60th Anniversary of Shoot-Down of USAF C-130 60528 over Armenia Memorialized

At a reunion banquet on Sunday, September 2, 2018 —  exactly 60 years after Soviet pilots shot down US Air Force C-130 60528 at Sasnashen, Armenia, killing the 17-man crew — the Prop Wash Gang conducted a special 60^th Anniversary Memorial Service honoring the crew. Recognizing the gravity and reverence an Armenian priest would evoke with a requiem service for the 17 deceased comrades, in July 2018 I contacted Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, Primate, Western Diocese, Armenian Church of North America, Burbank, California.

Explaining our planned memorial service, I provided His Eminence an overview of the C-130 60528 shoot-down incident and requested his assistance in making a priest available in Bellevue, Nebraska, for the memorial service. Seventy minutes after sending my email, I received Abp. Hovnan’s response (sent from his iPhone) — “I am certainly interested in this matter.”

Two days later, an assistant informed me that His Eminence had assigned Rev. Fr. Vazken Movsesian “to join you for the special 60^th Anniversary Memorial Service.” As keynote speaker, Fr. Vazken gave a brief history of Armenia and its people and the early history of the Armenian church  — the first nation to accept Christianity in AD 301. He continued with a brief overview of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and used analogies to memorialize the 17 American flyers who perished in Sasnashen 60 years earlier.

As the grandson of a survivor of genocide, Fr. Vazken has devoted much of his life to helping victims of genocide. When told to “get over the Genocide, it happened a hundred years ago,”  Fr. Vazken’s response is, “You can’t get over it, the moment you forget, you have given in.”

He said, “Sixty years ago on that fateful day, 17 United States Air Force airmen perished in that crash, it was in Armenia, shot down by the Soviet Union.” He pointed out that we must remember their losses, but it is not enough to just remember, you can’t end it with just a memorial — the reason for that is that in 1938, Adolf Hitler stated that he was going to invade Poland. When one of his generals said, “You can’t do that, we won’t get away with it,” Hitler responded, “Who after all today, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?”  Just 20 years later, not 60 years, not 100 years!!!

Fr. Vasken ended his moving speech by singing an Armenian hymn and delivering an ancient prayer of the Armenian Church — a requiem service for the departed — naming each of the 17 US airmen who were being memorialized.

He was enamored with the love and comradeship he witnessed amongst Prop Wash Gang members, commending the audience specifically on the energy he detected in the banquet room. In particular, he regarded with great respect John Simpson Jr., who was three years old when his father, Lt. John E. Simpson Sr. perished aboard C-130 60528, and Sam Clark, who lost several friends/flying comrades aboard 60528. Mr. Simpson, who had attended memorial services honoring the lost crew in 1997, 1998, and 2008, was the only family member present at the 60th Anniversary Memorial Service in 2018. Retired Lt. Col. Sam Clark, an enlisted (Airman Second Class) Russian linguist (airborne voice intercept operator) who flew reconnaissance missions from Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, 1957-1962, was the only attending veteran who had served with 528’s lost crew 60 years earlier.

The memorial service ended with the Prop Wash Gang surprising Fr. Vazken with a most unusual memento (a piece of C-130 60528 debris mounted in a shadowbox), an autographed copy of The Price of Vigilance, Larry Tart’s extensively researched history of the C-130 60528 shoot-down incident, and a plaque “We Saw An Eagle Fly,” composed by the PWG’s poet laureate Lonnie Henderson as a tribute to our 17 lost Air Force brothers. The entire event was recorded and is now available to watch on YouTube.

In an email exchange on October 1, Fr. Vazken provided a personal assessment of the 60^th Anniversary Memorial Service. “Indeed it was a pleasure and honor to be at the commemoration last month in Nebraska. The group made me feel right at home in the PWG family.” Meeting John E. Simpson Jr. and Sam Clark brought an element of connectivity to the events of 1958 in very real human terms. Additionally, at the beginning of his speech, Fr. Vazken made a point of placing the 17 names of the lost crew on the dais “in front of me, just so at no time would I be tempted to speak of an ‘incident’ and forget that the personal sacrifices of these men translated into personal tragedies for the families.” He also commented that “the missing-man table, which Chief Lonnie Henderson had set, was very touching and moving — “I don’t think it could have gotten any more personal.”

Having watched in awe when presented the shadowbox containing the piece of 60528 debris, Fr. Vazken saw a greater purpose than a personal keepsake. “I’m transferring the shadowbox with the piece of the plane to the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church Museum so that it can stand as a marker/witness to the shoot-down for future generations. We’re working with the archbishop to schedule a special presentation one evening for the local Armenian community.”

Transferring the 60528 debris shadowbox to the Armenian Church museum is unto itself an inspiring summation for the 60^th Anniversary Memorial Service in Bellevue, Nebraska, on September 2,  2018, but there is more.

During the memorial service in Nebraska, Fr. Vazken reflected that although he had been to Armenia many times, he has never been to Sasnashen. “I will not go back to Armenia again without visiting Sasnashen after this,” he declared. He has a planned trip to Armenia on October 21, and has volunteered to deliver a small gift from the Prop Wash Gang. In appreciation of the villagers’ reverence to C-130 60528’s lost crew — annual remembrance ceremonies by villagers and their progeny honoring an alien aircrew since 1993 — the PWG recently solicited voluntary donations from its members to help with the education of Sasnashen’s youth. Fr. Vazken will deliver collected proceeds to Sasnashen village leaders to be used in the village’s school system.

Remembrance and connecting the dots —  Sasnashen where the airplane fell and where the villagers honor the deceased crew is now connected to Bellevue, Nebraska, it is connected to Burbank, California, it is connected with the PWG audience in Nebraska going back to their homes, to Fr. Vazken’s visit to Sasnashen and the crash site, and to the Prop Wash Gang contributing to the education of Sasnashen village youth — the big picture!!!