Jellico, Tenn. -- UP -- Rescue workers recovered the
bodies of 17 persons today from the splintered wreckage of a troop train that
plunged into a rock strewn mountain gorge while speeding around the curve last
night. Two of the dead were the engineer and fireman. The
remainder were understood to be soldiers. The army said the wreck occurred while
the soldiers were preparing to retire for the night. Many of them were in
washrooms, separated from their clothes and personal property, which made
identification slow. Many of the dead soldiers were found in a coach which
was crushed beneath the coal tender as they plunged into a hollow mountain
stream. Daylight aided the rescue workers who were pulling apart
the debris of the splintered coaches in the narrow gorge which was strewn with
sharp rocks. More than _00 (?) soldiers were injured. The
men were crushed in the cars when the train left the track while rounding a
curve at high speed. The engine careened into a gorge, pulling six coaches
with it. Ten other cars did not overturn. The dead
included J.C. Rollings, the engineer, and J.W. Tummins, fireman, both of Etowah,
Tenn. Names of the dead soldiers were withheld pending notification of
relatives. Maj. Harold Tyler, public relations officer for the Fourth
Service Command, said the train was en route from Cincinnati to
Knoxville. Scores of townspeople from this village of 2,000 and
neighboring farmers rushed to the scene with floodlights, flashlights and
lanterns to assist in searching for the dead and injured. Many
of those hurt were treated in clearings beside the roadbed. Jellico's only
hospital was filled and cots were placed in hallways to accommodate the
injured. Ambulances carried many to nearby towns for
treatment. The Office of Civilian Defense and the Red Cross
immediately mobilized units to assist the injured and to aid in clearing the
tracks of wreckage. Jellico is 60 miles from Knoxville and is
near the Kentucky state line. Oelwein Daily
Register, Oelwein, Iowa - July 7, 1944
Troop Train's Plunge Into Gorge Claims 17 200 Injured When
Engine, 6 Coaches Topple From Rails at Sharp Curve Jellico,
Tenn. (AP). -- At least 17 persons, including 15 soldiers and the engineer
and fireman of a Louisville and Nashville passenger train, were killed and more
than 200 injured in the train's plunge into the gorge of the Clear river -- 11
miles south of here last night. Work of extricating the victims
from the locomotive and fire cars which tumbled down the steep 50-foot bank to
the shallow stream while rounding a curve was slow and unofficial estimates
placed the causalities as high as 25 dead and 250 hurt. The
train was a special carrying only soldiers and the train crew.
An emergency train made up from the 12 cars which did not leave the track left
this morning taking 50 of the injured to Lake City, Tenn., en route to the
government hospital at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and at least 39 others were sent to Oak
Ridge hospital in ambulances. State Guard Company C from
Knoxville, commanded by Captain Ben Sanders, joined military police in
patrolling the wreck scene as acetylene torches were used to cut away portions
of the cars and slings and pulleys were used to move the injured men up the
bank. The witchen and baggage cars of the southbound train,
reported carrying more than 1,000 soldiers just out of basic training, were
burned. Express Agent C.L. Alley of Jellico said first rescues
were made by nearby mountainfolk who tediously hoisted the injured by block and
tackle slings up the shrubbery-lined gorge. Waiting ambulances rushed the
injured to hospitals in Lake City, Lafollette and Jellico, and Corbin
and Williamsburg, Ky. Rescuers worked doggedly to free two
soldiers trapped in one of the smashed coaches. Doctors gave blood plasma
transfusions to one of them, pinned down in the wreckage. Two others who
had been trapped were extricated, one of them dead. The fireman,
identified at a Jellico hospital as J.W. Tummins, of Etowah, died several hours
after he was hurled free of the wreckage. Reporter Willard
Yarbrough of the Knoxville Journal telephoned his paper that he counted seven
dead when he climbed into the engine room and looked out. He said two more
were lying in the stream, running two to four feet deep at the wreck
scene. "One soldier pinned in the wreckage cried 'get me out of
here or let me die right here'" Yarbrough said. "Another soldier
being carried across the stream on a stretcher asked his rescuers to let him die
right there." The engineer identified by the railroad as John C.
Rollins, of Etowah, Tenn., was "somewhere beneath his engine," Yarbrough
said. Pvt. Wallace Lewis of Canton, O., a passenger on one of
the car hurled into the gorge said, "I saw a big flash, and someone said
'there's going to be a wreck.' There was. I crawled out of the car,
fell into the shallow creek, and then stumbled out." In this
Cumberland mountain section on the Kentucky-Tennessee line, the L. and N. tracks
transverse numerous trestles over deep gorges and loop around hairpin
turns. Ten army doctors and 12 army ambulances were rushed to
the scene from Clinton. They carried amply supplies of blood
plasma. Express Agent Alley, who said the train carried 1,006
soldiers, reported early today the cars remaining upright had been switched to
another track and were proceeding to their destination.
The Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia - July 7,
1944
Train Death Toll Likely to Pass 19
Jellico, Tenn. (UP) -- The official death toll of the troop train derailment
which plunged five coaches into a mountain gorge remained at 19 Saturday night
but army authorities feared a few more bodies might be found in a smashed car
partially buried in Clear river. Seventeen of the dead were
servicemen and two were trainmen. More than 100 soldiers, who had been
inducted only a few days before, were injured. An investigation was
underway by FBI agents and army and railroad officials.
The Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia -
July 9, 1944
Soldiers Die in Wreck Jellico, Tenn.
(AP). -- Two soldiers from Randolph county, W. Va., were listed by army
officials over the week-end as among the dead in a troop train wreck near
Jellico Thursday night. They were Robert C. Clingeman of Elkins
and James W. Buchanan, Huttonsville, W. VA. The Charleston Daily Mail,
Charleston, West Virginia - July 10, 1944
Train Wreck Death List May
Reach 25 Police Chief Roberts of Jellico, Tenn., Says 21 bodies Have Been
Removed. Jellico, Tenn., July 8. -- Wrecking crews amidst
smashed coaches of a shattered troop train removed additional bodies of soldiers
early today and Night Police Chief Elmer Roberts said the death toll apparently
was at least twenty-five. Roberts said twenty-one bodies had
been lifted up the steep sides of the mountain gorge where a Louisville and
Nashville train left the track Thursday night and four more had been located in
the wreckage. The Army had not changed its list of known dead
--- 19. Cause of the wreck under investigation by the F.B.I.
The Chillicothe Constitution, Chillicothe, Missouri -
July 8, 1944
September 25, 1904
John W. Brown of Rogersville, Tenn., a newspaper editor, was in
the rear coach of the westbound train, and as soon as he recovered from the
shock went to the main part of the wreck. He said: MOST HORRIBLE
SIGHT. "It was the most horrible sight I ever witnessed. I saw a woman
pinioned by a piece of split timber which had gone completely through her body.
A little child, quivering in death's agony, lay beneath the woman. I saw the
child die and within a few feet of her lay a woman's head, while the decapitated
body was several feet away. "Another little girl whose body was fearfully
mangled, was piteotisly callIng for her mother. I have since learned that she
was Lucille Conner of Knoxville, and that both her parents were killed. I heard
one woman, terribly mangled, praying earnestly to be spared for her children,
but death relieved her sufferings in a few minutes."
From the Daily Review, Decatur, Illinois
Submitted By Angela Meadows
September 25, 1904
Newmarket Train Wreck
COFFIN AND CORPSE ESCAPED UNHARMED
KNOXVILLE. TENN., September 24 (Special.)
The dead body, of James Hill, of Jelllco, Tenn., who was killed
In a powder mill explosion at Jelllco Friday night, was In the baggage car of
the east-bound train en route to Gaffney, S.C., for interment. The Coffin was
unhurt, as was the body it contained. The remains were forwarded to Gaffney
tonight.
Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia
Submitted By Angela Meadows
September 25, 1904
List Of Dead Victims Who Have Been Identified Ralph
Mountcastle, Knoxville Tenn. W.A. Galbraith, Knoxville, Tenn. Mrs. W.A.
Galbraith, Knoxville, Tenn. Monroe Ashmore, aged 19, Knoxville, Tenn. John
Black, White Pine, Tenn. James King, Knoxville, Tenn. Two Children Of
James King, Knoxville, Tenn. William Kane, Knoxville Engineer Of The West
Bound Train Richard Parrot, Knoxville Engineer Of The East Bound
Train James Mills (Colored) New Market, Tenn. E.G. Earnest, Johnson City,
Tenn. G.W. Brown, Dandridge, Tenn. R.B. Godwin, Jefferson City,
Tenn. J.D. Bird, Jefferson City, Tenn. M. Jones, Son of James Jones, South
Knoxville, Tenn. Mrs. R.B. West, Grainger County, Tenn. Mrs. J.B. Gass,
Dandridge, Tenn. Miss Gass, Daughter of J.B. Gass Eight Italian
Immigrants, Names Unknown John T. Conner, Knoxville Night Foreman at Lonsdale
Round House Mrs. John P. Conner, Knoxville, Tenn. Clayton M. Heiskell,
Cincinnati Mrs. Mary Phelps, Residence Unknown J.H. Stevens, Dandridge,
Tenn. One man was found with an envelope in his pocket Bearing the name of
J.W. Daly, Greensburg, Indiana Miss Nannie Murray of Newport, Tenn. Mrs.
W.O. Haddin, Knoxville, Tenn and a daughter of Mrs. Gass Wm. M. Brewer,
Knoxville, Tenn. Miss Ethel Shipp J.M. Adkins, Jellico, Tenn. John
Molyneux, Glenmary, Tenn. Rev. Isaac Emory, Knoxville, Tenn. Rev. J.P.
King, Newport, Tenn. Dr. D.A. Fox, Nashville, Tenn. Mrs. C.A. Russell and
two children, aged 7 and 5, Knoxville, Identified at midnight J.J. Daniel,
Tampico, Tenn. D.S. Fox, Birmingham, Alabama Miss Haylow, Birmingham,
Alabama Mrs. Kinsell, Knoxville, Tenn. Mrs. McEwen, Knoxville,
Tenn. John Black, White Pine, Tenn. Julia W. Haddox, Dandridge, Tenn.
Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia
Submitted By Angela Meadows
Deadly Jellico train explosion occured 100 years
age, September
One-hundred
years ago, Jellico was rocked by a massive explosion when a train car filled
with 11 tons of dynamite exploded. The
explosion killed ten people, and as many as 150 more were injured by the
blast.
The railroad car was just a few feet on
the Kentucky side of Jellico when it exploded, but both Jellico, Ky. and
Jellico, Tenn., were devasted by the blast. Newspaper accounts at the time of the
tragedy vividly told the tale. "The havoc wrought is almost beyond description,"
an artical from the following day read. "It is usual in cases of this kind that
the newspapers greatly exaggerate these facts, but those who had read the press
reports and then came to see the wreck said that the half had not been told. We
do not undertake to say what caused this car-load of dynamite to expload, but
suffice it here to say that it did expload, and that cars were being switched
about it and bumping against it just before it let go with such a terrible force
that it demolished two towns."
Taken with permission from The Lafollette
Press
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