The Crash at Basset Peak: Documenting a World War II-Era Bomber Crash for a Fuels Management Project on Coronado National Forest

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In January of 1943, a B-24D heavy bomber on a training run crashed near Basset Peak in the south end of the Galiuro Mountains, killing all eleven men on board. The Galiuro Mountains are located in southeastern Arizona, with much of the range being preserved within the Galiuros Wilderness Area of Coronado National Forest. Due to the remote location, much of its cultural history remains undocumented by professional archaeologists, including the crash site of the 1943 B-24D bomber. For the past five field seasons, Coronado National Forest began incrementally conducting controlled burns on sections of the Galiuro range, as part of a larger fuels management strategy. The B2-24D bomber crash is a historic site at risk of impact from the next stage of these controlled burns, presenting an unconventional cultural resource for documentation by the Coronado National Forest Heritage Program. Documenting this site will shed light on an important, if tragic, event in the history of southern Arizona and is a unique opportunity to develop alternative survey and preservation strategies for atypical cultural resources located within fuels management project areas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32893