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May 4, 2009

A German shepard named Boeing 707

By Robert Fowler

Introduction by Duane Crawford.



Sometime after I wrote the story about the Flight 11 in  2001, Robert mentioned this story about a dog being found near the crash site. Recently, he sent me his well-written memories. He gave me permission to edit a paragraph and to make a few changes.

After reading this story, folks may wonder why no one would inquire about a dog being on Flight 11. No one survived and if there was a dog on the airplane, the owner would have believed the animal was also dead. Maybe the dog belonged to one of the passengers. Because too much time has passed, 47-years, we will never know. Robert is the son of Eileen and the late Robert “Bob” Fowler. He was 8-years-old at that time.



On the night of May 22, 1962, as Continental Flight 11 winged its’ way from Chicago to Kansas City, my father was outside. He came in our house and said, “I just heard some kind of loud noise.”

Shortly thereafter, we received a call from my uncle David Fowler who was the sheriff of Putnam County. He said to my father, “There has been a plane crash north of town and I may need some help.” My father and I soon confirmed what that “some kind of loud noise” might have been. We went to the crash site before it was officially secured.

What appeared before our eyes remains indelible in my mind to this day, nearly 50 years later. On that hill, just a few miles north of Unionville, Mo., lay the remains of a crashed Boeing 707 jetliner (the first sabotage of a commercial airliner in America, which we would later learn) with airplane parts and human bodies scattered all over the rolling hills of northern Missouri.

As we walked among the debris at the crash site, I recall one of the wings of the plane being somewhat intact. I walked from the tip of the wing to the fuselage where there were thousands of dangling wires. My father and I walked toward a couple of passenger seats. It was at that point that the reality of the crash set in. Forty-five lives had been lost.

But I believe, as many others believed, that not all perished in that crash on May 22, 1962. There was a survivor.

When daylight came, my two uncles, who were guarding the site until the National Guard arrived, noticed a small to medium-sized male German shepard roaming around the crash site. The dog had a slight cut under his chin. Sheriff Fowler checked with surrounding farmers and other people to determine the dog’s ownership. None had lost a German shepard.          

Over the next 48-hours no one claimed the gentle dog, but the animal continued to stay in and around the shattered fuselage, perhaps close to the remains of his former owner.

Later, parts of a dog crate were found in the rear of the fuselage where cargo would have been stored. To my knowledge, Continental Airlines never attempted to determine if a dog was among the dead. Uncle David, National Guard personnel, and aviation officials all concluded that the dog had surely been on board Flight 11 and was the lone survivor.

As a dog lover ever since I can remember, I was the first to volunteer to give the unclaimed dog a home. Two nights after the fatal crash we went to the crash site and brought home a loving 3 to 5-year-old German shepard. In recognition of the airplane everyone believed he was on, we called him “Boeing 707.” To this day, painted on the back wall inside the small garage where we lived, the name “Boeing” is quite clear. Recently my grandmother and cousin took a picture of my 47-year-old artwork. The numerals 707 are no longer clear.

Boeing was a remarkable dog. He was well-trained and responded to many commands, such as “shake, roll over, stand, and stay.” He also would stand on his hind legs.

Boeing lived outside and stayed in our garage. One night we had a bad storm with an unusually loud clap of thunder. Boeing became so frightened that he jumped through the screened glass window into our basement. That only confirmed our beliefs that his fearful reaction to the noise may have been borne out of the similar sound of the mid-air explosion of Flight 11.

Word spread about Boeing being an amazing and apparently crash-surviving  German shepard dog. Maybe too much so! One day I arrived home from school and Boeing was nowhere to be found. My father checked with authorities in northern Missouri and southern Iowa, but no one had seen or heard of a lost German shepard.

A year or so later, we heard that a man in southern Iowa had bought and sold a remarkably well-trained German shepard. We all wondered then, and to this day I still wonder, if that dog was Boeing 707.I will never forget that dog. He survived all odds! He was a survivor of Flight 11, a German shepard that I named Boeing 707.   

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So, the question this week is, “Will it stay or will it go?” The United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. wants to close three Farm Service Agency offices in southern Iowa, which includes the FSA office in Centerville, and consolidate the operations in order to save money. Tuesday afternoon a meeting was held at Faith United Methodist Church to allow farmers and other producers who use the Centerville FSA office to make comments about the closing to John R. Whitaker, state executive director Iowa FSA. Many questioned if the meeting Tuesday was necessary because the decision had already been made.

A. Yes, because Washington will listen.
B. No, because the decision to close the Appanoose County FSA office has already been made.
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