A memorial to 44 people who died in the first confirmed case of sabotage against a U.S. airliner is being dedicated on the 70th anniversary of its bombing over Colorado
The windows shook as dynamite aboard an airplane exploded over Conrad Hopp’s family farm in northern Colorado 70 years ago.
Hopp, then 18 years old, saw a ball of fire streaking across the night sky and rushed with his brother toward where the burning wreckage came down, dodging objects that turned out to be the bodies of victims of the first confirmed case of sabotage against a commercial U.S. airliner.
Hundreds of miles away, Marian Poeppelmeyer’s mother, pregnant with her, was at home in Pennsylvania when she learned her husband was among the 44 people killed in the bombing. She ran upstairs and held her oldest daughter tightly and screamed, Poeppelmeyer said, recounting a story told by her mother soon before she died.
Hopp and Poeppelmeyer, who recently forged a friendship out of their shared trauma, plan to be together as the first memorial to those who died is dedicated Saturday, the 70th anniversary of the bombing.
Until now, the fate of the victims has been overshadowed by the dramatic details of the bombing, the glaring absence of a federal law against attacking a plane and the meticulous investigation into what happened.
“We’ve had 70 years without having any respect at all for the victims who were lost,” Hopp said. “So it’s really nice to have this attention now.”
The United Airlines flight took off a few minutes late after a layover in Denver on its way to Portland. Oregon. Most of the passengers were from somewhere else, said Michael Hesse, the president of the Denver Police Museum who spearheaded the effort to create a memorial at the air traffic control tower of the city’s former airport, which is now part of a brew pub.
That’s part of the reason no memorial was ever built before, Hesse suggested. The granite slab with victims’ names listed within the outline of a plane will also include the seals of local and federal law enforcement agencies who responded to the bombing.
