Flashback- Navy T33 Crash Near Mission High School

Almost 55 years ago a Navy T33 training jet crashed in the area of Mission High, Hopkins and Chadbourne Schools.  There is a plaque near by dedicating a playground to the Commander.  Here are a few photos:




The link below is to a 2015 San Jose Mercury News story of the crash and dedication.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/01/10/fremont-children-of-heroic-navy-pilot-remember-mourn-50th-anniversary-of-his-brave-sacrifice/

Below is from Wikipedia:

The Commander Henry T. Stanley Playground

Henry T. Stanley Jr. was born in Panama, January 16, 1925. He was the son of Capt. Henry T. Stanley Sr. who became Naval Aviator #186 in 1916, flew flying boats against German U-boats in WWI and was a Gray Eagle (awarded to the Naval Aviator on active duty the longest) and once commanded Ream Field Naval Auxiliary Air Station. Henry Stanley Sr. died in 1962 and . Henry T Stanley Jr. earned his Navy wings in 1945. He was painter and photographer, composed piano music.
Written for the Oakland Tribune Editorial Page January 13, 1965 - 'Special Kind of Man "It's a brave and unselfish man who will stay with a faltering airplane to avoid a tragedy on the ground. Cmdr. Herny T. Stanley of the United States Navy was such a man. Rather than abandon his crippled jet and allow it to crash in to a crowed residential area in Fremont, Commander Stanley rode his plane down to the treetops in guiding it into a narrow strip of open field. His thoughtfulness for those below cost him his life, because he was much to low for his parachute to open when he finally ejected. Commander Stanley knowingly sacrificed his life, because he knew when his altitude fell below a certain point that his parachute would be useless. And it should be noted here that rather than further endanger the life of his partner, he ordered him to bail out at a safe altitude after attempts to restart the jet's engine had failed. " Commander Stanley ordered me out at 3,500 feet," his partner said. "He stayed with the plane because he wanted to make sure no one would get hurt." The veteran naval pilot could have ejected himself from the falling jet and trusted to luck that the plane would not kill or injure anyone when it crashed - but he would not make such a decision based only on luck. He had to make sure. His action testifies to the fact that Cmdr. Henry T Stanley was a special kind of man. He leaves his wife and three children. They can be everlastingly proud of him."
He was attached to the U.S.S. Midway, which was home ported in Alameda, at the time of his death. Lt. Cmdr. Harford Fields, Mobile, Ala., parachuted to safety earlier at Stanley's command. The City Counsel of Fremont resolution points out that Commander Stanley "unhesitatingly altered his course toward the foothills and then with no thought for himself stayed with his airplane to guide it, thus preventing the catastrophe of it falling into the homes and schools." Stanley ejected, but his parachute never opened. His body was found three-quarters of mile away from the crash scene still strapped to the ejection seat which should have separated automatically. It is estimated that he ejected at 2,000 feet. The jet's canopy was found on a rooftop half a mile for the crash scene. The plane skimmed over rooftops, and narrowly missed Mission San Jose High School, two blocks from the crash scene.
Cmdr. Stanley did eject from the the T-33 jet trainer at the last moment, but the seat failed to detach automatically from the strapped-in pilot and allow his parachute to open. The Navy board investigating the crash was told the particular type of ejection seat in Stanley's plane was consider outmoded and would have been replaced with newer version that greatly increases the chance of survival if funds had been available. Over a year after Stanley's death the Navy got $1 million in funds to remove and modernize the ejection seats in the 167 T-33s.
"Dedicated September 11, 1965 to the heroism of Commander Henry T. Stanley who, on January 11, 1965 sacrificed his life near this playground so that others might live." This inscription appears on a plaque near Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, CA. During the the playground dedication Vice Admiral Paul D. Stroop presented Mrs. Mary Henry T. Stanley with the Distinguished Flying Cross posthumously awarded to Commander Henry T. Stanley, Jr., United States Navy.
In the 1997 Cmdr. Henry T Stanley Jr.'s second son William J. Stanley, who was ten years old when his father died, visited the playground and found the plaque barely attached to the stone, over grown with weeds and had some vandalism done to it. He contacted the the City of Fremont's Judy Felber, supervising park manager. The unrepairable plaque was re-cast. The plaque was then placed so as you read the plaque you could look across the fields to Mission San Jose High School, and Chadbourne Elementary and Hopkins Junior High to appreciate the innocent lives saved by Stanley giving his life. Stanley eldest son Cmdr. Henry T. Stanley III, (who was also a pilot in the Navy, is now a pilot for American Airlines), and daughter Barbara Stanley took their mother Mary Ann to see her husband's refurbished park and plaque. Mary Ann and Henry Jr. met in the Navy. Mary Ann was a nurse in the Navy. She died in May 2010. She never remarried. Lolagirl1 (talk) 00:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)