Construction to start on Cold War memorial on Mount Charleston

"A nation reveals itself not only by the individuals it produces, but also by those it honors, those it remembers." - John F. Kennedy.

Silent heroes of the Cold War will never be forgotten thanks to Las Vegas Boy Scout leader Steve Ririe.

Fourteen years ago, Ririe began a journey to remember the 14 men who died in a plane crash near the top of Mount Charleston on their way to test the U-2 spy plane at the government's secret Groom Lake installation known as Area 51.

On Saturday, the 57th anniversary of the tragedy on the snow-covered mountain, Ririe in the company of former Area 51 workers, a CIA pilot and supporters of his nonprofit fundraising group will break ground on the Silent Heroes of the Cold War National Memorial.

Designed by architect George Tate, the $100,000 monument in middle Kyle Canyon will honor those 14 U-2 engineers and flight crew who died when the transport plane crashed. It will also recognize the tens of thousands who served in the Cold War that spanned five decades to avert a nuclear conflict with the former Soviet Union.

"The patriots this memorial will honor are not forgotten heroes. They're heroes who had their history erased," Ririe said Wednesday, announcing the free, public groundbreaking event.

"The people who worked in secret did so," he said, "so they wouldn't be recognized. This will be a first step to give them back their place in history."

The nonprofit Silent Heroes of the Cold War Corp. has received about $30,000 from the sale of Mount Charleston license plates for the memorial in addition to money from other fundraising events. The group will need more funding to maintain the memorial after construction starts next year.

Ririe was inspired to chart a course for the memorial after he hiked to the crash site in 1998 and pondered who died in the wreckage.

After following a trail of records from the Air Force to the National Archives and Records Administration to the CIA, he sought and obtained a declassified investigation report that launched his odyssey to find the families of the men who were killed.

Investigators determined that the C-54 transport plane had departed Burbank, Calif., in the early morning of Nov. 17, 1955, bound for the secret "Watertown" airstrip along Nevada's dry Groom Lake bed, 90 miles northwest of the Las Vegas Valley.

After arriving at what is now widely known as Area 51, the team was supposed to perform a flight test of the U-2, a spy plane equipped with long-range cameras.

The U-2 was designed to fly at 70,000 feet altitude for observing Soviet missile sites while staying out of range of MiG fighter jets.

But the team's transport plane never arrived at Groom Lake.

The pilot, 1st Lt. George Pappas, had become disoriented while flying in radio silence through a 60-knot crosswind under visual flight rules during a blizzard.

Instead of avoiding Mount Charleston, he was mistakenly on a path toward the peak above Kyle Canyon.

The plane clipped the ridge 50 feet below the crest, skipped about 60 feet, and slid another 20 feet before it came to a rest and partially burned.

There were no survivors.

After a mountaineering team on skis and snowshoes from March Air Force Base in California failed to locate the crash site, about 20 men on horseback from the Clark County Mounted Posse and two Air Force officers reached the wreckage to recover the bodies and the U-2 project's top-secret paperwork.

Much of the plane's fuselage remained intact on the ridge until the summer of 1956 when, at the request of the U.S. Forest Service, Air Force crews blew it up with dynamite because its precarious positioning posed a safety hazard.

Some of the families weren't aware that their loved ones had worked for the CIA, and most had not been fully informed about the details of the mission they were on.

In 2001, Ririe organized an expedition for the men's relatives to trek to the site and retrieve remnants of the plane for historical purposes with the consent of the Forest Service.

In a statement this week, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, who sponsored legislation for the national memorial, said the 50-year Cold War "posed a dire threat to the security of our nation."

During that time, he said, "many Nevadans committed their lives to maintaining peace at home and around the world. However, their brave efforts ... were kept secret. This monument will ensure that the courageous actions of Nevada's Cold War heroes will be remembered for generations to come."

Saturday's free groundbreaking event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the middle Kyle Canyon complex off state Route 157, about 18 miles past the Mount Charleston exit from U.S. Highway 95.

There will be a bonfire and a stage for speakers. Ririe suggests that spectators bring lawn chairs for seating.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@review
journal.com or 702-383-0308.