World War II vet returns to Jellico 67 years after surviving train crash

WWII veteran Clarence Eckstein’s visited Jellico, Tenn. last week, 67 years after he survived a deadly train crash in the town. He recalled his memories of the crash.

WWII Army veteran Clarence Eckstein’s visit to Jellico Friday morning was remarkably different than his first stop in the town 67 years ago during the second worst stateside military disaster of WWII.

Eckstein, who was only 20 years old when the accident occurred on July 6, 1944, had just been inducted into the Army in Indianapolis.

He and the other 1,006 new recruits were heading to various points for training, and were traveling by train on the L&N Railroad when it derailed about 9 p.m. near the Jellico Narrows of Campbell County, Tenn.

"We had just crawled up in the bunk, then all at once there was a shutter and stopping," he said. "We were sort of lucky to be up top. We weren’t down in the bottom of that gorge."

Eckstein said that being in the train crash was a lot like being in other types of accidents in the sense that parts of it are difficult, if not impossible, for him to remember.

"A certain period of that time is totally blanked out of your mind," he added.

The train derailed going around a sharp curve.

The locomotive, its tender car, and four other cars, including the kitchen car, baggage car and two coach cars plunged over the 50-foot embankment. Some landed in the Clear Fork River.

The kitchen and baggage cars burned. A pair of coach cars turned over and burned at the brink of the gorge.

Hundreds of local residents from Jellico and Campbell County rushed to the scene to help as best they could.

The wreck claimed the life of 34 people, and injured 75 others.

Eckstein said it was dark when he exited the train, but that his car was very close to the derailed cars. It may have been one or two cars back of the derailed cars, but he doesn’t recall exactly.

"I didn’t remember climbing up out of anything. I just walked off the train," Eckstein said.

Soldiers housed in homes

Jellico Tourism Director Jake Bennett, who was just a boy at the time, said that a number of local residents took the soldiers in until they were able to ship out again.

"During that tragedy, the local folks here responded and took in a number of soldiers. People just took them into their homes and fed them and took care of them," Bennett noted. "Jellico is a unique little town. It always comes through for folks."
He went to the accident site the next day with his father.

"I was amazed. I was just seven years old. My dad was down in the river helping along with a lot of the volunteers here in town," Bennett said.

"I remember I didn’t go into the river area. I stayed up top. I can remember sitting up on the bank watching them bring these gentlemen out of the gorge by human chain."

Bennett recalls seeing a lot of soldiers around, who did one thing that impressed the young seven-year-old.

"They gave me chewing gum," he noted. "That was during the war and chewing gum was rationed. You couldn’t find chewing gum. These guys were so nice to me."

Eckstein said he can’t remember where he spent the night, but the next day the Army shipped out the remaining soldiers. He went to Camp Croft in South Carolina for basic training.

"Those that weren’t injured, they just moved them on out of here," Eckstein noted.

Bennett said that the first thought most people had locally about the cause of the crash was espionage.

Because of that, there was very little national coverage of the accident.
 
Tragic time

Six weeks after Eckstein got to Camp Croft, his mother died and he was sent home on a two-week leave. It was only then that his family found out about the crash.

When he got back to Camp Croft, all the men he trained with had already left for Italy, and he was placed in a different unit.
Eckstein ended up in Germany and fought in the Battle of the Bulge with the 11th Armor Division. A short time later as the army was moving towards Berlin, he was shot in the shoulder and wounded.

"It was just a flesh wound. I was very lucky," he added.

He was sent back to a hospital in England to recuperate, and by the time he left the hospital, the war was over.

Eckstein stayed in Europe for about 18 more months after the war digging up the bodies of American soldiers, who had been shot down.

Returning to Jellico

Eckstein returned to Jellico for the first time since the wreck about six years ago.

Eckstein said he didn’t really have much interest in learning more about the crash until a buddy asked if he ever stopped in Jellico, and informed him about a book on the subject.

"He stirred up my interest in Jellico," Eckstein noted.

Eckstein, now 87, added that there are only a few of the train crash survivors still alive. He’s the only living survivor from his home town of Celina, Ohio.

"This is an honor for me to be here," he said.

He came back to Jellico Friday because he wanted to see the town at least one more time.

Eckstein visited the Buck’s Hardware Jellico Family Museum, which features an exhibit about the crash.

The names of the deceased soldiers, who were killed in the train wreck, are listed on the monument in nearby Veteran’s Park.

"We are honored to have him back in Jellico. We really, really are," Bennett said.

Cause of accident

No one knows for certain what caused the train accident.

Eckstein said one book he read stated that the train engine was rebuilt, and one theory was the wheel bearings froze up in the carrier wheels up front.

The prevailing theory is that the engineer, who died in the accident, had been drinking and that human error caused the accident, Bennett noted.

Bennett said according to one story, the engineer got on the train around Lexington and was supposed to be relieved in Corbin.

"When he got there, his relief was not there. He was real perturbed by the fact he was going to have to take the car on himself,"

Bennett said. "From a lot of the personal experiences, they said he was just really making a high rate of speed."

Eckstein recalls some of his fellow soldiers commenting, "we are really moving along now. They must really want to get us there in a hurry."