THIS STORY BEGINS BACK ON FEBRUARY 18, 1943 IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON. World War II was in full blast on two fronts and the Boeing Aircraft Co. was developing and building warplanes on 24-hr. shifts. One of these newer bombers that would become the B-29 Superfortress, was still in the experimental stage when a prototype took off from Boeing’s airfield on a test flight. Because of the importance of this new, long-range bomber, it was being flown by Boeing’s top test pilot, the legendary Eddie Allen and ten other Boeing engineers.
It was lunch time in Seattle as the plane was taking off when quickly one of the engines caught fire. The onboard extinguishing system failed to douse it and the fire rapidly engulfed the entire wing. As Allen fought desperately to turn the plane around and get back to the airfiield, the entire fusilage filled with heated smoke and fire. The plane never got altitude and in crashed into a 5-story meat packing plant, the Frye Packing Co. The impact sprayed the fully loaded fuel tanks throughout the building starting a massive fire. Due to the lunch hour, there were but 20 employees in the plant.
The Seattle FD brought the fire under control late in the afternoon, but remained on the scene extinguishing pockets and hot spots. It was shortly after midnight when a fire started up in the basement and spread into some sawdust. Captain Rodney Graham and Fireman Luther Dean Bonner, both assigned to Truck 1, took a hose line down to the basement in an attempt to extinguish the new fire. Ammonia fumes overcame the both of them and they had to be rescued. But Bonner didn’t survive, dying from smoke inhalation. Altogether 32 people died in the disaster and to this day it remains the most deadly fire in Seattle’s history.
Fireman Bonner was 23 yrs. old, married with an infant daughter, and had been on the job for only 115 days. The recruit fireman was earning $180 a month. The day after the funeral, his wife Priscilla left town and moved away to live with her sister-in-law’s family. She was virtually penniless and could not afford a marker for her husband’s grave. She collected an FD pension until 1946 when she remarried and started a second family.
Fast-forward to 2008 when some members of Seattle Local 27 became curious about this LODD who seemed to have been forgotten and because of the ongoing war was never commemorated by the Department. Poking around a section of the Evergreen Washelli Cemetery where many of the early 20th century firefighters are buried and armed with a plot map, Firefighter Dave Peery came across a simple concrete marker identifying Luther’s grave that had been completely overgrown and covered with grass. The ”temporary” marker didn’t even identify Bonner as being a fireman. KING-TV Ch. 5 filed this video report last month illustrating FF Peery’s search for the missing gravesite:
After getting a commitment from the cemetery to provide a grave marker that’s similar to the other firefighters’ graves, they next set out to track down Luther’s daughter. This heart-warming video report from KING-TV Ch. 5 picks up the story from here:
Local 27 published a special report on the Frye Packing Plant fire and their search for Bonner’s grave. It is reproduced online in a .pdf document. It is very thorough and has several photographs along with it. I urge you to take the time to read it HERE.
KING-TV story on the search for the gravesite HERE.
Time Magazine story on test pilot Eddie Allen ( “the greatest test pilot aviation had ever had” ) HERE.
Local 27 WEBSITE.
Last Resort Fire Dept. – SFD Museum WEBSITE.
