On June 21, nearly 200 people gathered at Canvey Island to honor the crews of two B-17 Flying Fortresses, which collided over the river Thames on June 19, 1944. At the center of this remembrance ceremony was Voorhees World War II veteran Richard W. Andrews, who is the last survivor of the crash.
“As the years have passed, I just happened to be hanging on to the end,” Andrews said. “It’s an honor to be remembered and it was an honor to serve with those men who lost their lives that day.”
Andrews was born and raised in Haddonfield, graduating from Haddonfield Memorial High School in 1941, before hitchhiking north to work at Republic, where he hoped to work on airplanes.
“I was always fascinated with airplanes,” he said. “As a kid, I built model airplanes, and when I got a little older, I used to head over to Moorestown airport, where a girl would take me for rides. So, after high school, I knew that I wanted to do something with them.”
Andrews fulfilled that dream, working on P-47 Thunderbolts at Republic before being drafted for the military. After a six-month deferment that allowed him to continue his work on the airplanes, Andrews made his way overseas.
Andrews was set to fly 30 missions during his three months of combat. It was on mission 29 that the fateful plane crash happened.
“Our own place crashed into us,” Andrews said. “And, as luck would have it, I traded my usual spot on that mission to fly in the tail, which was the reason I survived.”
The crash killed 11 members of the flight team. The remembrance ceremony on June 19 honored all the members of the Heavenly Body flight crews, which was the name of the planes. A candle was lit for each of the crew, with a last candle lit for Andrews, the only man left standing.
“I couldn’t attend the ceremony,” Andrews said. “My daughter Barbara and my son-in-law went for me, though, and opened the ceremony with a letter I wrote.”
In the letter, Andrews thanked his crewmembers and those in attendance for honoring him.
While the crash may have been a traumatic experience, Andrews continued to fly after the war, going on to buy his own planes and to teach at a variety of flight schools.
“After the war, I actually moved to Voorhees to be close to the Echelon airport,” he said. “I was taking over the construction company my dad and grandfather owned, but I wanted to be close to an airport so I could still fly.”
Andrews also got involved with the community, becoming president on the Board of Education in Voorhees. But, he could never shake his love for flying, and eventually, he passed it on to his daughters.
“My daughter actually is a pilot and owns her own planes, too,” he said. “She even named it Heavenly Body III.”
