Reagan to Honor Victims of Crash

President Reagan will fly here Monday to pay homage to the 248 soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division killed in the crash of a chartered jet bringing them back from a peacekeeping mission in the Middle East, the White House announced Friday.

The President will arrive at Ft. Campbell aboard the presidential jet, Air Force One, for a brief visit and then return immediately to Washington, the announcement said.

“The President expressed a desire to participate in some sort of memorial,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.

Meanwhile, William D. Harralson Sr., the base deputy public affairs officer, said that the families of 225 of the 248 servicemen aboard the Arrow Air DC-8 have been officially notified that their love ones were killed in Thursday’s crash at Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada. Eight crew members also died in the crash.

Complete Identification Due

He said that the Army expects to complete identification of the remaining servicemen and to notify their families by this weekend.

The 101st Airborne troops were returning home from a six-month tour of peacekeeping duty in the Sinai Peninsula when the plane stopped at Gander to refuel and crashed on takeoff.

Harralson also distributed a list of 71 servicemen from the Ft. Campbell area who were killed and said that, like the other victims, they represented a cross section of the units in the division, including infantry, transportation, aviation and intelligence.

“As you go down this list,” he said, “you see the people are in every organization throughout the post. So this is not only a tragic thing for the division and the post itself, it reaches far down . . . and affects every person in the installation.”

Maj. Gen. Burton D. Patrick, the base commander, said that the mood on the sprawling 21,000-soldier base, which straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border, remains one of “quiet resolve” in the face of the devastating tragedy.

‘A Lot of Grief’

He acknowledged, however, that “there is, naturally, a lot of grief and, yes, I suppose, even some anger, which is quite understandable.”

Patrick said that there has been a “tremendous outpouring of compassion,” both locally and from around the world. He praised the citizens of the neighboring communities for their contributions of food and money to the widows and orphans of the victims.

The Tennessean, a newspaper in nearby Nashville, and a local television station have jointly launched a relief fund for family members of the dead soldiers that has initial donations of $10,000.

“Although we’re not asking, they’re coming forth with it,” Patrick said. “All the compassion shown us has not gone unnoticed.”

The Rev. Bernerd F. Nass, the base chaplain, said that his staff of 35 clergymen is counseling relatives of the victims.

“The biggest need is for a shoulder to cry on,” he said. “Many of them are in a state of shock and in a state of grief. We put an arm around them and give them the support that they need.”

248 Lighted Candles

On the night of the crash, he said, 248 candles were lighted at one of the 11 base chapels--one for each of the military victims of the crash.

Harralson said that base personnel and their families are determined to keep up their spirits and those of the families of their dead comrades.

“There is a special thing about military people,” said Harralson, a civilian Department of the Army employee who is a former serviceman himself. “When times are hard, they join together and everybody works for those who hurt the most.”

The toll of 248 lives was more deaths than the division, which has a distinguished record of service to the country, suffered in combat on any single day during World War II and the Vietnam War.

Early Friday, an elite contingent of 125 soldiers from the 101st Airborne was dispatched to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the bodies of the victims will be identified by military forensic experts.

The soldiers, who left Ft. Campbell dressed in Army fatigues aboard a chartered Ryan International 727 jet in sleeting rain, will act as the honor guard for the dead as the bodies arrive at Dover from Gander.

A Sign’s Irony

The airfield from which the honor guard departed is the same one where the Arrow Air flight had been scheduled to land. A festive welcome at the base gymnasium, complete with brass band, had been planned.

A permanent sign near the edge of the tarmac provided a grimly ironic note to the tragedy: “Have a safe flight . . . Hurry back.”