Harry M. Schuster helped to rescue Joseph A. Welzen from burning, Millville, New Jersey, October 19, 1951. An airplane Welzen, 26, Navy pilot, was flying crashed and overturned in a field. The wing sections were partly torn off, and the interior of the cockpit was badly damaged. Flames two feet high broke out at the engine in the nose of the airplane. Welzen, who was fastened in his safety belt, was stunned and sustained severe injuries from the impact and hung head downward from the partly opened canopy of the cockpit. His feet were wedged beneath the wrecked instrument panel of the airplane. Flames spread to the floor of the cockpit and ignited his trousers. Schuster, 29, aircraft engine mechanic, A. William Garrison, Walter F. Bigelow, and two other men soon reached the airplane. The men tried to free Welzen but could not dislodge him. They found the canopy was jammed and could not be opened farther. The flames on the fuselage increased in intensity, rising 10 feet from the airplane for six feet from the nose. Dense flames filled the forward part of the cockpit, and flames six inches high burned on Welzen’s clothing. Remaining at the cockpit after the other men had left the airplane, Schuster, Garrison, and Bigelow repeatedly tugged on Welzen’s arm and jacket in their efforts to pull him from the cockpit. Welzen suddenly came free of the safety belt and wreckage. The men dragged Welzen 50 feet from the airplane, above which the flames then rose 20 feet, and put out the flames on his clothing. Firemen arrived soon afterward and extinguished the flames. Welzen sustained severe burns and was hospitalized for a year. His left leg was amputated three inches below the knee. His other injuries healed. Schuster was nervous and nauseated. 42461-3802
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