Phil O. Garrett

Phil O. Garrett helped to save Clement J. Ost from burning, Gates, Tennessee, January 19, 1944. While engaged in maneuvers on a formation flight, the airplane in which Ost, 21, U.S. Army Air Force gunner, was one of 10 men aboard crashed in a field. One man escaped by parachute. At the crash an explosion occurred, and the airplane was aflame from nose to tail. For eight feet from the tail-end one side of the fuselage had been ripped open; and Ost sat partly inside, one leg extending on the ground and the other, which was fractured in several places, inside the fuselage. Flames rose 10 feet above the fuselage, heat was intense, and except opposite Ost dead grass around the airplane was burning. Occasionally loose machine-gun ammunition was exploding. Garrett, 24, farmer, and Robert W. Turner, Sr., ran to Ost and crouched to keep below the level of the flames. Warned by Ost of the danger of gasoline-tank explosions, they lifted Ost and carried him 185 feet from the airplane. The entire airplane then was burning, and none of the others could be saved. Ost sustained burns and other serious injuries.