Mount Waternomee B-18A Crash Site
Mount Waternomee B-18A Crash Site is a aircraft crash site in New Hampshire. Protected military-aircraft wreck site commemorating a 1942 crash and winter rescue. A U.S. Army Air Corps B-18A crashed on Mount Waternomee on January 14, 1942 during a storm. Two crew died and five survived with community rescue assistance.
Forest Service marker describes a protected heritage site: removal of artifacts or disturbance is prohibited. Verify current trail/access conditions with White Mountain National Forest.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Mount Waternomee B-18A Crash Site haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
At 1:04 p.m. on January 14, 1942 — five weeks after Pearl Harbor — a Douglas B-18A bomber lifted off from Westover Field at Chicopee, Massachusetts, carrying a thrown-together crew of seven on an anti-submarine patrol 250 miles into the Atlantic. They found no U-boats. Turning home before 4:30, they flew into worsening weather: blinding snow, gale winds, iced windows, dead instruments. The crew believed lights glimpsed through a gap in the clouds were Providence, Rhode Island. They were Concord, New Hampshire.
At about 8 p.m., co-pilot 2nd Lt. Woodrow Kantner saw what he thought were dark clouds resolve into evergreens. The bomber slammed into the snow-covered slope of Mount Waternomee at roughly 3,800 feet. Bombardier Pfc. Raymond Lawrence and radio operator Pfc. Noah Phillips Jr. were killed; the other five crewmen were injured but alive.
The rescue and the marker
North Woodstock heard it first — a plane dangerously low, then three explosions. A search party from Lincoln and Woodstock climbed through thigh-deep snow in temperatures around twenty-five below, and a mile below the wreck met three airmen staggering toward them. A larger team followed with medical help, Forest Service personnel, and thirty lumbermen from a nearby camp to break trail for rescue toboggans; the first survivors reached the bottom at 2 a.m.
The wreckage still lies on the steep slope — engines, landing gear, twisted aluminum — protected as a heritage site on the White Mountain National Forest; removing artifacts is prohibited. A Forest Service interpretive marker in North Woodstock tells the story roadside, while the Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society in Lincoln holds exhibits. The file records both, and keeps the distinction: the marker commemorates the mountain, it is not the mountain.
Documented history
A U.S. Army Air Corps B-18A crashed on Mount Waternomee on January 14, 1942 during a storm. Two crew died and five survived with community rescue assistance. Mount Waternomee B-18A Crash Site's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'The Night the Bomber Crashed: Forest Service marker' carry the record. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.
Verified historyHistorical Marker Database
Sources on file
- 01The Night the Bomber Crashed: Forest Service markerHistorical Marker Database · directory · A4
Field notes & open questions
Discovery/enrichment pass; geographic coordinates and current visitor conditions remain to be independently verified. Evidence confidence refers to attribution, not paranormal reality. Source transcribes a Forest Service interpretive sign displayed in North Woodstock. Its map point is the roadside sign, not the mountain wreck, and is intentionally not copied as wreck coordinates. Exact municipal boundary unverified.