Hellcat Over Beacon
On November 15, 1945, the long wait for the end of WWII was over and officials from Beacon's veterans organizations hung a special banner across Memorial Hall on Main Street that read: "A Good Job Well Done" as a proud city welcomed home its returning GIs.
On that same date another returning serviceman to Beacon staged a more spectacular "Welcome Home" display of his own fashion, more than any mere banner ever could. On that Thursday morning a Navy "Hellcat" fighter plane buzzed Beacon's Main Street at treetop level, scaring half of the city and bringing on a storm of complaints to the police station by irate Beacon residents. The buzzing incident made headline news in the "Beacon News":
"Flying so low that its passage caused treetops to shake, the plane swooped over Main Street and the east end of Beacon. One veteran, who was subjected to strafing by planes on numerous occasions. In Germany, suffered severely when the plane swooped over his home. This veteran's nerves are not good and he was ill for several hours after."
Beacon Historical member George Atkinson was an eyewitness that day and remembers the plane coming down Main Street from the river side and passing close by over his head and then banking as it climbed toward Mount Beacon. The Hellcat came back to buzz Washington Avenue, narrowly missing rooftop chimneys along that street, according to shocked homeowners. It can now be revealed (as disclosed by George Atkinson and many others) that the pilot of the Hellcat that day was Claud "Fuzzer" Adams, Lieutenant, Junior Grade, a fighter pilot who spent three years in the Naval Air Corps during World War II. Fuzzer Adams had taken off from Floyd Bennett Field on Long Island intent on flying to his hometown and specifically over his parents' home on Washington Avenue. Adams avoided the chaser planes sent after him from Stewart Air Field in Newburgh by hedgehopping down Route 9 and under the Bear Mountain Bridge. Adams' daredevil flying that November day is now the stuff of local folklore and legend. And what once brought on panic and the ducking for cover to many, now the "Plane That Buzzed Beacon" incident only brings on a smile to those who still remember ...
[Postscript: In the 1950 issue of the Poughkeepsie Sunday New Yorker, Claud Adams again made news with his flying antics--this time by flying his model Flying Saucer over Beacon. Using wires for control, Adams flew his saucer at between 70 and 110 feet over Beacon, creating another kind of stir among local residents looking up to the skies, as he had done with his Hellcat back in 1945.]
Photo provided by his daughter Susan
