THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1998 5-D OURCENTURY 1944

ATA GLANCE Gas explosion rocks East Side

PD FILE American assault troops huddle behind the protective front of a landing craft as it nears a beachhead on the northern coast of France on June 6, 1944. Bells, whistles at home mark D-Day landing Clanging bells signaled a rare “flash” at 3:33 a.m. on June 6. The Plain Dealer’s tele- types clattered out the news: “LONDON—EISENHOWER’S HEAD- QUARTERS ANNOUNCES ALLIES LAND IN PLAIN DEALER FILE FRANCE.” After the explosion:Above, a scene on E. 61st St., which one reporter At 4:30 a.m., word reached Thompson Prod- thought resembled a city bombed during the war. At left, concerned family ucts Inc. on Clarkwood Rd., which woke neigh- and friends crowd around a hastily set-up information and registration desk bors by sounding its factory whistles. By 9 to find out about their loved ones. It took 20 city fire companies to get the a.m., everybody knew. It was D-Day. flames and smoke from the East Ohio gas explosion under control. The Sohio gas stations happily distributed yellow teletype copies of Eisenhower’s Communiqué explosion and fire killed 130 people, and injured hundreds more. No. 1 announcing the landing and the message he had given his troops, which began: “You are about to embark on a great crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you and the hopes Hundreds hurt and killed; rescuers help dig out survivors and prayers of all liberty-loving people go with Workers in nearby plants were heat kept them at a distance. Civilian listed as dead with another 100 still you.” By Fred McGunagle knocked from their feet by the blast. defense forces, set up in case of a missing. The Red Cross was seeking The Germans put up fierce resistance, but Birds flying overhead fell dead. Tele- bomber attack, found their training housing for 630 people. the Allies captured Bayeux, then Caen, then The sky was fire. The Earth shook. phone wires burst into flames. Tele- invaluable. Medical teams from Not until midday did firefighters Cherbourg and, on Aug. 28, Paris. Soldiers Houses burst into flame. People phone poles burned like candlesticks. Lakeside and Huron Road hospitals bring the fires under control. Re- talked of being home by Christmas. In the Pa- turned into human torches. Flames sped to the area. The Red Cross sent porter William McDermott walked cific, the biggest naval battle in history, Leyte leaped 2,800 feet in the air. The A worker at White Motor Co., half a 35 doctors and 50 nurses. Crile Gen- the burned-out area and was re- Gulf — fought the same weekend as the East streets exploded, sending manhole mile away, said, “We saw a big bal- eral Hospital sent 15 doctors and minded of bombed cities in Europe: Ohio explosion and fire — left the Japanese covers spinning hundreds of feet into loon of fire spreading over the whole nurses and an ambulance. Victims Men in military uniforms were carry- fleet crippled. the sky. neighborhood. We ran there and saw were rushed to a dozen hospitals and ing stretchers to ambulances, shop For several days in 1944, part of neighbors helping men over the fence But in November, the Germans rallied, es- a medical center set up at the WAVES windows were blown out and “a sinis- Cleveland knew the terror cities in at the gas plant. Some had their tablishing a “bulge” into the Allied lines. The headquarters in Hotel Allerton. ter, tawny cloud of smoke and light” Europe and Japan were experienc- clothes all blown off and their skin Japanese fought to the death for Pacific Is- hung over the area. lands. The war was going to go into its fifth ing. At 2:40 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 20, hanging in shreds. Fire was every- The fires all around lighted the year. the proud Slovenian neighborhood where.” scene in the evening as the firemen Workers carefully emptied two 50 northeast of E. 55th St. and St. Clair slowly fought their way toward the million-cubic-foot tanks, which some- What The Plain Dealer described • Ave. was turned into an inferno by center of the inferno. Hundreds of how had held up despite the intense as “the greatest fire-fighting force people crowded the county morgue Things were looking up on the home front. the explosion of a tank of liquefied heat. Officials reassured residents ever assembled here” rushed to the across from City Hall hoping for news In May, meat rationing ended except for some natural gas at the East Ohio Gas Co. that there was no danger, but loud scene. As it did, a second tank ex- of their relatives. The throng in- cuts of beef. In August, manufacturers again “We ran out of the shop and the fire thunder during the day brought a ploded, spewing burning debris on cluded wives of factory workers were permitted to make electric ranges and a was right above us, about as high as a flurry of calls to newspapers from nearby homes. Smaller explosions whose husbands had stayed to help few other appliances. Servicemen were com- three-story house. The grass and the people who thought they had heard were occurring all over the neighbor- but, with utilities out, couldn’t call ing home to Cuyahoga County at the rate of weeds in a vacant lot across the street more explosions. Slowly, the list of hood as houses burst into flames from home. Coroner Samuel Gerber and 500 a month. were burning.I thought my shoes missing grew smaller, though many the inside; thousands of gallons of liq- his staff worked through the night as Officials began to think about the postwar would melt right off the street,” said a still were feared dead in the ashes of uid gas had run into sewers, expand- bodies arrived, most too badly burned city. More than half of the nation’s production woman who had been in her hus- their homes. ing in volume as it turned into gas, for identification. was war goods, and Cleveland was one of the band’s barber shop on St. Clair. Ave. spread beneath the streets and Some of the residents were allowed leading defense cities. Where would the veter- “Suddenly, it seemed like the walls seeped into buildings. The city or- The Red Cross rushed cots to to return on Monday; a few found ans work, let alone the tens of thousands who turned all red,” said a woman from dered everyone from E. 40th St. to E. nearby schools for the people unable their houses untouched. There was a had migrated to Cleveland to work in war Carry Ave. “I looked at the windows 105th St. to extinguish all fires. to reach their homes. Husbands and shortage of bread because nearby plants? Where would all the people live? and the shades were on fire. Just like wives, kept from the fire area, franti- bakeries lacked gas. So did 39 war Mayor Frank Lausche appointed a Postwar that. The house filled up with smoke. Twenty of Cleveland’s 30 fire com- cally searched the shelters for each plants, some of which sent workers Planning Council to look into the problems. Then I go out and see the fire all panies responded, leaving only 10 to other and for their children. By home. On Tuesday, the rest of the res- around.” guard the rest of the city. The intense morning, 83 people officially were idents returned to salvage what they • could. While campaigning in Cleveland for a third Mayor Frank Lausche appointed a term in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt panel to investigate the disaster and had promised it would be his last. Now, on a urged the City Planning Commission platform of “Don’t change horses in the mid- to work out a plan for rebuilding. dle of the stream,” he ran for a fourth term, Anton Grdina, president of the Slo- having dumped controversial Vice President venian American Bank, declared: Henry Wallace in favor of Missouri Sen. Harry “Our neighborhood has been turned Truman.AGallup poll in late October gave the into a hell. Now is the chance for the Republican candidate, New York Gov. Thomas City Planning Commission to turn it E. Dewey, a narrow lead, but in the poll that into a paradise.” counted, Roosevelt carried 38 states. Lausche, meanwhile, ran for governor, the The final count showed 130 had first ethnic and first Catholic to do so. He died, one more than in the Cleveland spent only $27,000, turning down offers of Clinic disaster of 1929, but 44 short of funds from the Democratic Party and unions the number killed in the 1908 Lake- and campaigning mainly by shaking hands at view School fire in Collinwood. More state fairs. His opponent, Cincinnati Mayor than half, 73, were East Ohio employ- James Garfield Stewart, spent $988,000. Yet, ees. More than 200 people required while Republican Dewey won Ohio by 11,500 hospital treatment, including 23 fire- votes, Democrat Lausche won the gover- fighters. Seventy-nine houses, two norship by 108,000. He went on to win four factories and more than 200 autos more terms as governor and two six-year were destroyed, with 35 houses and terms as U.S. senator. 13 factories partially destroyed. Windows had been blown out as far • south as Superior Ave. Total damage Player-manager Lou Boudreau won the was between $6 million and $8 mil- American League batting title with an average lion. East Ohio eventually paid $3 of .327, and set a fielding record for shortstops million to property owners and a half- with .978. But the Indians didn’t have much million dollars to its employees or else to offer, finishing in a tie for fifth. their survivors. The investigating The Rams still were absent from the football panel found that the tank that ex- field, but in September came word they would ploded first had been built a year have a rival after the war. Arthur “Mickey” earlier under wartime restrictions, McBride was awarded a franchise in a new which limited the amount of steel league to be called the All-America Football used; it concluded belatedly that nat- Conference. Clevelanders didn’t miss pro foot- ural gas storage tanks should not be ball: A crowd of 83,000 saw Ohio State beat Il- in residential neighborhoods. linois 26-12 at the Stadium and 52,000 watched The area was rebuilt under Grdi- Cathedral Latin defeat Lincoln 33-0 in The na’s leadership and a number of those Plain Dealer Charity Game. who had lost homes moved back. Only Bill Cook had been promoted to general the area where the tanks stood was manager of the Barons and his brother Bun left. It is now Grdina Park. succeeded him as coach. The team won the PLAIN DEALER FILE Western Division of the American Hockey McGunagle is a Cleveland free- League behind the high-scoring line of Lou Workers remove debris in their hunt for bodies at the meter works unit of the East Ohio Gas Co. plant. lance writer. Trudel, Tommy Burlington and Les Cunning- ham. Alas, the Barons lost to the Buffalo Bi- sons in the championship round of the Calder LOOKINGATAYEAR Cup playoffs.

• Jan. 27: The U.S. government re- March 19: Nazis begin a new round June 6:D-Day arrives as Allied promise, MacArthur and his troops Wartime controls were wearing thin: The veals that thousands of captured of terror in Hungary, dispatching forces invade the northern coast of return to the Philippines. Mechanics Educational Society defied orders American soldiers died from cruel thousands of Hungarian Jews to France. Nov. 7:Roosevelt is re-elected to a to go back to work at five plants. The Army treatment at the hand of their Japa- Auschwitz. July 21: Democrats select Harry fourth term, defeating New York Gov. took over one of them, Cleveland Graphite Thomas Dewey. nese captors in what becomes known April 9: Gen. Charles deGaulle as- Truman as President Franklin Roose- Bronze. The Cleveland Transit Union came Born: Rajiv Gandhi, Diana Ross, as the Bataan death march. sumes command of the French mili- velt’s running mate. within five minutes of another illegal strike. Michael Douglas, Angela Davis. tary forces. Thousands of gallons worth of gasoline cou- Feb. 29: Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Aug. 25: Allied troops liberate Died: German Gen. Erwin Rommel, pons were found missing from Ration Board troops begin their assault on the Ad- June 4: Allied forces recapture Paris. American cinematographer Billy Bit- No. 6 in what turned into a national scandal. miralty Islands. Rome. Oct. 25:Making good on his zer, bandleader Glenn Miller.