bomber mountain

The Wyoming Bomber Crash of 1943 has been published by the History Press and is available now!  It originally had a publication date of  April 22, 2025 but was produced earlier than anticipated.  It is available from a variety of retailers, including Arcadia Publishing and the store at the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum. 

You can order the book from the museum's online shop by clicking here! 

During the night of June 28, 1943, a B-17f crashed in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains, west of the town of Buffalo. Destined for the World War II bombing efforts in Europe, the aircraft was off-course, and instead crashed, destroying the plane, and killing the ten men on board.

In the summer of 1945, a group of cowboys were rounding up their cattle in the mountains and noticed something shining on top of a ridge. After going to investigate, they found the wreckage and reported it to authorities. Within days, an Air Force investigatory crew was sent to recover the bodies and glean information about the crash. Soon after, the local War Dads organization placed a plaque bearing the names of the crew at the base of nearby Florence Lake to honor the men who died, and the United States Forest Service approved the christening of the ridge as “Bomber Mountain”.