HUBBARD LAKE – Kat Harrison of Fredricksburg, Va., had to come and see for herself. All her life, she’d heard the harrowing stories of a plane crash in a remote, swampy forest near Hubbard Lake that nearly killed her father, then a captain with a promising career in the United States Air Force.

Her dad, John R. Harrison of Morris, Conn., was one of the fortunate five who survived the horrific disaster that occurred Sept. 26, 1976. Fifteen others, all military personnel, perished when the KC-135 tanker they were aboard went down en route to Wurthsmith AFB in Oscoda.

Forty years later, father and daughter traveled together to Alpena to mark the 40th anniversary of the crash that irrevocably changed their lives and the lives of so many others.

“I wanted to be here to thank the people who gave me a dad for the last 40 years,” said an emotional Kat Harrison, referring to the first responders on the scene, Al Ratz and Daryl Kauffman, who frantically traversed difficult terrain to reach the crash site and help save her father’s life.

Four decades after the crash, father and daughter held hands as they trudged deep into the woods toward a small clearing that now marks the site of the tragedy. They were not alone on their trek, but part of a larger contingency that also included the other four survivors Fred Anderson, Cliff Call, Dwaine Crane and Dale Solon as well as several loved ones.

All had converged in Alpena for the milestone anniversary. They gathered first for breakfast at the Sanctuary Inn where at 8:26 a.m., the precise time when the plane crashed, the names of those who died were somberly recited and a bell tolled for each.

The group, including Ratz and Kauffman, then boarded a bus from the Air National Guard Base and traveled to the Hubbard Lake area. Many of them had reconnected or met 10 years before on the 30th anniversary. They had developed a deep bond forged out of their shared tragedy.

The mood on the bus as they traveled toward their destination vacillated between jovial exchanges amongst friends and somber recollections. Cliff Call remembered the intense heat of the burning plane that first crashed through trees, then blew up in a series of multiple explosions after he and the other four had exited the aircraft.

“I can clearly remember the sound of that first explosion,” Call said. “It was a monstrous explosion. There was one big one, followed by multiple other explosions.”

Harrison sustained the worst injuries, although four of the five survivors suffered extensive burns.

“We were burned over 75 to 80 percent of our bodies, though most of the burns were second degree as opposed to third degree,” Call said.

The bus could only transport the passengers so far into the woods. The last nearly one mile of the journey back into the crash site required slogging through swampy wetlands in boots and raincoats. Once they arrived, the group gathered around a memorial erected on the 30th anniversary of the crash. It lists the names of those who perished and those who made it out alive.

While the five survivors and their family members came to revisit their shared experiences, the same was not true for two others who also made the journey. Julie Warren-Cook lost a husband that fateful day and Vi Smithwick a son. Both wanted to see firsthand where it had happened.

“I can feel his spirit here,” Smithwick said poignantly of her late son, Richard Smithwick. A Gold Star mother, she also lost a second son in Vietnam.

Even 40 years later, Warren-Cook vividly conjured up memories from the day her husband, William H. Warren, Jr., died.

“It was a Sunday morning and I was at church with our girls,” she said. “After the church service was over, the pastor called me in his office to tell me about the crash. It was such a shock, but God was not shocked and He has taken good care of us.”

Warren-Cook said it was her deep faith that pulled her through the difficult time, and she ultimately has shared her story with thousands of others through her music and speaking ministry. She also remarried, and her husband, a pastor, accompanied her on the trip to Northeast Michigan.

Since reconnecting with the survivors of the KC-135 aircraft, Ratz and Kauffman have made it their personal mission to periodically check on the crash site and make sure it remains accessible. In advance of the tour, they cleared a better path through the woods and placed American flags in trees along the route.

Ratz also shared with the group a moving recent discovery the tattered remains of an American flag believed to have come from the plane, but only discovered earlier this spring by a couple hiking through the site.

“I truly believe that it was the flag that flew on the plane. You can see places where it was melted,” Ratz said. “There’s no other reason for a burned flag to be in the swamp.”

Before leaving the crash site, the group formed a circle, held hands and prayed for all of those impacted by the crash.

Diane Speer can be reached via email at dspeer@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5691. Follow Diane on Twitter ds_alpenanews. Read her blog, Art Beat, at www.thealpenanews.com.