LT Norman L. Bruner was a squadron mate of Tom Cartmell’s during their transition to Medium Bomber training at Mather Field. They had trained together at Luke Army Air Field prior to this training.
LT Bruner was killed in a training accident on June 16, 1944, along with another squadron mate, LT Glen W. Edwards, and their instructor, LT Robert G. Chute. While flying at night in bad weather, their B-25D (SN #41-30140) struck a mountain near Bakersfield, California.
We had quite a blow Fri. night. Two of our boys and their instructor were killed down by Bakersfield. Here it is the first accident we have had in our group since we have been here and it had to be in our squadron. The two boys have been in my outfit since we were at basic. They don’t know what happened, they were on a night instrument navigation trip and supposedly hit a mountain down by Bakersfield. We were on the same trip and heard it reported over the radio but didn’t know it was one of our ships. We were late in getting back to Mather as we were suppose to have landed at 2:30 but didn’t get back till 3:000. All the big shots were waiting for us, the C.O., sqd. commander, group commander, because our ship and the other one was the only one out. The weather down there wasn’t any too good, had about a 4,000′ ceiling which we had to fly under and about 20 mi. east of Bakersfield there are some 7,000′ mountains, so I think they got off course alittle and hit them. Oh yes – a friend of mine across the hall, Lt. Cheely is taking one of the bodies home. He lives in Iowa close to where they boy lived, and I think he might call you while he is there as he won’t be far from Chicago. The other boy lives in Galena, Ill. His name is Bruner the other Edwards. They were both in the graduating class at Luke.
Tom later wrote (June 24, 1944):
The accident that I told you about in my last letter letter, we got the report back and it is really a mystery. They ran smack into the side of a mountain at about 7,000′ up. They can’t figure it out as the instructor had been here for over a year and knew the country well, and they were about 50 mi. off course. Their parachute harness wasn’t buckled so they probably never knew what happened.
