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ft hood tank fatality accidents

mmerten1973

In the summer of 1995 I was involved with the M1 tank rollover accident where I was the lead recovery vehicle called on to help the trapped crewmen. I was asked from a neighboring unit to help with recovery. It wasn't my unit, at the time we were 2-1 Cav 2AD. we had to turn the vehicle over to rescue the crew. The tank was upside down in a ditch. There were 2 recovery vehicles to flip over the tank, upon turning the tank over the 2nd lieutenant was flattened against the machine gun mount and flat as his unit shirt, he did not survive the crash, 3 other crew men were hurt and sent to hospital.  Looking for help with finding the records of this accident, this has haunted me ever since. 

Thank you for the assistance.
Mike Merten
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  • 0

    HI Mike,

    Lt Witt was the 2nd platoon, Platoon Leader for D company 3-66 AR, 2nd AD. He was brand new right out West Point wasn't with us too long unfortunately. He was good man, a lot potential to be one of the good officers. Little overzealous at times though. I was one of the turret mechanics for D company, we (mechanics) gave him a lot s.... when he broke the tanks which he handled well, definitely better than the other new Platoon leader we had. Still remember last time I saw him before I headed back to the motor pool to fix his tank. We were razzing him for messing up his tank, and he had the biggest grin on his face, turned around walked off. 

    As I remember (29 Year old memories) our 88 had a mechanical issue, so D Company did not have organic recovery support. The 88s that showed up to recover were from HHC. I still wonder if things would have been different if we had our 88 available. The Tank I believe was D-24, definitely not D-21, it and I were in the rear (motor pool wash-rack) from the previous mishap.

    I had just made my way back out to the field (UMCP or Field Trains) that night, to be awakened by real life medevac mission, in my gut I knew it was LT Witt…only to confirmed later in that morning.

    LT Witt was my first roll call, looking back he was just a kid. We were just kids, he was only about 8 months older than I was.

    Over the next months it was my responsibility, along with crew, to fix the tank. Had plenty conversations with crew on what happened that night, wont post any of that here, other to say that they tried until the last second to get him out before the turret filled with mud. The gunner and loader were lucky the driver’s hole was accessible to them or we may have buried 3 that night.

    Personally, I still think of this on a regular basis, how I found this post. I also found two memorials for Lt Witt over the years.

    https://defender.west-point.org/service/eulogies.mhtml?u=51851

    https://www.vlm.cem.va.gov/THOMASLWITT/2EF4D

    Gabriel Palos

    D Team Maintenance 3/66 AR

  • 0 in reply to Gpalos1973

    Thank you for the information and help on this, I was the driver of the that 88 that night, we were close, and my XO came and got us up and moving to help we were from B -troop 2/1 Cav, I was the second track on the scene, I to think about that night and it's still too clear to me for being so long ago.  

  • 0 in reply to mmerten1973

    Your welcome, and thank you for being there and adding to my memories. Below is a link to the Fort Hood Sentinel article on the accident from April 6, 1995 at the bottom of the page

    texashistory.unt.edu/.../

  • 0 in reply to mmerten1973

    Here is another article about LT Witt, which confirms one of memories that the pond he died in was renamed in his honor. They get the unit wrong as they say he was with the 1st ID 

    books.google.com/.../content

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