Your Experience

Bill Bagley sent us this story of his memories of the explosin and its aftermath:

I was stationed overseas in the military at an air base in Italy at the time of the explosion. My wife, Marla, was in Italy with me. The first thing troops would see when we filed into the base intelligence compound to report for assignment each day was a board where current news releases from around the world were torn from a teletype machine and posted. Back then we didn't have the sophisticated communication tools that now exist...no e-mail, no cell phones, and very few telephones were available for non-military overseas communication.

When I reported for duty at midnight on April 7, 1968 one of the troops filing into the compound in front of me reached up and tore off one of the AP news releases and said, "Hey Bagley, aren't you from Richmond, Indiana?" And then he handed me the tear sheet. I couldn't believe what I was reading. My beloved hometown had been ripped apart that particular afternoon by a mysterious explosion. The press release reported that scores had been killed and seriously injured and that many were still missing. My heart sank. My Mom and Grandmother both worked downtown...and on a Saturday afternoon I realized there was a great chance that many of my family and friends could have been directly in harm's way.

I was stunned. Then I heard the loud voice of a sergeant yelling, "Let's move it." I came real close to grabbing him around the throat...and telling him to shut the hell up. I thought about all the great people in Richmond, and how much pain and horror they had to be going through. Byron Klute had been my favorite teacher in high school. I knew he was now Mayor...and felt comfort knowing that he would be the best possible leader in this type of situation. I also knew the people of Richmond would respond immediately to the crisis. I thought about my wife, and how difficult it would be to communicate this to her...and that it would be several hours before I would be able to even tell her. The military, at that point in time, wouldn't have allowed me to go to her with the news until my shift was over. And I couldn't call her because no one in that part of Italy had phones...especially GIs. The military would not allow me to call family members in Richmond via the 'WATS' line. I requested this of my flight commander to no avail. So we had to wait several days for the Red Cross to get a message back to me.

These were agonizing hours for us. AP news releases were all we had to go by...and all the reports were distressing. I also was able to pick up some reports via Armed Forces Network by tapping into a radio receiver dedicated to communications intelligence intercept purposes.

Eventually we received word through the Red Cross that, with the exception of my Grandmother, all of our family members had been spared. My Grandmother, who was 74 years old at the time, worked at the Hoosier Store, which was right in the core of the explosion. A car was blown through the front of the store, and the concussion of the explosion had impacted most everyone in the store. She suffered a heart attack a few days following the explosion, and Dr. Morris Snyder attributed this attack to the events of that day.

Marla and I selfishly counted ourselves fortunate...but our hearts ached for all those families who lost loved ones. I still feel their loss.