Valiant Men Die Suddenly

Valiant Men Die Suddenly – March 30, 1964

Taken from the Daily Citizen News, Editors Notebook, by Mark Pace

The telephone rang yesterday morning at the fire hall. The fireman who picked it up and answered did so in a voice that told a story of shock, sorrow and tragedy.

After three firemen died under a collapsing wall of a manufacturing building, their buddy firemen toiled on in shock and disbelief.

The firemen were working side by side in an effort to save the remains of a building that reportedly was already practically destroyed. By the time the fire was discovered, the alarm turned in and the corps of firemen arrived at the scene, the roof was about to fall in.

Shortly after the firemen began battling the flames the roof did fall in, leaving the walls standing grotesquely in silhouette amid smoke and flames.

It was cold in the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, the mercury in the low 20’s. A stiff, cold wind, blowing out of the north, added to the misery of the firemen who were fighting desperately against a raging inferno of the fire and heat.

The big brick wall, facing north-south along E. Walnut Ave., was the killer.

Apparently the high wind blowing against it from the north was the cause of it toppling. At least that was the belief yesterday of Fire Chief Luther Broom.

Three firemen gone. And with the loss of their lives another tragedy.

Lt. Charles E. (Chigger) Joyce, Johnnie W. Wofford and John Earle Ingle. All of them were family men. All were fathers.

For awhile they were men of valor fighting a fire. The next minute they were gone-victims of the fire which they sought to bring under control.

For a community to have protection against fire it requires an arranged schedule for a given number of firemen to be on duty at all times. The three firemen who died under the crumbled mass of brick and mortar had spent Easter weekend with their families. They were off duty Saturday and spent that day and that night with their loved ones. They reported back to the fire hall Easter Sunday at 8 a.m., little aware of the grim tragedy that awaited them.

But that is the life of a fireman - a public servant who stands ready and willing-without knowing this minute what fate the next minute may hold.