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AROUND 9 A.M. on Sunday, 30 Dec 1951, CDT Nelson Byers departed from Hamilton AFB, Marin County, CA, aboard an Air Force C-47. The plane was bound for Stewart AFB, Newburgh, NY. Byers was returning to West Point at the end of his Christmas vacation. Because of the weather, the plane flew west of the Sierras, crossing into Arizona near Blythe. At 2:21 p.m. the pilot contacted Phoenix Approach Control, which cleared the plane to begin its descent for a refueling stop at Williams AFB at Chandler, about twenty-five miles southeast of Phoenix.
Unfortunately, there was a navigational error, and seventeen minutes later, in the clouds, the plane flew into a mountain about sixty five miles northeast of Phoenix. There were no survivors. Of the twenty-eight people on board, nineteen were cadets. Eleven were members of the Class of 1954.
Nelson Sawyer Byers was born Thomas Sawyer Byers in San Diego, CA. He was the second son of Laud Stanley and Anna Rosalie Nelson Byers. His father was an explosives engineer and a part-time stock broker, and his family settled in Carmel, CA, just before WWII. By this time, Tom Sawyer had become Nelson Sawyer.
Called into government service immediately after Pearl Harbor, Laud moved his family to Memphis, TN. There, he directed the conversion of a fireworks factory into an incendiary bombs factory. Some of the bombs were dropped a few months later in the James Doolittle raid on Tokyo. In late 1942, the family moved to Martinsburg, WV, where Laud built another munitions factory. There, the Daughters of the American Revolution gave Nelson their Award for Excellence in American History for a paper he wrote in elementary school on the state’s history. Shortly after his 14th birthday, he became an Eagle Scout with Bronze Palm.
At the war’s end, the family moved to Reno, NV, where Nelson began his sophomore year at Reno High School. He and the family moved back to Carmel in December of that year, and Nelson entered Carmel High School. Vice president of his senior class, Nelson graduated in June 1948. Nelson did well in high school despite not seeming to be very interested in academics. He was rarely seen studying except for a few hours before exams. He taught himself to pole vault, and he played quarterback on the school’s lightweight football team in 1947, his junior year, which won the district championship.
Senior year, Nelson was a quarterback on the varsity team. A classmate described him thus:
We’d just kicked off and were running full out down the field aiming our bodies at the guy with the ball. And we knew he was the biggest and best they had. Because I was also a track guy, I was leading the pack. And, boy, did that guy look big. Suddenly a body spurted out past me and hit the guy with a powerful, noisy smack of pads. Nelson! Where the heck had he come from? He wasn’t that fast. He wasn’t that tough. But he was.
Nelson’s high school annual described him as “aggressive, capricious, [and] bug-happy.” By “bug,” they meant a hot rod. Nelson was a hotrod fanatic. He and his brother Roger rebuilt a Model A Ford roadster with a V-8 engine, an “AV8.” It was gold with blue leather seats, very fast — a sensation at high school.
Nelson was a talented artist and draftsman, and he applied unsuccessfully to Draftsman School at Ft. Warren. When he received his second call from the draft board, he enlisted in the Air Force in November 1948. During basic training in Texas, he took the classification exam and got the highest possible score on each of the eight sections. His score qualified him for West Point, and an adviser told him he should switch from draftsman to intelligence, and he was subsequently assigned to the Intelligence Section, 1601st Military Air Transport Service, Brookley AFB, Mobile, AL. At the Air Force Intelligence School, Lowry AFB, Denver, CO, there were sixty-eight in the class, all sergeants except for PFC Byers. In August 1949, he graduated first in his class.
In the meantime, Nelson was trying for a West Point appointment. He took the college equivalency exam and received credit for two years of college, which he said enhanced his USMA application. His family wrote to Nevada Congressman Walter Baring, who appointed Nelson in August 1949. Nelson attended the Preparatory School at Stewart AFB, Newburgh, NY and then entered the Academy 5 Jul 1950.
Nelson’s short career as a cadet was exemplary. Plebe year he was selected to be acting commander of Company K-1 during the Christmas holidays, and his drawings in Military Topography and Graphics class were posted as examples of superior cadet work during the department’s Christmas open house. He was a member of the Debate Council and Howitzer Representative. He earned his numerals in the pole vault on the C Track Team. At each meet, he bettered his personal record, and most of the time he won or tied for first place. He also set a West Point record. At the end of Plebe year, he ranked sixth in his class of 718, was declared a Distinguished Cadet, and was appointed an Academic Coach.
In Carmel, Christmas was always chaotic, happy, and wonderful, and Christmas 1951 was no different. The family held a large party for Nelson, his friends, and his high school classmates. Nelson told a friend he had broken the West Point pole vault record and hoped he might eventually qualify for the Olympic team. His death a few days later was a shock to all who knew him. We can only wonder what might have been and be grateful for the little time we had to share with him.
— Robert J. Morris ’54
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