A bridge on Brentwood’s Hillsboro Road, over the Little Harpeth River, will be named on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 9:30 a.m. to honor Maj. Samuel P. Logan.
Logan’s B-29 was shot down during Korean War, and although new evidence suggests he survived the crash, he was never seen again. A ceremony will take place at the Harpeth Presbyterian Church, 3077 Hillsboro Road, that Saturday. The community is invited to attend.
On the night of Sept. 9, 1950, Little Mike – a B-29 Super Fortress – took off from the Yokata Air Base in Japan. Samuel Logan, a handsome, young pilot with dark curly hair, pointed the enormous plane west. It was the early months of the Korean War, and Little Mike, along with eight other bombers, flew over the Sea of Japan toward a railroad bridge near Pyongyang.
As the planes thundered over the bombed-out terrain, anti-aircraft fire exploded around them. Little Mike shook from the flak. Logan kept the bomber on target, even as the rattling metal and glass likely shook his crew’s nerves. Suddenly, a shell exploded against one of the engines. The blast damaged the tail, and the plane began leaking fuel. Little Mike plunged out of the formation.
According to a U.S. Department of the Air Force report, witnesses saw “an explosion and a trail of black smoke as the B-29 went down” near the village of Wolbong-ni. Parachutes were seen floating toward the village, some of them on fire. Logan was never seen again.
Four years later, in March 1954, the Air Force declared him deceased. His family held out hope for his return, and as the years turned into decades, they never held a formal memorial service for him. That will change on Aug. 26.
“Some people in our nation’s history have paid a very high price for us to have our freedom,” Brentwood City Commissioner Rhea Little said in January. “And one was Air Force Maj. Samuel Logan, who gave his life during the Korean War.
Last year, Williamson County State Rep. Sam Whitson contacted the City of Brentwood, asking that they support naming a bridge within the city limits after Logan. On Jan. 10, the City Commission unanimously approved supporting the naming.
What Happened After the Crash?
In the early 1940s, Logan was an engineering student at Vanderbilt University, but shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he left school to join the Army Air Corp. He went on to serve as a bomber pilot during World War II. On Sept. 9, 1950, during the Korean War, his plane – Little Mike – was shot down, but the U.S. Department of Defense no longer believes Logan died in the crash.
More than sixty years after the Tennessee native disappeared, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office issued a new memorandum on the pilot. The July 2010 memo states that he survived and was captured by North Korean soldiers.
“This information was provided to our office by a British documentary filmmaker,” the memo reported. “We believe he discovered the film in a Russian archive. We are in the process of acquiring a copy of the original film from the Russian state film archive and will forward further information as it becomes available.”
Pictures of the plane’s wreckage, along with photos of a curly-haired American pilot, were published in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, in late 1950.
“One of the photographs clearly shows Major Logan in the custody of a North Korean officer at the crash site,” the memo reported.
The U.S. Government continues to search for information regarding the pilot, but the report stated “we know of several cases in which North Korean troops, fleeing north in October 1950 and unable to care for POWs, resorted to expedient murder. Major Logan may well have been among those slain, but we do not have any specific confirmation to affirm this.”
Brentwood residents – including his son, David Logan – will now be reminded of the war hero’s sacrifice whenever they cross the Little Harpeth on Hillsboro Road.
“Because of individuals like Maj. Logan, we have the right to go out and vote, and we have the right to free speech, to voice our likes and dislikes,” Little said. “When you cross that bridge, you’ll know that story.”
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