Following the Dec. 12, 1985, air crash at Gander, Newfoundland, that killed 248 soldiers returning home to Fort Campbell, the same artist was commissioned to create outdoor sculptures for memorials in both Hopkinsville and Gander.
(Photo from Steve Shields website)
The first sculpture was for Hopkinsville’s Gander Memorial Park, at Fort Campbell Boulevard and the Pennyrile Parkway. It is called the Peacekeeper and portrays one soldier in a beret and desert fatigues. On the day it was dedicated, sculptor Steve Shields met then-Gander Mayor Doug Sheppard, who was a special guest for the ceremony. Sheppard asked Shields to create another piece for Gander.
In 1990, Steve and his wife, Karen, drove from Hopkinsville to Gander with a sculpture (in sections) called The Silent Witness. It was assembled at the edge of the forest where the plane carrying the soldiers and eight crew members crashed shortly after take-off at Gander International Airport. The Silent Witness depicts a soldier with a boy and a girl on each side. His is holding a hand of each child, and they are looking toward Fort Campbell.
The Hopkinsville and Gander sculptures are in very different settings. The Hopkinsville memorial sits at one of the busiest and most visible intersections in the city. The Gander memorial cannot be seen from the main highway and stands near the edge of Gander Lake. There is also a memorial at Fort Campbell.
There were no survivors in the Gander crash. It was the worst aviation crash in Canadian history. The soldiers were returning from a six-month peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula. The Arrow Air charter, a DC-8, crashed less than a mile from the end of the runway. It burned in the forest not far from the lake. The Canadian Aviation Safety Board eventually ruled that ice on the jet’s wings was the likely cause of the crash.
The jet had stopped to refuel at Gander, and many of the soldiers returned to their seats with children’s toys and presents they bought in the airport gift store. They were headed home for Christmas — and at Fort Campbell, families were making plans for a holiday reunion.
Four days later, President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan were at Fort Campbell for a memorial service and met with the families of the soldiers who died in the crash.
Steve Shields, who died in 1998, became a highly regarded artist for his Gander work and dozens of other sculptures. Read about his life and art in this website created by his family.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
