A fighter jet crashed in Elgin 70 years ago. The hero pilot is now being honored

Al Grantham remembers the day nearly 70 years ago when a fighter jet crashed near Tyler Creek in Elgin.

Not the sort of thing you forget.

Then a ninth-grader at Larsen Junior High School, he and a buddy waited a couple of days and then rode their bikes to the site.

"I remember my friend grabbed a .50-caliber machine-gun bullet and a piece of windshield," Grantham said. "He brought the bullet to school and got in a whole lot of trouble, I can tell you that."

Years later, Grantham is helping honor the pilot of that plane, Capt. Norbert Chalwick.

Last week, the city of Elgin and the legion dedicated a bench and a memorial marker near the spot of the crash that ended Chalwick's life. It could have taken many others if not for his sacrifice.

The thought to honor Chalwick began a few years ago when Grantham brought the crash up to fellow Elgin American Legion Post 57 member Don Sleeman, who also remembered it. Grantham started researching the crash at the Gail Borden Public Library and the two men helped set up a committee at the legion to raise money and find a way to pay tribute to the captain.

Chalwick, a World War II veteran who also flew combat missions during the Korean War, was taking a F-86F Sabre fighter jet on an instrument instructional flight out of O'Hare International Airport on Nov. 13, 1951, when he began having mechanical difficulty and lost control of the plane over Elgin.

The story goes that a wingman radioed him to eject, but Chalwick said he saw kids ahead near where Illinois Park School now sits and chose to stay in the cockpit.

Chalwick was able to keep the plane aloft long enough to miss the populated area and crash into a cornfield, then through the trees lining Tyler Creek on both sides and into another field on what is now Royal Boulevard, between McLean Boulevard and Randall Road.

The account in the Elgin Daily Courier-News said "the plane disintegrated when it hit the ground and parts debris was scattered for more than a half mile."

"You wonder if all the people who live around here even know about it," Grantham said. "He was a hero."

Mayor David Kaptain said he's lived in the area of the crash for 32 years and first learned about it a couple years ago from Sleeman, who is his neighbor. Kaptain presided over the June 26 dedication ceremony. About 35 people, many from the legion, came to honor the pilot whose actions kept the event from being something catastrophically worse and eminently more memorable.

"It was a nice event and a deserving honor," Kaptain said.