FEDORA -- Even 65 years after his B-17 bomber collided with another near Fedora, Lawrence Dreesen still finds his mind drifting back to the midair collision that killed 11 young airmen.

"You think about it now and then," Dreesen said. "They should be remembered."

Dreesen was a guest of honor at a ceremony Friday to dedicate a roadside historical marker that commemorates the training accident that occurred nearby in 1943. On a training mission, two B-17 bombers collided, killing all 11 members of one plane and causing the other plane and its crew -- including Dreesen, then a 23-year-old radio operator -- to crash land eight miles southeast of Fedora.

The marker, located along Highway 34, is approximately 2½ miles northwest of the fatal crash site and memorializes the single biggest air disaster in the history of South Dakota.

After taking off from Sioux City, Iowa, the planes had flown for three hours before maneuvering to switch formation. At 3,000 feet, planes 750 and 790 collided. The propellers of plane 790 completely cut off the tail section of plane 750, causing the tail gunner to fall to his death and the plane to lose control, do a half loop and slam to the ground. The remaining 10 crew members all were killed upon impact.

Friday, as a western breeze blew across the ceremony in Fedora, more than 140 people gathered to honor those who died and were injured in the collision.

"The 22 soldiers that we gather to honor were men of action ..." said Lt. Colonel Pat Pardy, a 22-year member of the South Dakota National Guard and recipient of the Bronze Star and Combat Action Badge for his service in Afghanistan. "These men are war heroes just as if they had fought and died over enemy territory."

The quest to bring recognition to the airmen involved in the collision began after Brett Selland, Letcher, was at a local junkyard. Talk of big iron and World War II led to the retelling of the tragic flight of the "Flying Sioux," the name given to the Sioux City-based bombers. Selland began researching the event and interviewed survivors. Later, he started raising funds for a memorial along with Pat Maroney of Howard.

Maroney was the master of ceremonies at Friday's event and credited Selland for keeping alive the memory of the collision.

"Without his research and dedication to the men of the Flying Sioux, their story would have faded with time," he said. "His dream was to memorialize the ultimate sacrifice and heroic action of the men involved in this terrible tragedy and that dream has finally come true."

Near the end of the program, Pardy read the roll call of the airmen from both of the bombers involved in the crash. As the names echoed throughout the town, men removed their hats and solemn faces gazed at an American flag that flapped in the strong wind.

Elwood Van Scharrel, 75, was 10 when the collision occurred. He didn't hear the crash, but remembers seeing the planes fly over his grandparents' farm near Argonne.

Now, more than six decades after the deadly collision, he's glad there's a memorial for the airmen involved.

"It's a good deal," he said.

A similar incident occurred in Jerauld County only two months after the collision near Fedora, when nine airmen died in a single-plane crash on Aug. 26, 1943. A memorial for those men was dedicated outside the Jerauld County Court House in Wessington Springs in 2002.

In Fedora Friday, Dreesen walked up a small incline to the memorial after the ceremony, his steps staggered because of a back injury he sustained in the 1943 crash. Dreesen never reported the injury, he said, because he "was in a hurry to get home."

After the collision, Dreesen's next flight took place in inclement weather conditions. It was hard, he said, but all part of serving his country.

"I went up in a heck of a thunderstorm and hail storm," he said. "That was a good initiation."

"You do what you have to do."

Airmen killed in plane 750:

n Lt. O.B. Groves, pilot

n 2nd Lt. Michael R. Hric, co-pilot

n 2nd Lt. Roy B. Lever, navigator

n 2nd Lt. James J. O'Connell, navigator

n S/Sgt. Rodney T. Cassidy, bombardier

n Sgt. Sidney S. Packer, radio operator

n S/Sgt. Dean M. Garland, engineer

n S/Sgt. Murry V. Whitehead, radio operator

n S/Sgt. Marvin J. Curtis, gunner

n S/Sgt. Charles R. Bowers, gunner

n S/Sgt. Bruno E. Twardy, gunner