Where Eagles Lie Fallen is celebrated master storyteller Gary Collins’s solemn tribute to the American servicemen and servicewomen who lost their lives aboard Arrow Air Flight 1285 when it crashed in ?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Gander, Newfoundland, on December 12, 1985.This is a story of a tremendous loss of life, of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. military – the world-renowned “Screaming Eagles.” Eyewitnesses to the tragedy and the surviving loved ones of the lost American soldiers reveal for the first time the profound effect this event had on them, and how it still affects them today.

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Within these pages you will meet “Buckeye” Brady, “Keybird” Kee, Michael Shayne “Eliot” Stack, “Ziggy” Ziegler, “Jenny” Word, and Sergeant Christine M. McCleery, American servicemen and servicewomen lost aboard Arrow Air Flight 1285.

Among those who assisted Gary Collins in the reconstruction of that fateful day are Robyn Stack, mother of Michael Shayne “Eliot” Stack, Gander Deputy Mayor Sandra Kelly, Air Traffic Controller Glenn Blandford, Mayor Doug Sheppard, and Gander resident Pat Kane.

Gary Collins was born in a small, two-storey house by the sea in the town of Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He finished school at Brown Memorial High in the same town. He spent forty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries.His writing career began when he was asked to write eulogies for deceased friends and family. He spent a full summer employed as a prospector before he wrote Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine; he liked the work so much, he went back to school to earn his prospecting certificate. A critically acclaimed author, he has written a total of eight books, including Cabot Island, The Last Farewell, Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine, Where Eagles Lie Fallen, Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman, A Day on the Ridge, and the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. The latter won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration.Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as the “Story Man.” His favourite pastimes are reading and writing, and playing guitar at his log cabin. He lives in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and three grandchildren.

Gary Collins' profile page