Around 9 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1955, a pair of McDonnell-Douglas F2H-2 Banshees hurtled at 300 miles per hour 20,000 feet above Henrico County, about 16 miles northwest of Byrd Field, (Richmond International Airport today). The jets of Attack Squadron 76 from Oceana Naval Base south of Norfolk were piloted by Ensign Robert Ammann, 22, of Dallas and Lt. Edward R. Bristol, 26, of Collinsville, Conn. Ammann felt a sudden jolt. He thought he’d run into something, but it had been Bristol’s right wing glancing off the tail of his craft. Ammann went into a climbing right turn, and then his aircraft’s controls failed.

When he couldn’t regain level flying, Ammann decided to take “the nylon walk home,” as he told the Times-Dispatch. He ejected, still in his seat and under the canopy, and once free, pulled his parachute.

Ammann’s drifting descent took 15 minutes before he landed in Highland Park near the living-room window of 401 Bancroft Ave. and an astonished Mrs. Lewis Gooch, whose dog Dinks barked an alarm. “Look!” Mrs. Gooch shouted to her husband. “Here’s a paratrooper!”  

The Banshee continued in a southwest direction until it went into a spin. Neon-sign cleaners in the 3300 block of West Broad Street told the News Leader that they saw the plane tumble wing over wing and turn into a ball of fire, making a humming and roaring sound. A fuel tank landed at Colonial and Idlewood avenues, and a hunk of canopy and the bucket seat plummeted through the sun-porch roof of 3 Canterbury Road.

Brickmason Leland McCauley, 29, heard an explosion and saw the burning aircraft coming almost straight down seven blocks from where he stood. He jumped into his truck and sped to the scene.

The Banshee burrowed a foot-deep ditch across the driveway of 105 Tonbridge Road, spewing fire and plowing toward the house.

Sitting in the upstairs den over the garage and watching television were the three young children of Jean and Benjamin Dennis III — Benjamin IV, 5; David, 2 1/2; and Debbie, 21 months. The jet slammed into the house 25 feet away from where they sat. Part of the room erupted, and the distraught mother swept up the youngsters and dragged them out.

The Dennises’ maid, Pearl Johnson, ran from the house with her uniform on fire before falling onto the cold ground.

Still in the house, however, was 8-week-old Charles, and McCauley arrived to hear Mrs. Dennis crying, “My baby! My baby!” A couple of men restrained her from running inside.

McCauley clambered onto the shoulders of several bigger coworkers and leaped onto a drainpipe leading to the porch roof near the smoky second-floor window. With his fists he broke several panes and went in halfway before he was blinded and seized by choking. He leaned out to gulp for air, then dove back into the room. He felt his way to the crib, grabbed the infant under his left arm like a football and lowered the precious bundle into a workman’s hands. McCauley jumped to the ground.

Mrs. Dennis rushed toward McCauley and kissed him, babbling that she didn’t know what she was doing because she didn’t even know him. “Everything happened so fast,” McCauley said later.

Fire leaped onto 105 Tonbridge, where the Watson family was away, though their maid Helen Stokes ran from the house. Mr. Dennis learned of the crash from a colleague in his downtown office and drove into the crowd-clogged Windsor Farms streets not knowing his family’s condition.

In the end, the Dennis’ maid, Pearl, was treated for burns and released. Little Charles was more hungry than hurt. The aviators returned to Oceana. The Fifth Naval District headquarters at Norfolk said property-damage complaints should be made to them.

This wasn’t the first midair collision over Windsor Farms; a Sept. 1, 1945, crash dropped a plane into a field in the 200 block of Canterbury Road, killing the pilot.