Le Mans Accident 1955

[Andy Zarse]

Not trying to be morbid but I have spent quite some time researching over the years and trying to get to the bottom of this one. Most of the various contemporary reports are at odds with each other. So,

Who were the three main drivers involved?

What was the cause?

How many fans died?

Why was the race not stopped?

Who drove through the debris unscathed?

Is there any memorial to these fans, our forerunners? (If not, why not? cos I've never found one)

[Steve Pyro]

Who were the three main drivers involved?
Lance Macklin (Austin Healey), Pierre 'Levegh' (Mercedes), Mike Hawthorn - entering pits (Jaguar)

What was the cause?
Macklin moved across the track, into the path of Levegh behind, to avoid a pitting Hawthorn

How many fans died?
Levegh and 87 spectators = 88

Why was the race not stopped?
The officials decided that to send the crowd away would cause mayhem and block the roads and prevent emergency vehicle access.

Who drove through the debris unscathed?
Juan Fangio

Is there any memorial to these fans, our forerunners? (If not, why not? cos I've never found one)
not that I'm aware of - maybe they want to forget about it!!

[Steve Pyro]

Interestingly, Mercedes could have had a repeat of this in 1999 with the flying car of Peter Dunbreck (and the earlier car of Mark Webber).
Had the Dunbreck car left the track in a heavily populated part of the track, the head count could have been as high as 1955.

[BigH]

Yes, it seems Levegh started a tradition of flying Mercedes. Mind you, Win Percy would have made a mess in 87 if he'd been on the pit straight.

I had a conversation last year with a bloke who was in the crowd when the Merc ploughed in. He escaped injury, just, but his description of the carnage around him was pretty sobering. He reckoned the ACO went into complete panic and then shutdown. Whether or not the decision not to stop the race was one that was made seems open to interpretation. Some say they didn't do anything, so the race kept going.

BTW, did you know that Hawthorn had just been diagnosed with a terminal kidney problem? It seems he wouldn't have lived much later than his A3 smash.
H

As to who was to blame, it depends on whose account you read. Hawthorn seems the obvious answer, but neither he nor Jaguar have ever put their hands up. I have some interviews somewhere, I'll see if I can dig 'em out. I seem to remember a death toll of 86, including Levegh.

In the back of my rapidly shrinking mind, I'm sure I can picture a memorial....I'll to have a think on that one
H

[Steve Pyro]

Whether or not the decision not to stop the race was one that was made seems open to interpretation. Some say they didn't do anything, so the race kept going.

I suspect there's a lot of truth in that.  Even seeing the accident on video in slow motion, it seems to happen so suddenly.  I'm sure everyone was completely dumbfounded.  Spectators at other parts of the circuit were not even aware it had happened until later.

Jaguar held an enquiry and exonerated Hawthorn.  Hawthorn had subsequently gone on to win the race.

[BigH]

Kinnell!,
Doing a bit of surfing while the tea lady was loading up the sugar hopper, slackjawed, I see that in 1952, Levegh drove his Talbot Lago T26 GS Spider solo for the whole race, he was well ahead in the final hour when the car broke down. He was classified as 8th.

I think it was tales of this sort of daring-do that got me down to LM in the first place. What an effort!

H

[Andy Zarse]

I have quite a few old racing books, on Moss, Fangio, Hawthorne, Mercedes etc. Will dig them out again tonight and see if there is anything interesting to add to the above. I seem to remember some wise comments by Fangio, who saw the whole ghastly spectacle unravel in front of his eyes.

And if you want absolute racing heroics, then Tazio Nuvolari is your chap, my all time favourite. Hours spent driving round with a hanky over his face breathing in neat methanol. It led to him coughing up blood during races, his corrupted lungs killed him in the end. And no doubt made him pissed as a parrot too .

[Andy Zarse]

I know this is a bit like saying "apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?", but notwithstanding the accident, the '55 race was shaping up to be a classic. Hawth and Fangio were trading lap records for a couple of hours. The Merc was more the powerful but only had drum brakes and a ruddy great hydrayulic air brake which lifted up out of the back of the car. But the Jag was more aerodynamic and had all round discs. Hawth reckonned the Jag could pull 6100rpm on the Mulsanne, equally 190+mph!

The crash was IMO (not that I know Jack) probably caused mainly by a very fired up Hawth, who overtook Lance Macklin just before the pit lane, when he was about to hand over to Bueb, a man about to drive in his first major sportscar race. So Hawth, I reckon was working on the assumption that every second counted against the great JM Fangio.

Here are some of the things Fangio had to say -

"Hawthonrn crossed the track to the pits, Macklin seemed to be stopping also, and Leveghs car climbed onto the back of Macklins." So was Macklin to blame? The establishment tried to push some of it onto him afterwards, something he resisted to his dying day, which was only last year.

"Levegh was already an old man, perhaps his car was too fast for him and the track was too narrow." Is this JMF trying to assuage the guilt of Hawth and Macklin?

"Hawthorn came to me and he was crying, saying it was all his fault. I told him it wasn't and these things can happen, things are like that". No one is going to turn round at the time and say sorry Mike, your fault.

So where does this leave us? God knows, and Steve you answer my question correctly on how it happened, but I guess we'll never know for sure. Like most tradgedies it is a freak meeting of circumstances.

In Hawthorns book Challenge me the Race, he seems strangely detatched, although clearly very upset about matters. But he does make some fairly crass comments, notably, "One ray of brightness among the desolation was the action of the insurers - mainly British -  who promptly accepted liability and paid out about 1/2 million pounds..." I knowthis is taken massively out of context but even so, is scraping the barrel a bit in my opinion. But he was a lovely bloke, Hawth, by all accounts so I won't be too hard on him.

Last word to Fangio - "I was lucky to escape that crash, it was by pure chance, by destiny if you like, and after I had passed through the crashing cars, without touching anything or anyone, I started to tremble and shake, for at that moment I had been waiting for the blow. Instead the way had opened and I passed through.. The Directors of Mercedes said that night we had to stop as there were too many deaths. Even though we had more than one lap lead we stopped and I was pleased with that, because you know with so many dead and suffering I felt no wish to win. What does it mean to win a race when so many people are suffering?"

Lucky? No, the man was touched by the hand of God.

[Andy Zarse]

Finally, the death toll. My Fangio Book, edited by the great Dennis Jenkinson, talks of over ninty dead. My Mercedes history by David Scott-Moncrieff, St John Nixon and Clarence Paget (all worth journos of the day) talks of up to eighty. The Hawthorn book makes no mention of numbers, but then, why should it? What was the official figure, post inquest, does anyone know?

I have other old racing books, containing a mine of useless fifty year old facts, with which to bore the arses off you. But you will all be relieved to know they are in the attic and i can't be bothered to get the ladder out tonight.

[Rhino]

Wasn't there a plaque on the wall at the start finish straight? I can't remember if i read or heard this, but the chances of me finding it are pretty slim come 4pm race finish

[Fax]

Andrew Whyte's book,  Jaguar- The Sports Racing & Works Competition Cars From 1954  has a very detailed account of the 1955 crash.  Included are several film & photo stills from various angles.  The most telling is a sequence of frames from a film being taken by someone who was very badly injured in the accident, the last frame being the underside of the Merc flying right at him.  In those days they were running flat-out from Maison Blanche to the Dunlop curve so the speed would have been enormous.  Phil Hill has always had a terrifiying account of the accident.  He was sitting on the pit wall preparing to take his turn at the wheel when the accident happened, directly across the track from him.  This was his first Le Mans.
John

[Steve Pyro]

I read somewhere that Hawthorn was slowing at about 80mph to pit.
Levegh etc must have been considerably faster.

[Gilles]

I can provide you the exact list and name of the around 80 people died just after the crash...

... the sunday special issue of Ouest France reported 78 died people.

Macklin pit stop appers to be the initial link to this accident.

Fangio was saved almost thanks to Levegh who hold up his hand to signal the coming crash. Fangio saw the hand and take a little more care.

There's no memorial, but the Chapelle was dedicated to all the victims. I don't know if a subscripitiopn for the erection of a memorial would be a good idea...