Two Greyhound buses collided on a Central Texas hilltop before dawn on Aug. 4, 1952 killing both drivers on impact and burning an estimated 26 passengers to death.

The horrendous head-on crash happened on U.S. Highway 81 seven miles south of Waco. The night was clear, the moon was shining and the two-lane road was dry.

But the drivers were young (24 and 23) and inexperienced. It was only the fifth day behind the wheel for Milburn Berry Herring in the northbound San Antonio-to-Dallas bus, and Billy Malone in the Dallas-to-Brownsville southbound had been on the job just four months. The southbound carried 20 passengers and the northbound 37 with several riders standing in the aisle. 

Waco patrolman H.C. Garland and his partner stopped the Brownsville bus at the city limits to search for two suspects. Minutes later, they learned of the accident from a passing motorist and sped to the crash scene.

“It was a picture out of Hades,” Garland shuddered. “There were bodies scattered over the road, some of them in ditches and some on fire. The first bodies I saw were two small children. They were lying together, and both of the little bodies were on fire. It was horrible.”

The policeman recalled two dozen soldiers, who tried to board one of the buses at the Waco station. “They couldn’t all be seated, and some had to take a later bus. They didn’t like it and fussed a little, but I guess they didn’t know how lucky they were.”

Dora Daniels, a 17-year-old carhop from Corpus Christi, survived to describe the crash in riveting detail. “We were going up this hill. I had just pushed my seat back and was beginning to relax. Everything was quiet.

“I saw this other bus coming down the hill. It was weaving. Then suddenly the next thing I saw was the reflection of headlights on the window. A woman screamed, ‘Look out!’ Then everything went black.”

Spokesmen for the bus company confirmed the teenager’s first-hand account. “The fault apparently lies with the northbound bus or its driver,” stated a Greyhound vice-president. “Highway marks and the position of the buses indicated the northbound bus was across the stripe,” another official elaborated. “Neither bus left any skid marks. It happened so suddenly that neither driver had a chance to do anything.”

Daniels and the little girl sitting next to her owed their lives to a black soldier, who was thrown clear but “was brave enough to come back and pull us out. He pushed open a window and helped both of us out.”

The name and fate of the selfless stranger were unknown. “I saw this soldier race back into the wreckage just before the explosion turned the bus into a burning inferno. I don’t know whether he managed to get out again or not because I never saw him again.”

The child that cheated death with Daniels was 11-year-old Matilda Zamudio. “I was sleeping when the crash awakened me,” she told a reporter from her hospital bed. “My mother and father were standing in the aisle because all the other seats were occupied.

“The crash threw me to the floor and the bus was filled with screaming and crying people. The young girl sitting next to me hollered for me to jump out the window and she and the Negro soldier helped me out the window.

“I was one of the first out of the bus. But those poor old women up front and the bus driver – they were screaming. I tried to run back to help mother and daddy out of the bus, but some folks held me back. I think the bus blew up with my mama and papa.”

Matilda was right. Her parents were dead.

Adolph Simmank was also on board the southbound Greyhound. “I woke up to the sound of terrible screams. The whole bus was on fire. Flames were shooting all over the interior of the bus.”

Simmank dragged a soldier with two broken legs toward the front. “Then I noticed a young woman whose dress was caught on a piece of metal. She was screaming and her dress was on fire. I grabbed the dress and ripped it and she stumbled loose.”

“The only way out was through the mashed-in front part of the bus where the windshield had been.” The trio escaped through the opening.

Waco ambulance driver Nathan Soloman removed charred corpses from the red-hot wreckage. “A fireman and I got 23 out by ourselves,” he said. “Some were so badly burned they fell apart when he grabbed them.”

Thirty hours after the tragedy, only seven bodies had been positively identified. The official figure of 28 dead was at best an educated guess.

The National Safety Council confirmed the carnage was the worst bus crash on record. The horror on Highway 81 was one fatality shy of the deadliest traffic accident in Texas history, when a train struck a truck loaded with migrant workers in 1940 killing 29 near Alamo in the Rio Grande Valley. 

Autographed copies of “Murder Most Texan,” Bartee’s latest book, are still available. Order yours in the “General Store” at barteehaile.com or by mailing a check for $26.65 to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.