Thursday 2:30 PM
It's the last period of the day.

Tomorrow's Friday and a holiday - County Meet day.

Junior and Senior High School students eagerly await the last bell of the school day. To add to their impatience there was usually early dismissal on PTA days, but not this time.

Elementary classes dismiss at the regular time, though some children remain on campus waiting for upper grades to dismiss.

Thursday, 3:00 PM
Approximately 50 mothers are in the gym for a PTA program.

The PTA programs were usually held in the auditorium, but since this program included a group of of children performing the Mexican Hat dance which had been choreographed on the floor in chalk, the meeting was in the gym located at the rear of the main building.

Thursday, 3:10 PM
Bill Grigg leaves study hall to empty the trash can.

Marie Beard goes to get her sister Helen out of class so they can meet their mother.

F.F. Waggoner, principal, heads from the gym toward his office in the building. He stops on his way to care for a young student who is crying.

Bill Thompson changes places with the girl in front of him so he can sit behind his girlfriend.

Mrs. Clarence Moore goes to the Superintendent's office to get her sister Marie Patterson while their brother waits outside.

Thursday, 3:17 PM
In the manual training room, instructor Lennie K. Butler plugs in a belt sander to test his repair job. John Dial, a student in Mr. Butler's room, feels caught in the middle of a flash of lightning. The building has just exploded from the ground up.

In the study hall that Bill Griggs had left only minutes before, all 65 students are killed.

Helen Beard who left Miss Bell's room with her sister, Marie, is exiting the building hand in hand with her sister. Helen is thrown in the air and slammed into an automobile 40 feet away. Marie is knocked unconcious in the wreckage.

The girl Bill Thompson had just traded seats with dies. Bill is injured but alive.
Marie Patterson and Mrs. Clarence Moore are killed. Their brother survives.

F.F. Waggoner is safe outside; Two students studying in his office are dead.

Mrs. Homer Gary who is supervising a large study hall yells for her students to get under their desks. She does likewise.

Mrs. Tom Parmley, an elementary teacher, is supervising children on the playground. The blast severely shakes the school grounds. Mrs. Parmley takes cover in a nearby car. As soon as the debris stops falling, she begins providing first aid to children. One little girl dies in her arms. Several times she is almost struck by children leaping from upper story windows as they escape the crumbling building by jumping from the windows.

Thursday, 3:20 PM
D.C. Saxon races to the Superintendent's house and calls the Central Telephone office in Overton.

Mr. Sory takes a car load of injured to Overton by way of the Western Union office.

Robert L. Moore has just reached his nearby home. He runs back to the school. There he encounters Superintendent W.C. Shaw, staggering around, clutching a head wound and crying "Oh my god, those poor children!"

Thursday, 3:30 PM
Oil field workers close the throttles on their engines and rush to the school to find mothers from the PTA meeting tearing frantically at the rubble with their bare hands searching for their children.

Thursday, 3:40 PM
C.R. Sory, band director, bursts into the Western Union office in Overton shouting to A.C. Huggins, transmitter, "The London School is blown to bits, hundreds killed and injured! Get Help!"

A. C. Huggins stands momentarily in shocked disbelief, but the sight of the injured children being removed from Mr. Sory's care brings him to his senses and he begins transmitting the news.

Mose H. Marvil, mayor of Henderson, arrives on the scene then hurries back to Henderson to set up relief headquarters at the Chamber of Commerce office.

Thursday, 4:15 PM
President Roosevelt sends a message from Warm Springs, Georgia: "I am appalled by the news of the disaster at New London, Texas, in which hundreds of school children lost their lives. I am shocked and can hope that further information will lessen the degree of this tragedy. I have asked the Red Cross and all the government agencies to stand by and render every assistance in their power to the community into which the shocking tragedy has come."

Governor James V. Allred issues the order for all Texas highway patrolmen and Texas Rangers to "...rush to New London with all possible speed and...to give the people of that stricken community every assistance possible."

A communication link is extablished between President Roosevelt's Washington offices and Governor Allred's offices in Austin.

Thursday, 4:20 PM
The Salvation Army arrives from Gladewater, Texas and begins serving sandwiches and coffee. During the first 24 hours they will serve 36,000 sandwiches.

Complete meals served:

2,724 to the National guard
184 to the Highway Patrol
1,105 to Board of inquiry and witnesses
1,400 to spectators
90 to Bureau of Mines
1,800 to workers in cemeteries

Thursday, 5:00 PM
Members of the American Legion Posts from Overton, Henderson and Kilgore begin working to patrol streets and help parents locate children.

The scene is obviously chaotic. Hundreds of cars choke the small roads making it difficult for emergency vehicles to get through to the scene.

Thursday, 5:30 PM
Doctors and nurses begin heading for New London from all parts of the Texas, including Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Wichita Falls and, of course, all area towns quickly come to the scene to provide assistance.

Five U.S. Army Air Corps planes also leave Barksdale Field located Shreveport, Louisiana loaded with medical personnel and supplies. The planes land on a dirt strip in Henderson and the group rushes by auto to New London.

Drug stores and hospitals all over East Texas literally empty their shelves of bandages, disinfectants and unguents to be used in the disaster.

Lt. Col. Clarence E. Parker of the National Guard arrives with several members of his guard unit. Not having enough manpower, he gives empty rifles to First Class Boy Scouts and assigns them sentry duty until more guardsmen arrive.

In Tyler, Mother Francis Hospital cancels its formal grand-opening scheduled for Friday, March 19th and begins accepting the wounded immediately.

Thursday, 6:00 PM
Volunteer electricians scale the light poles on the football field and position floodlights so they illuminate the ruins. Other lights are rigged on high poles in front of the wreckage. Later batteries of search lights are brought in to provide additional lighting.

At this time, possibly as many as 3,000 men toil under the glare of the lights removing debris hoping for the best. The numbers of volunteers are not exact due to the fact that volunteers poured into the area throughout the day and night to quickly help.

Twenty-five embalmers leave Dallas for Tyler. About the same number leave Ft. Worth nearly at the same time.

By 11:00 PM, there will be 100 embalmers on the scene including 21 student embalmers from the R. Victor Landig School of Embalming in Houston and the entire student body of the Dallas School of Embalming.

Thursday, 8:30 PM
Martial Law is declared in a 5 mile area around the school.

By 8:30 PM, a picket line is set up allowing only ambulances, doctors, nurses, peace officers, rescue workers, newsman and relatives of trapped children into the disaster area.

Thursday, 10:00 PM
More than 100 ambulances are on the scene.

Houses usually dark by this hour have lights as families sit clustered around radios and women prepare food for the workers.

Friday morning, 12:10 AM
George Hardy, age 63, falls dead of an apparent heart attack as he watches workers carry mangled bodies from the ruins.

A boy and girl of Junior High School age are found alive wrapped in each other's arms.

Friday morning, 2:00 AM
Workers using acetylene torches free Mrs. Gary, the study hall supervisor, from where she was trapped under the desk.

More than 150 bodies have been taken to Henderson alone.

Other bodies have been taken to Kilgore, Jacksonville, Tyler and Overton

Friday morning, 4:00 AM
Workers reach the last room. The class had been located over the center of the explosion. Body parts of 27 students are recovered.

Regional Red Cross relief director Albert Evans and two nurses arrive to assist J.W. Harris, county relief chairman from Henderson.

Just before dawn, Mrs. Tracy Tate, a teacher, is removed from the bottom of the concealed dead space where rubble is piled 20 feet deep. She dies as she is being placed into an ambulance.

Friday morning, 5:00 AM
A thunderstorm breaks out.

The school grounds becomes an ocean of red mud from the red-clay, but the men work on through the storm.

Piece by piece, the debris from the explosion is placed into baskets and tubs, loaded on trucks, and hauled off to be dumped.

Just after daylight seven more bodies are found.

Friday, 12:15 PM
As the skies clear, it is evident no more children are left in the debris.

Weary workers file out as the National Guardsmen salute them.