PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 7, Oct. 4, 2001

WILL producer returning to U.S., checked e-mail and learned of terrorist attack

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
(217) 244 -1072; slforres@illinois.edu

Photo by Bill Wiegand Back Home Again Henry M. Radcliffe III was stranded in Belgium as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. He found out about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon through e-mails from the United States.

Although an extra five days in Europe might be welcomed by some, for Henry M. Radcliffe III, producer at WILL-TV, the vacation extension came unexpectedly and involuntarily.

Radcliffe was in Brussels, winding up a monthlong European vacation when terrorists hijacked four U.S. airliners on Sept. 11, slamming two into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon and another into a Pennsylvania field.

A member of the Illini Juggling and Unicycle Club, Radcliffe had been abroad since Aug. 3 attending the European Juggling Convention in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as well as another juggling convention in Krems, Austria. He had also spent time with friends and visited Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. After living out of his travel bags for weeks, Radcliffe said he was looking forward to returning to Illinois.

While using up time before he headed to the airport to catch his flight to Chicago on Sept. 12, Radcliffe said he went to a cyber café to use a computer. It was through e-mail messages from UI Chancellor Nancy Cantor and WILL’s station manager that Radcliffe first became aware there had been a tragedy of some sort, but he wasn’t sure what had happened until he logged onto the CNN Web site.

"So all of this is really old news," Radcliffe said about the lapse between the actual events and his seeing the footage. "But, to me, it’s just developing right on the computer screen, and it was really, really, really shocking. It was more disturbing than I thought it would be."

He had been to the airport earlier in the day, and his Sept. 12 flight had still been scheduled to depart. Concerned there might be a problem looming, he went back to the airport to check on his flight but the departure boards were incomprehensible to him. When he finally spoke to a ticket agent, she told him bluntly: "The United States is closed. I don’t know what to tell you."

With U.S. airspace closed after the hijackings, Radcliffe’s flight was canceled, and he found himself stranded in Brussels, uncertain where he would be staying and when U.S. air traffic would resume allowing him to come home. Since he understands only a few words of French and Dutch, Radcliffe said he felt very isolated.

When he went to the U.S. embassy to ask for help, he found the building surrounded by fencing, armored personnel carriers and soldiers, whom he describes as "armed to the teeth." A former Army paratrooper, Radcliffe said even he was intimidated by the show of military force and decided not to try going in.

Luckily, he still had some money left for a few nights’ lodging and a Eurorail pass for the train.

Unfortunately, Brussels was filled with conventioneers, and all hotel rooms were taken. Radcliffe found a room by taking the train about 30 minutes away to the city of Louvan la Neuve and waiting for a cancellation to make a room available.
On Sept. 17, five days late, his flight finally left for the United States.

Radcliffe said he has no qualms about traveling or flying again and, in fact, is looking forward to the next European Juggling Convention.