Oct. 22—Coal miners John Phillips and Carl Gerlach were working together in the Troy Coal Company mine 1,200 feet below the surface near Shoemaker Street, West Wyoming, when they sensed something was wrong on Oct. 22, 1934.

The sound of cracking got louder as Phillips and Gerlach became aware a rock slide was going to happen and began running yelling at other miners to flee the Marcy vein.

Their heroic efforts saved miners Michael Snopek and Sam Najack, both of Luzerne, and Anthony Munley and James McGroarty, both of Plains Township. Snopek was hospitalized at Pittston State Hospital.

Phillips, 25, of South Loveland Street, Kingston, who was married and the father of two children, and Gerlach, 37, of Bowman Street, Wilkes-Barre, did not make it out as they were swallowed by the 80 ton rock slide.

"There was a roar and the first fall nearly blocked the gangway, but the four men managed to scramble to safety," the Wilkes-Barre Record reported Oct. 26, 1934, of the heroic efforts by Phillips and Gerlach.

Almost immediately, Phillips and Gerlach were presumed dead.

Recovery efforts immediately got underway.

"Company officials said today that the six men were loading cars in the gangway of a slope running into the mountainside back of Shoemaker Street when the slide occurred. The point of the accident, they stated, is about 1,600 feet back from the slope entrance and in the Marcy vein," the Times Leader Evening News reported Oct. 23, 1934.

Phillips' father, Henry Phillips, a coal miner himself, joined the recovery party.

The Times Leader reported Oct. 26, 1934, Henry Phillips was one of the miners who labored when the Marcy vein was opened in 1923.

The recovery was a slow process as those involved were advancing an estimated 12 feet a day removing 300 tons of rock and coal to reach the Marcy vein.

"Word was flashed to the surface at 1:25 this afternoon that rescue workers at the Troy mine at West Wyoming had battered through the pile of debris in the Marcy gangway where John Phillips and Carl Gerlach have been entombed since Monday," reported the the Saturday's edition of The Times Leader on Oct. 27, 1934.

After the recovery team reached the gangway, the bodies of Phillips and Gerlach were found buried about 144 hours after the rock slide occurred.

The body of Phillips was taken to his home and Gerlach's body was taken to his home where funerals were held Oct. 30, 1934.

Phillips was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Shavertown and Gerlach was buried in Mount Greenwood Cemetery in Trucksville.

"Fellow mine workers who labored through the long hours in the recovery efforts bore them to their final resting places," the Times Leader Evening News reported Oct. 30, 1934.