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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Susan Wroble

December 6, 1944 was Lieutenant Warren Harding MacDonald's 15th consecutive mission as pilot, and he was scheduled to go on leave the next day. His plane, a B-24 Green Hornet bomber named Umbriago, had been rebuilt twice and was sluggish, boxy and cold. When attacked over Czechoslovakia by German fighters, it burst into flames. With two of his crew members dead, Warren held the plane steady while seven others bailed out, and one severely wounded soldier was pushed out. Except for the two killed by the ME-109's, the other crew members survived.

As Warren explained "then the plane went into a flip, and came out, miraculously for me, into a flat spin. I struggled to get out against the wheel, and then turned my life over to God. I felt calm, reconciled with God. I saw my life flashing before my eyes. Then I got to Martina (his wife), and thought, "Wait! I'm not ready to die yet!

"With a surge of adrenaline I was able to get the wheel off me. I realized that if I could get ahold of the two metal plates behind me, I could get out - and this time, I made it. I saw my flight cap on the floor, and thought "I don't need that." I saw my cigarette pack, and thought "I don't need that." I puzzled about which direction I could go. I crawled forward and dropped off from the nose turret. I dropped inside the plane's spin. Normally, you count to ten before pulling the chute, but I counted to twenty to make sure I was away from the spin of the plane. I felt the pop of the chute immediately, and saw the plane go smoothly past me. On the ground, I saw a group of about six uniformed men, running away, directly away from me, not looking up at me. The 50 calibre guns in the plane were heating off, and perhaps they were running away from them. I watched until the plane hit the ground, and felt the concussion. Then there was silence. A total, absolute silence. I landed in the trees. Villagers gathered quickly, but I was pleased that there were no uniforms.

The postman in the little town of Malzenice brought Warren back to his house and a comforting meal, but German soldiers followed soon after. Warren spent the duration of war in a prison camp. He and his fellow prisoners only realized that the war was over by the silence and the empty guard towers. Their captors had simply disappeared. Warren made his way to Paris and it was there that he learned that his brother, Lawrence, had been killed on the first day of the Battle of the Bulge, on December 16th, 1944.