A Bomber Pilot's Story
by Terry Plowman
Page 2
December 6, 1944 — 22,000 feet above Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia:
Warren MacDonald, a 23-year-old pilot on his 15th bombing run, had turned from his target to
make the return flight to southern Italy when he heard a frantic cry over the intercom: "Sixteen
109s coming in waves of four!" Within seconds 20-mm bullets from the German Messerschmitt-109
fighters tore through the plane’s fuselage, killing the gunners in the ball turret and the tail turret
and severely wounding the radio operator.
With one engine on fire, the bomb bay ablaze and the tail elevators
shot up, all MacDonald and his co-pilot could do was wrestle the wheel forward to keep the plane
somewhat stable until the crew could bail out. Three crewmembers quickly exited through the
nose turret while the only uninjured man in the back struggled to get a parachute on the wounded
radioman. After they successfully bailed out, MacDonald told the engineer and co-pilot to abandon
the plane through the flight deck top hatch.
Without a co-pilot to help hold the wheel, MacDonald suddenly
found himself pinned to his seat. The action of the wheel coming back caused the plane to do a
complete wingover — not the kind of maneuver common for a craft with a 110-foot wingspan.
When the plane came out of the flip, it went into a flat spin. The co-pilot and engineer got out.
MacDonald remained trapped in the seat.
"I put my fate in God’s hands," MacDonald says.
He somehow found the strength to pry himself out of the seat and rushed to free himself from the
cords and hoses that connected him to the plane, then he climbed out through the top hatch.
"I had my fingers crossed that the plane wouldn’t blow up before I could get off it."
He guesses that the plane was no more than 2,500 feet from the ground when he jumped off the
nose turret.
In the town below, Jozef Kruty (Roman’s grandfather) was celebrating
his 38th birthday with his wife, Paulina, and son, Felix, age 4. About midday they noticed the
roar of airplanes overhead — so loud it shook the windows of their house. They went outside to
look. Jozef, Felix and other villagers saw tiny figures bail out of two bombers that had been hit by
fighters. Residents of Malzenice and nearby towns watched as the burning planes plummeted to
the ground.
A few villagers ventured out to the wooded area where MacDonald
had landed. One of them was postman Jan Jakabovic,
who was on his routine journey from the post office in a neighboring town. He beckoned for MacDonald
to follow him, and they trudged across a muddy field covered with a couple of inches of melting
snow before arriving at Jakabovic’s house in Malzenice. MacDonald dragged his parachute the
whole way.
They communicated by gestures. MacDonald admired a large
clock on the wall. Jakabovic offered a drink of borovicka, an herb-flavored liqueur. His wife, Paulina,
gave him some barley soup and helped him clean the blood from his face and hands.
Soon other townspeople — Jozef and Felix among them —
arrived to take a look at the tall uniformed stranger. MacDonald doesn’t remember this, but Felix
said MacDonald gave him a piece of rubber hose. MacDonald’s comment to the 4-year-old that
someday he would become a pilot is probably the result of storyteller’s license — in fact, no one
in the room understood English.
Because MacDonald had not seen any German soldiers, he hoped
that he’d find a way to safety through the "underground"network of Allied sympathizers.
But within an hour, German soldiers who occupied the town entered the house, rifles leveled at
MacDonald. One of them said the phrase prisoners of war commonly heard: "The war is over
for you."
The soldiers took MacDonald to their local headquarters,
where there were two other airmen — one severely wounded, bleeding from the head and limbs.
As MacDonald and the other uninjured man were taken away to be sent to a prison camp in Germany,
he thought they were leaving the wounded man to die.
It wasn’t until 50 years after the war, when he received a telephone
call out of the blue, that he found out the wounded man had lived — one of the many remarkable
facts MacDonald learned because of Kruty’s search for him.
"The events of that day were the most stressful and trying
of my life,"MacDonald says. "From the physical dangers of the bullets and the flames,
my responsibilities as the plane’s leader, with counteractions to try and decisions to be made
quickly, the reality that the plane must be abandoned — while knowing that two friends, fine young
men, both 19, were dead and must be left behind — the struggle to free myself, the trepidation
that comes with parachuting for the first time and under difficult circumstances, the uncertainties
to be faced on the ground, in enemy territory — all of this, from the aerial attack to my capture,
took place in the span of about two hours. And in that time the only island of calm and comfort,
among friendly, caring faces, was my hour’s visit in the Jakabovics’ home — the last good meal
and the last calm and comfort I would know for the next six months."
"But through all these years, there have been so many
unanswered questions about these obviously very nice people. Who were they? Why did they
risk taking me in? How did they fare later on, especially the dear little child on the floor? I didn’t
know their names. I didn’t even know the name of their village. After I returned home a picture
came to me of the graves in which the good townspeople had placed my two crewmembers, heaped
with flowers. I forget the circumstances of my receiving this, but no address was attached, so I
couldn’t express my gratitude. (I just had) more unanswered questions."
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This article and its photographs were originally
published in the Fall 2001 issue
of
Logbook magazine. This article and these photos have been reproduced on
this web site with the permission of David G. Powers, Editor.
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![[Graphic] Snapshots from the 464th Bombardment Group.](../images/flagd.jpg)