Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Flight Lieutenant A. J. McDonald, Royal New Zealand Air Force, who was lucky indeed to survive his parachute descent from a shot up Wellington of No. 431 Squadron in April 1943

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; New Zealand Service Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45, together with the recipient’s Caterpillar Club membership badge, the reverse officially inscribed, ‘F./L. A. J. McDonald’, extremely fine (5) £400-500

Alexander John McDonald was serving as a Navigator in a Wellington of No. 431 Squadron when compelled to take to his parachute during a raid on Stuttgart on 14 April 1943. Of events that night, he later sent an account to the Irving parachute company:

‘We were attacked without warning. Three bursts of fire raked the port side of the aircraft, bullets ripping through the end of my chart table ... the aircraft commenced to lose height and the Bomb Aimer reported to the captain that our port wing was on fire. The Captain said, “Yes, I know - bale out”.

I informed the Wireless Operator, grabbed my parachute from the rack behind me on the starboard side and endeavoured to clip it on - only to find it would not go. I had always been most meticulous about my harness but that evening we had arrived at the aircraft with an hour or more to wait until take-off and as a new forecast was delivered, necessitating re-drafting of a long flight plan, I had undone the bottom straps to be comfortable whilst on the ground and hooked the metal ends on to the parachute hooks on my chest.

As the Bomb Aimer was starting to come forward there was no time to spare as I tried the left hand hook. The bottom strap jammed and without trying again I swiftly removed the right strap from the hook and jammed the pack on that hook. I thought that would probably hold if I did not get another opportunity to clear the other hook before jumping.

I moved swiftly forward, partly to see whether the situation really was as desperate as it seemed - this was our first ‘Op.’ I put one foot in the cockpit and as I did so the aircraft flicked viciously into a spin. In the split second I stood with one foot in the cabin and one in the cockpit, I could see that the port wing was a mass of flames and that the Captain was desperately trying to pull the stick back, without success. Probably the control rods which ran along the port side had been damaged.

As the aircraft flicked over, I was catapulted over the 2nd Pilot’s position, through the opening in the dashboard across the entrance hatch - noting with surprise that the hatch had disappeared and that I could see moonlight - to land flat on my back with my head beside the bombsight. Centrifugal force pinned me to the floor and I was unable to move so much as a finger. Whilst I lay there I thought, quite calmly, that my head would be just about the first thing to meet the ground.

There was an abrupt change in the aircraft’s motions and I was hurled back, over the place where the entrance hatch had been, head first in the direction of the back of the pilot’s instrument panel. I don’t recall actually hitting the panel - my last knowledge being when my head was a foot or so from the panel.

When I came to I was falling feet first. My left arm was stretched almost vertically downwards with the rip cord handle firmly clutched in it. The rip-cord had been pulled although I don’t remember doing it, and the parachute had not yet opened. It now proceeded to do so. There was a faint jerk, a click (or snapping noise rather) about my shoulders somewhere, and in a flash the whole harness disappeared above my head - with the exception of the left hand bottom strap which arrested my fall with a terrific jerk under the armpit. My left arm went dead immediately and there was a pain in my back. I grasped my left arm with my right and hung on with all my might. It seemed to take hours to reach the ground, but just as I was wondering if I could hang on any longer, I hit with a thud which damaged my knee slightly. There is no doubt that if I had succeeded in freeing that left hand hook, the whole harness would have pulled clear off leaving me to fall the rest of the way on my own - and if I had been falling in any position other than feet first when the parachute opened I think the result would have been the same. And was I not lucky that the entrance hatch had disappeared, so that I could fall out whilst unconscious?

Amongst my injuries I sustained those incurred in the descent were a severely lacerated armpit which gave me considerable trouble - I was at large for a week before being picked up and it became infected; left arm quite dead for a couple of days when movement returned - feeling returned very gradually and it was two months later before the last patch on the forearm regained its feeling; a back injury which did not seem bad at the time but has proved to have a permanent effect; and a knee injury which soon recovered but later developed trouble, apparently as a result.

To my great regret all the remaining members of the crew perished. To the best of my knowledge and belief they did not manage to leave the aircraft.’

McDonald was interned in Stulag Luft III at Sagan, scene of the “Great Escape”, from whence he first wrote to the Irving Parachute Co. in respect of obtaining his Caterpillar Club membership badge.