Long-overdue award

When David Allister MacDonald (pictured above, left) opened his mail last month at home in Stayner, he got a start. There, among the bills and notices was a long-overdue award for service in World War II: a Bomber Command Clasp.

“I was surprised,” said MacDonald, who was an aero engineer with #429 (Bison) Squadron stationed at Leeming, Yorkshire, England from March 1943 until October 1945. “I’d heard that some of the air crew guys had received this, but they had been to a presentation in Ottawa.”

Because MacDonald worked as ground crew, he originally didn’t think he qualified for the award. “There were thousands of us,” he said. “The air crew guys carried the ball and suffered 90 per cent of the losses, even though the other guys toyed with pretty dangerous stuff.”

But after receiving an email notice from the Royal Air Force Bomber Command Association last spring advising him to contact Veterans Affairs Canada, he applied for the award.

The Bomber Command Clasp arrived in his mailbox in October without any prior notification.

RCAF 411 (Huronia) Wing President Robert Coxon (right) of Stayner found out about the award and visited MacDonald at his home to take the picture on page 1.

“I knew MacDonald from his involvement in municipal politics,” said Coxon. (MacDonald was the Mayor of Stayner from 1973-76 and 1980-82.) “I wasn’t enamoured with the fact that he got the award in the mail.”

After MacDonald was discharged from service just before Christmas in 1945, he worked as a local garage mechanic until 1950. He continued his career as a construction engineer at Base Borden for 30 years. MacDonald celebrated his 90th birthday on Saturday, November 2.