S. Sgt. Donald H. McColskey Jr. (August 18, 1917 – September 10, 1944)
Group H, 32nd Bomb Squadron, 301st Bombardment Group
By Diana Dizon
Early Life
Donald Henry McColskey Jr. was born on August 18, 1917, to Donald Sr. and Julia Belle in Lake City, FL.1 He was the fourth of six children: John (1903), Frances (1907), Stephen (1908), Donald Jr. (1917), Miriam (1919), and Wendell (1922).2 Donald Jr.’s parents both came from Georgia where, prior to their marriage, Donald Sr. worked on a turpentine farm. The turpentine farm had both black and white workers. Donald Sr. worked as a woods rider on the farm – a foreman on horseback responsible for supervising black laborers in the woods.3 Black men did all of the physical labor in the woods while white men held all supervisory roles, including manager, woods rider, and commissary man.4
Donald Sr. married Julia Belle on December 18, 1901, in Johnson County, GA.5 The newlyweds moved to Toombs, GA, where Donald Sr. accepted a job managing a coffin factory.6 Julia Belle stayed home full time to care for their first three children, John, Frances, and Stephen. Lonnie Hickley, a black man listed as a “servant” on the 1910 census, lived with them and worked as a drayman for the coffin factory.7 Lonnie’s work at the coffin factory consisted of driving a low, flat-bed wagon without sides, used to transport heavy loads.8 Lonnie likely delivered lumber to the factory, as well as coffins to their destinations.
By 1916, despite his good job, Donald Sr. and Julia Belle made the decision to move their family out of Georgia. Donald Sr. moved his family to Lake City, FL, sometime between 1916 and 1917, where he took a job managing a grocery store. Between 1917 and 1922, Julia Belle gave birth to their three youngest children, Donald Jr., Miriam, and Wendell. After about a decade in Lake City, Donald Sr.’s employment changed from grocery store manager to restaurant overseer.9 While we cannot be sure why his employment changed, we know that Florida’s citrus industry suffered a crisis in 1929 due to an invasion of Mediterranean fruit flies, likely affecting grocery stores across the state. The state spent seven million dollars quarantining and destroying the affected citrus crops, an expenditure that worsened Florida’s already struggling economy at the start of the Great Depression.10 Despite the hardships of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the McColskey’s kept their children in school. As well-educated people themselves – Donald Sr. having graduated from high school and Julia Belle having completed two years of college – it is no surprise that all six of the McColskey children went to high school.11
In 1932, the McColskeys suffered the loss of their twenty-three-year-old son, Stephen Alexander, marking the first of three losses to come their way by 1944.12 The second struck in January 1938, when Donald Sr. passed away from a heart attack. After his father’s death, Donald Jr. became the family’s primary breadwinner, as his mother, Julia Belle, continued to care for the younger children and the home. Donald Jr. went to work as a truck driver for the Lake City Laundry Company.13 As we see here in the 1940 census, he earned a generous annual salary of $1,200: enough to support himself, his mother, and his youngest brother Wendell.14 John, Frances, and Miriam had already moved out of the house, but all still lived in Florida in 1940. John owned Lake City Auto Company; Frances married a pharmacist named James Pearce and moved to St. Petersburg; and Miriam lived in Jacksonville, working as a stenographer for the health department.15
Military Service
Donald Jr. registered for the draft at the age of twenty-two, on October 16, 1940, in Lake City, FL, in accordance with the 1940 Selective Training and Service Act.16 Two years later, in lieu of waiting to be drafted, Donald enlisted in the US Army Air Force and, in August 1942, traveled to Valdosta, GA, to begin his training at Moody Air Force Base as an Army Air Corps cadet.17 Army Air Corps cadets received seven months of training, consisting of preliminary flight training, basic training, and advanced flight training.18 During this seven-month period, Donald received his assignment to be a specialized gunner and, directly following this initial training, likely went through specialized gunnery training courses. These specialized courses lasted for six weeks and included 312 hours devoted to learning about sights and sighting, ballistics and bore sighting, aircraft recognition, range estimation, gun malfunctions, moving target ranges, turret drills, and air-to-air firing.19 Upon the completion of his training, the Army Air Force promoted Donald to Staff Sergeant – which made him a non-commissioned officer, ranking above a regular sergeant – and assigned him to the 32nd Bomb Squadron, 301st Bombardment Group.20
Prior to Donald’s enlistment in the Army Air Force, the 301st Bombardment Group, activated on January 28, 1942, began training with the B-17 Flying Fortresses, a four-engine bomber plane, on February 3, 1942 at Geiger Field, WA.21 The B-17 carried a crew of ten men; the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier/nose gunner, flight engineer/top turret gunner, radio operator, two waist gunners, a ball turret gunner, and a tail gunner.22 Each man received specialized training for their positions, with the pilot, co-pilot, engineer, navigator, and bombardier receiving the most competitive training. Due to the precision and expertise needed to successfully carry out these jobs, these men needed to pass exams throughout the course of their training in order to stay in the program. If they failed, they would be assigned to a different position.23
While Donald worked towards completing his training in Georgia, the 301st, assigned to the 9th Air Force, moved to England and began flying combat missions in September 1942. The group focused on bombing submarine pens, airfields, railroads, and bridges located in France. In November 1942 the 301st relocated to North Africa after being assigned to the 12th Air Force, where they remained for over a year. While stationed in North Africa, the 301st bombed docks, shipping facilities, and railroad yards located in Tunisia, Sicily, and Sardinia. It earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for action on April 6, 1943, when the group withstood intense enemy anti-aircraft fire from shore defenses while completing a mission to destroy supplies essential to the Axis defense of Tunisia.24
It is possible that Donald Jr. joined the 301st during their time in North Africa, as he would have completed his training by mid-1943. We do know that he served with the 301st when it moved to Italy in November 1943 upon being assigned to the 15th Air Force.25 Once in Italy and assigned to their aircraft, Donald and his nine crewmates nicknamed their B-17 Flying Fortress the “Princess O’Rourke,” for the 1943 American romantic comedy film starring Olivia De Havilland. They picked the name because de Havilland was “the girl they would most like to have as a stowaway.”26 Between November 1943 and September 1944, Donald and his crewmates flew missions bombing strategic targets such as oil refineries, communication centers, and industrial areas in the Axis territories and Axis occupied territories of Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece.27
During his time in Italy, Donald successfully completed twenty-four missions with the 301st Bombardment Group and needed just one more in order to complete his tour and request a furlough to go home. In an effort to round out his tour sooner, Donald switched missions with another crewmember, and on the morning of September 10, 1944, boarded B-17 #44-6353. The group assigned to this mission left the US airfield in Lucera, Italy, with instructions to drop bombs over the Lobou oil refinery in Vienna, Austria. Shortly after the bombs dropped over the oil refinery, enemy anti-aircraft guns hit his B-17 #44-6353, leaving gaping holes in the nose and tail of the aircraft. The plane, after entering a violent tailspin and falling about 2,000 feet, exploded in mid-air. Staff Sergeant Floyd E. Brownlee, the tail gunner on a neighboring airplane, recollected that initially he saw only three parachutes come out, and assumed that the remaining seven crew members did not have time to bail out. Just before the plane exploded, Brownlee witnessed one more crew member, Sergeant John Gelber, make it out of the airplane at the very last second, having been “blown clear when the ship blew up.”28
All four of the men who bailed out parachuted safely to the ground, after which they became prisoners of war in Poland.29 American prisoners of war in Poland experienced extreme temperatures, starvation, and exposure as their captors marched them around Poland and Germany, ahead of the advancing Allied Armies from the Soviet Union.30 The four men, Samuel Siegel, William Thomas Hitt, Clayton Henry Schneider, and John Gelber, all survived the war, making it back home to the United States after being liberated by British and Soviet forces in April 1945.31 In a debriefing following their return, the crash survivors reported that they bailed out through the holes created by enemy fire. Two of them said that they last saw Donald trying to open the plane’s escape hatch, which was stuck shut.32 Donald and the other crew members, Robert Bumbarger, Thomas Gill, Gregory Halford, Stewart Holloway, and Gail Stubbs, likely never made it out of the aircraft before it exploded.33
The Army Air Corps initially declared Donald and the five crewmen “Missing in Action.” On December 25, 1944, Donald’s eldest brother John received a telegram from the War Department, seen here, informing the family of this tragic news.34 Julia Belle, Donald’s mother, clearly held onto the hope that he survived as she included him in the 1945 Florida state census, listing him as “missing.”35 After the war, in 1946, the US government changed his status to “Finding of Death,” in the absence of a body.36 Donald’s body was eventually recovered, though we are not sure when, after which the authorities determined he died on September 10, 1944. Donald was interred at the Lorraine American Cemetery in December 1948, four years after the aircraft explosion.37
Legacy
Donald was survived by his mother, Julia Belle, brothers John and Wendell, who served in the United States Marine Corps, and sisters Frances and Miriam. Julia Belle passed away in 1947, just three short years after the death of her son Donald.38 While we do not know why she died, it is likely that grief played a role in her early death, after having lost her husband and two sons within twelve years. It is possible that Julia Belle passed away not knowing that Donald had been found, as he was not interred until 1948, one year after her passing. For his service, Donald earned the Air Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster and a Purple Heart. He is buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery, located in St. Avold, France, alongside nearly 10,500 American servicemen and women.39
1 “U.S., WWII Draft Registration,” database, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com : accessed February 5, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Lake City, Columbia, Florida.
2 “1920 U.S Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Lake City, Columbia, Florida.; “1930 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 3, 2021), entry for McColskey family, Lake City, Florida; There are discrepancies with the spelling of Stephen’s name, the above version is used as the spelling found on his headstone in Lake City, Florida.
3 “1900 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Johnson county, Georgia; Dana Ste. Claire, “Pine Forests Hold Pieces of County’s Turpentine Years,” The Orlando Sentinel, accessed April 15, 2021, https://www.orlandosentinel.com.
4 Lindsey M. Bryan, “Life History of C.W. Wimster, Turpentine Man,” Tampa, Florida, 1939, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh1.10090210, accessed February 5, 2021.
5 “1901 State of Georgia, Johnson County, Marriages,” database, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Johnson, Georgia.
6 1910 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Toombs, Georgia.
7 Ibid.
8 Ed. H.G. Emery and K.G. Brewster, The New Century Dictionary (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1952), 458.
9 “1920 U.S. Census;” “1930 U.S. Census.”
10 Scott Hussey, “Freezes, Fights, and Fancy: The Formation of Agricultural Cooperatives in the Florida Citrus Industry,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2010): 81, 89.
11 “1920 U.S. Census;” “1930 U.S. Census;” “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 3, 2021), entry for McColskey family, Lake City, Columbia, Florida.
12 “Stephen Alexander ‘S.A.’ McColskey,” Find a Grave, accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9953770/stephen-alexander-mccolskey.
13 “U.S., WWII Draft Registration.”
14 “1940 U.S. Census,” entry for Donald McColskey.
15 “1940 U.S. Census,” entry for John McColskey, Lake City, Frances Peace, St. Petersburg, and Miriam McColskey, Jacksonville.
16 “U.S., WWII Draft Registration;” “First Peacetime Draft Enacted Just Before World War II,” U.S. Department of Defense, accessed March 10, 2021, https://www.defense.gov. The 1940 Selective Training and Service Act required all males between the ages of 21-45 to register for the draft, this was the nation’s first peacetime draft.
17 “U.S., WWII Army Enlistment Records,” database, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com : accessed February 5, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey.; “What Was the Difference Between Enlistees and Draftees In World War II,” historynet, accessed April 21, 2021, https://www.historynet.com. We can assume that Donald decided to enlist, and did enlist, as opposed to waiting to be drafted because his service number begins with a “1”, whereas draftees received service numbers beginning with a “3”.
18 Rebecca Hancock Cameron, Training to Fly: Military Flight Training 1907 – 1945 (Air Force History and Museums Program: 1999), 438-450.
19 Ibid.
20 “Headstone Inscription and Interment Record,” database, Ancestry.com, (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 8, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey.
21 Maurer Maurer, ed., Air Force Combat Units of World War II (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Print Office, 1961), 173.
22 “B-17 Flying Fortress,” U.S. Department of Defense, accessed April 20, 2021, https://airman.dodlive.mil/2019/03/25/b-17-flying-fortress/
23 Cameron, Training to Fly, 420-450.
24 Maurer, Air Force Combat Units, 173; “Air Force’s Personnel Center, Presidential Unit Citation,” U.S. Air Force, accessed March 10, 2021, https://www.afpc.af.mil.
25 Maurer, Air Force Combat Units, 173.
26 “Press Release 15th AAF in Italy,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 5, 2021), member upload.
27 Maurer, Air Force Combat Units, 174.
28 “SSgt Donald Henry “Donnie” McColskey Jr.,” Find a Grave, accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56658213/donald-henry-mccolskey; “Missing Aircraft Report number 8620,” database, The National Archives (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/91057152 : accessed February 8, 2021), entry for Aircraft #44-6353. The term “bail out” refers to the escape from a dangerous situation by parachuting out of an aircraft.
29 “Missing Aircraft Report;” William T. Hitt, Clayton H. Schneider, and John Gelber were all sent to Stalag Luft IV, a POW camp for non-commissioned Officers. Samuel Siegel, a 2nd Lieutenant, was sent to Stalag Luft III.
30 “A POW Thanksgiving 1944 in Stalag Luft IV,” National WWII Museum, accessed April 20, 2021, https://www.nationalww2museum.org.
31 “Stalag Luft III,” Tracesofwar, accessed April 20, 2021, https://www.tracesofwar.com/.
32 “Missing Aircraft Report.”
32 Ibid. Like Donald, their bodies were eventually recovered. Stubbs is buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery, near Donald, while Holloway rests at the Ardennes ABMC Cemetery in Belgium, and Rumbarger, Halford, and Gill were sent back to the US, likely at their families’ requests. See “Gail Stubbs” and “Stewart Hollloway,” American Battle Monuments Commission, https://www.abmc.gov/database-search; “Thomas J. Gill,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/41175531/thomas-j-gill; “SSGT Robert Henry Bumbarger,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188192296/robert-henry-bumbarger; “1Lt Gregory Halford,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/124227920/gregory-halford.
34 “Western Union Telegram,” database, Ancestry.com, ( https://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 5, 2021), member upload; “Missing Aircraft Report”.
35 “1945 Florida Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Lake City, Columbia, Florida.
36 “World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing,” database, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com : accessed February 8, 2021), entry for Donald McColskey, Columbia County, Florida.
37 “Headstone Inscription and Interment Record.”
38 “Julia Bell Crawford McColskey,” Find a Grave, accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9953733/julia-bell-mccolskey.
39 “Headstone Inscription and Interment Record:” “Lorraine American Cemetery,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed March 15, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/Lorraine.