Actually my father’s plane was 43-6879. He may have had 43-6875 for a while but I have a photo of Lt. Ken Upchurch and on the back of the photo it says May 13 “Yuppies Angel” is no more, “Mary Joyce” has taken over.
My dad’s crew chief was Sgt. Ziesmen.
My dad did tell me the story of how he was shot down and how he bailed out. I always loved to hear the story as a young boy growing up. But ya know he didn’t talk about it too much. The 1 1/2 kills you can see on the plane got upgraded to 2 aerial kills. As to how he got shot down, he was hit by flak while strafing a train over Chalais France. Pierre spoke to a witness who was only 14 years old that day and he said the flak guns were on the roof of Chateau de Chalais out of site from the group attacking that day. My dad thought the flak came from the train. Pierre also found Jacques who was also 14 years old and he helped my dad hide from the Germans that were heading his way. Jacques never new my dad’s name and he spent many years searching for this American pilot who came down a few farm fields away from him. I owe it all to Pierre to bring Jacques and myself together even though only by email. Pierre also uncovered my dad’s hand written notes. In these notes I found out he witnessed some very horrible things that the Germans did to the French people. On June 11, 1944 my dad was with a maques in Mussidan France and witnessed the massacre of 52 French citizens from the town. It was in reprisal for heavy loses they suffered the day before.
I think this is an awesome story and I want to get it out there and also keep it in my family forever. My first born son is named after his “Pop”. David Aloysius Donovan.
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