Sgt. Donald MacLellan "Fitter"

My father Sgt. Donald MacLellan was from Antigonish Nova Scotia, he enlisted at Halifax in August 1940 and overseas by May 1942. No. 64 base was his initial posting as a “Fitter” with ground crew servicing a/c, later posted to 434 squadron performing maintenance on heavy bombers.

When I was 13 or 14 in 1973-74 a man named Freddie Potts looked up my Dad in Antigonish. My dad knew a lot of people but I had never seen him so excited to see this fellow. So it was Freddie Potts and my Dad telling war stories with me listening in, I never knew my dad to drink so it was all-real.

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Sgt. MacLellan assisting with christening platform for "Rotary Club"

“…A Lancaster would come back; the tires shot out and rear gunner shot to death, young kid full of bullets, he told me he would wash out the tail-gunner cause that was all that was left…”

“…One day they were all in the camp and the only recreation was volleyball, it was during this activity the air raid sirens went off and they got hit with fire, Freddie Potts ran out to retrieve the volleyball amidst air fire...”

This was also the day I found out how my father earned the Oak Leaf Cluster;

“…he boarded a burning plane abandoned by a younger pilot, he gunned the engine’s to empty the fuel and thus prevented an explosion that would have killed many men in the camp...”

So that is only one story I got out of their meeting, until then I never realized why he said that one was so special. Since then I have been polishing the Oak leaf along with all my dad’s medals every November.

I was informed by Ken that his father arrived back in Nova Scotia in 1945, being dropped off at a bridge in Alma, 45 minutes from home and no one would pick him up. Donald eventually married and raised six children, (five daughters and the youngest a son – Ken).

Donald finished his grade twelve attending night school in the early 1970’s, later began reading through a set of encyclopedias while in a hospital prior to his death on 14th January 1978.

Ken has very high praise for his father, stating his father was never negative, despite the bridge incident.

Courtesy Ken MacLellan