Search for Killearn RAF war hero

Oct 14 2011 by Donald Morton, Stirling Observer Friday

AN RAF base in Oxfordshire is trying to trace a local family with links to a Second World War hero.

Staff at RAF Benson are trying to trace Karen MacDonald whose father Flt Lt Duncan McCuaig DFC from Killearn was killed over Germany on September 28, 1944.

An RAF Benson spokesperson said: “Here at Benson, we are re-dedicating our Spitfire Gate Guardian, which depicts Mrs McDonald’s father’s aircraft, and we would very much like her to be there and take part.”

Mrs MacDonald was only two when her mother received the news that her husband was “missing, presumed dead” in 1944.

No further news was to emerge for 47 years until a German amateur war historian researching the biography of German pilot Robert Weiss “The Red Baron of World War Two” made a remarkable discovery.

He found out that Flt Lt McCuaig was shot down in his unarmed reconnaissance Spitfire by Weiss minutes after taking pictures of the Focke-Wulf factory in Bremen on September 28, 1944. The pilot baled out but his parachute failed to open; he was killed on impact and buried in a local graveyard in the village of Apelstedt, near Bassum.

Under normal circumstances, his body would have been transferred at the end of the war to a British Military War Grave. However, through human error or weathering on the original wooden cross, the name “McCuaig” was misread as “McCraig”.

As the British authorities could find no trace of a “McCraig” who went missing over Germany on that date, Flt Lt McCuaig was buried under a cross inscribed “Unknown Pilot” in the War Grave at Sage, near Oldenberg.

After amateur historian Werner Oeltjebruns found the plane using a metal detector and confirmed it was a Spitfire, he contacted the British authorities, who said they had lost track of McCuaig's family. He was told all that was known was the former Mrs McCuaig had remarried and moved to Dunblane.

It took until 1994 to track down the family and the RAF offered to fly them to the grave, now fitted with a new headstone, for a memorial service.

However, McCuaig’s widow was suffering from cancer and died six weeks later - and it was 1996 before her daughter could visit the grave.

Now RAF Benson is re-dedicating its Spitfire Gate Guardian, which depicts Mrs McDonald’s father’s aircraft and they would like her or members of her family to be there.

Anyone who can help in the search should contact Flt Lt Barry Robinson on 01491 837766 Ext 7642.