Interviewed by:
Blake Robinson and Lukas Hernandez

"Well, it made me feel like I was enjoying myself." 30:01-30:10

~ Mac talking about how writing letters home made him feel.

Francis A McClellan's Story

Francis A. McClellan started out in the 1930's working at a Chevrolet dealership in Lawrence MA, driving the cars into Boston to have them repaired. When the war in Europe began he wanted to enlist and lend his services to the country by joining the American Air Force. When the they turned him down him down because of his lack of a college education, Francis went up to the Canada on a ski trip and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in the process, from there he left his home and family and went to England. There he learned how to fly a twin engine bomber along with a Hurricanes and Lancaster's .

After his stint in Basic, he was assigned to the African front fighting Rommel "The Desert Fox" a major German tank general. His first assignment was to deliver a plane down to Cairo Egypt, but this lead to problem. Francis and his crew of six had left to late in the day, this meant by the time they would arrive in Cairo night would have already fallen. As they got to Egypt night had fallen, and worst of all, the runway didn't expect Francis's plane until the next day and had shut down the runway lights, thus causing Francis and his crew to continue flying and flying through the night.

After many hours the plane ran out of fuel, it started to loose altitude and shuttle towards the ground. Without a second to spare, Francis and the rest of the crew picked up parachutes and jumped from the aircraft.

The plane spiraled down and crashed in the desert, exploding into flames.

He and his crew regrouped around the plane's burning fuselage, and waited there until just a little while later, a group of native African people surrounded them with long headed spears.

These Africans took Francis and the crew back to their village after he gave the Africans a small stack of 3 or 4 white and blue cotton shirts as a peace offering.

After two weeks the French District official found Francis and his crew all still alive, living with the Natives. The french took them back to Cairo where the British officials had been waiting for the last two weeks, and from there sent Francis and his squad on many bombing mission on Africa based German outlets with the British, and many other missions with the U.S. over Sicily and Italy, before returning home at the end of the war.