Recollections

Nancy Whitney O'Connell

Wife of Donald R. O'Connell

The following is based on a telephone interview during February 2004.

I learned about the crash from Don. The Squadron Commander was in touch with the people who had rescued him, and Don thought it best that he tell me himself. "I had to ditch my plane," he said. He also told me he had been burned, and would come home later that day. I was stunned. I had just spoken to him that morning.

The plane had been in the midwest - at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. The destination was a NATO country in Europe. His flight was part of "Operation High-Flight." They flew F-84s across the Atlantic to NATO in Europe to be taken apart and studies by the air forces of those nations.

Don had to go to Chicago to pick it up. He visited my parents there, and - I don't remember how this happened - but when he took a taxicab to the airport, some nuns rode in the taxi along the way. He explained his mission, and the nuns said they would pray for him.

Each pilot from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware made ten trips taking the planes to Europe. Don had completed several flights there already. He said that he had had a problem with the jet and that he stopped over for a repair in Wilmington. When the plane lost part of the tail section over Yonkers, he headed for water. When you bail out at 1,000 feet it's always very risky, but the nuns were praying for him!

I have the commendations from the Village of Larchmont and the Town of Mamaroneck. He was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by the Air force.

As he completed his four-year tour as a Reserve Officer, he accepted a regular commission and stayed in the Air Force. We were stationed for a while in Japan, and at the Air Command and Staff College in Montgomery, Alabama. While at the College he earned his Master of Public Administration degree from George Washington University.

During the Vietnam War he was stationed in the Philippines, and he was killed on a training mission in 1968.