Bokey McClellan obit.jpg   Sgt McClellan had published 3 books and numerous articles.

The following was written/published shortly before his death:

From: Page 1 Volume 33 Number 4 Winter 1994 SECOND AIR DIVISION ASSOCIATION The official publication of the Second Air Division Association published quarterly by the 2ADA TABLE OF CONTENTS ..... The Unknown Priest of Buncher Eight DONALD H. McCLELLAN 7 ...... Page 7 THE UNKNOWN PRIEST OF BUNCHER EIGHT BY DONALD H. McCLELLAN (491st) I like to think it was the hand of God I saw raised toward the fog-shrouded skies over England during those early morning takeoffs almost fifty years ago, a time and a place that still echoes ominously in my memory. The hand belonged to someone I later came to think of as "the unknown priest of Buncher Eight." A tall man, the priest, stood alone in the high wet grass at the end of the runway at our 8th Air Force base in England during World War II and blessed each American bomber as it became airborne and disappeared up and into an air space beepingly identified as Buncher Eight. From inside the speeding aircraft, the unknown priest always flashed before me in an instant and then just as suddenly vanished. But the moments I saw him were my moments of hope. Today, I can still sense and smell and feel those moments. I can see the priest as he lifts his palm to bless our chances of returning safely. I can also feel the bomber vibrating up and into the dripping canopy of clouds hovering over the channel coast of Great Britain, a checkered landscape far below from where the liberators of the 491st Bomb Group soared skyward and split the cone of air space designated by radio signals as Buncher Eight. At altitude, high in the remoteness of the invisible cone, a polka dotted plane awaited us, a comic bomber doing limited duty by circling the perimeter of Buncher Eight, marshalling the most dangerous parade ever devised by man. The four-engine bombers of the 852nd Bomb Squadron heaved into position behind the polka dot plane, forming staggered diamond shaped elements of 12 plane formations, poised to launch out and across the North Sea with their sister ships. The polka dot plane eventually peeled off and faded into the clouds below, the last visual connection with anything we would recognize as friendly and trust as one of our own. Back on the ground the hand that blessed our departure had perhaps been lowered and the tall unknown priest it belonged to stood gazing heavenward as he murmured a final plea on behalf of the airmen whose presence was now only a receding drone beyond the clouds. But for this narrative, the priest may have never received a confession outlining how immediate and how permanent his blessings were to those of us who saw him standing alone in the tall wet grass at the end of the runway. I rolled down that runway and into combat 31 times, and 31 times I saw the priest, always alone, always wet, but always there, offering me an extra dimension that became to me a spiritual necessity in surviving the percentages of death. The same can probably be said for the crew I flew with, but whether or not they also saw the priest, I do not know. Overseas orders listed our 852nd BS crew as Richard Hogentogler, pilot; Franklin Norton, copilot; William Kearney, navigator, Ransom Pyle, bombardier; Donald McClellan; Warren Bellis; Wilfred Smith; James Calvello; Anthony Dwojakowski; and Gerald Meyers. We were a cross section of American youth, perhaps younger on average than most crews, but we blended well and encountered few personality problems. Our homes of record crisscrossed the country from California to Alabama to Brooklyn and a few points in between. None of us were noticeably religious, but each of us appeared to observe God in some way. What we shared was mostly what every heavy bomber crew who flew in combat with the 8th AF shared. We were the glue in the togetherness of a bomber combat crew, a bonding that by its nature is perhaps unparalleled. No stakes in teamwork are higher than the challenge Photo FATHER EDWARD NORKETT, Catholic Chaplain of the 491st. At last report Father Norkett, now approaching ninety years of age, was still active in the priesthood and maintains contact with many of his wartime comrades. facing those who ante up with death, and no man who experiences that gamble can tell you why one crew wins and another crew loses. When a person is caught in such a dilemma, he begins to pray for an edge; a talisman, if you will; something to give him and his fellow players that much needed edge against the fickleness of fate. In life, we all seek a talisman to counterbalance the threat of death. Sometimes the need to control our fate becomes so desperate we conceal within ourselves our deepest and most sincere prayers which we silently embrace in solitude. It is then that we gamble our lives on whatever is thought to be capable of protecting our immediacy, an immediacy nowhere more threatened than in the skies above enemy strongholds where men await you whose sole purpose for being there is to kill you. The unknown priest of Buncher Eight was my talisman. He became the deep source within me that warded off the flak and caused the German fighter planes to miss their mark. My combat missions began and ended where the priest stood in the tall wet grass at the end of the runway. He was the beacon from which our plane departed and the light to which it returned. Although he never left that spot, his presence flew with us on every mission. Among the men who flew our bomber, "The Starduster," the priest was never mentioned. like players on a baseball team whose pitcher has a no-hitter going, we remained silent, unwilling to disturb the status quo. Each time we flew into Germany and returned safely, it was another successful inning in a desperate game, and we all walked away from the plane knowing we were batting a thousand. Usually when writing about aerial combat, the mission is rightfully offered as the heart of the experience. I've always remembered each mission with vividness, but the "milk runs" were different from those long hauls deep into Germany where the odds against you increased with each mile traveled. However, there is now a sameness about them all. In retrospect, there were no "milk runs." Every mission dangled dangerously from the same frayed rope of destiny and the crews who were shot down just across the Channel had "bought the farm" as did the crews who fell from the skies above Berlin. And those of us who did not fall will never understand why it happened that way. Today, each of us remembers his combat missions in his own fashion. That is why my entire wartime experience can be summed up in my memories of the unknown priest. Over the years the memory of him has become central to my overall combat tour, and it has also become somewhat sacred. I have been asked why I never tried to identify the priest. The last thing I want to happen now is for something or someone to make a mere mortal of him. Such a revelation would rip the heart from the faith inherent in believing in something that is impossible to know for certain, a condition in life that must survive if hope itself is to survive. I much prefer that the unknown priest of Buncher Eight remain as he now lives in my memory; a vague, wet shadow of a man who sought nothing more in life than that the airmen of the 491st Bomb Group be protected, a faceless individual who always stood back in the shadows and whose identity, as far as I am concerned, is known only to God. Editor's Note: Unfortunately Hap Chandler telephoned McClellan before reading the entire story, so Don became aware of who the priest was. Many members of the 491st have remarked on Father Ed Norkett and his blessing the planes and their crews as they took off.