Prisoner of War (POW) - crashed near Turnhout, Belgium on 18 Sep 44 in P-47 'Duffies Special' 42-26020.



78th FG 83rd FS. On 18th September 1944, during General Montgomery’s Operation Market Garden, the 78th FG provided fighter-bomber support to the second Air Task Force. Five aircraft were lost. There was very poor visibility due to haze from the ground up to 5,000 ft. at the time of 1st Lt Russell MacDuffee’s bail-out .



“Our flight was circling enemy territory at 3,500 feet in an attempt to draw fire from any unknown flak positions. Just northwest of Zaltbommal the plane of Lt MacDuffee, our flight leader, was hit by heavy flak somewhere on the lower side of the belly. This was noticeable because fire started streaming from the plane. I called this information to Lt MacDuffee who immediately headed about 190 degrees in an effort to reach Allied territory. Since pieces of the plane were breaking off and the fire was not diminishing, I advised him to bail out and not attempt to “belly-land” the plane. This he did successfully about five miles north of Turnhout, in occupied Belgium. I last saw him scrambling through tall grass to the east away from the direction where his plane crashed.”



Lt MacDuffee was captured and imprisoned at Stalag Luft 1, North 3 Barracks 8 (Block 308).



Lt. MacDuffee was successfully liberated from Stalag Luft 1 after almost a year of imprisonment and was honorably discharged. He married Joan Visser, earned a Bachelor's degree from Iowa State University (on the GI Bill) and had a 15 year career as an Engineer. He had 3 daughters. He subsequently died in a car accident in 1964. His wife and daughters are all still iving as of August 2019 and he has 4 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren (so far). He was a great dad and a gift of a person.