In March of this year, Clarion American Legion Commander Raejean Chapman received a Certificate of Continuous Membership of 75 years for former Clarion resident Lyle J. Mc Conaughy. This certificate came from the National American Legion Headquarters and is signed by National Commander James W. “Bill” Oxford.
Lyle currently resides in Sun City, Arizona. Several ideas were discussed to present this certificate to him. American Legion member Dennis Mraz was planning a trip to Mesa, Arizona to visit his family and volunteered to present the honor to Lyle in person.
Mr. Mc Conaughy was surprised to receive the award but happy to get the honor. While talking to Dennis, Lyle recounted some of his experiences while in the Army Air Force during WWII. He admitted that he really wanted to fly and was something of a “hot” pilot. He was the first to solo in his classes. But while on a training exercise flying from Texas to Oklahoma to Kansas City, and then Chicago, he came in a “little” fast and had a hard landing at O’Hare and blew out the front nose wheel tire. Later, on another training mission, he forgot to turn on a secondary fuel tank and nearly crashed his bomber on a long flight.
In another harrowing story, Lyle told of being a 20-year-old Captain piloting a B-24 bomber from Italy to Rumania when suddenly he was down to only two engines out of four working. He said a B-17 would maybe make it back but that darn B-24 just kept losing altitude. He knew if he kept going, they would crash in the Adriatic Sea and the crew would probably all drown. They could land in Yugoslavia and if picked up by the Partisans (the anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers), they would get back to base. If they were caught by the guerrillas, they would face a firing squad. Obviously, Lyle and his crew safely landed and were returned to their base in Italy.
Congratulations to 96-year-old Lyle Mc Conaughy for both his service and 75 years in the
