James Livingston MacDonald Flight Sergeant K/264905 619 RAF Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force February 14, 1926 Glace Bay, Cape Breton Co., NS August 11, 1943 No 16 Recruiting Centre, Halifax, NS 17 5 feet, 8½ inches Dark Brown Dark Brown Single Student Roman Catholic Roderick Herbert MacDonald (Father), Glace Bay, NS February 8, 1945 18 Runnymede Memorial, Surrey, England Panel 282 Commemorated on Page 536 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance Displayed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa on November 11 Flight Sergeant James Livingston MacDonald was the son of Roderick Herbert MacDonald (1895–1965) and Ella Leona (MacKinnon) MacDonald (1900–1951), of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. He was the brother of Herbert Alexander, John Dunstan, and Claude Joseph. He attended school in Glace bay between 1931 and 1943 and served with 45 Squadron Air Cadets in Glace Bay between 1940 and 1943. Enlisting at seventeen, four months prior to his eighteen birthday, he trained in Canada until May 1944. He disembarked in England on May 19, 1944 and following further trained was taken on strength with 619 Squadron on December 7, 1944. 619 RAF Squadron RAF was a heavy bomber squadron flying Lancaster bombers as part of No. 5 Group, RAF Bomber Command. On February 8, 1945 the aircraft, in which James MacDonald was the Gunner, departed RAF Station Strubby, Alford, Lincolnshire failed to return following air operations. In 1950, the wreckage of the aircraft was located in a pine forest near Koblentz twenty miles west north west of Stettin, Germany. Two graves were located nearby, one containing the remains of the pilot and the other grave contained remains that could not be identified. Other members of the crew are believed to have perished in view of the severity of the crash. With no known graves they are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. One crew member did managed to escape the plane, parachuting as the aircraft was going down, and was taken as a prisoner of war.

Source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial