JORDAN Boyd was handed a never-before-seen archival photograph of his maternal great-great uncle Donald Alexander McDonald in military uniform this week – and for Boyd it felt like Donald had quite literally been given back.
Boyd was fortunate to meet up on a number of occasions with Donald – a Carlton supporter who survived the horrors of World War 2 and lived to the glorious age of 101.
“I have not seen that photo . . . that’s pretty cool,” Boyd said when handed Donald’s wartime image.
“Donald was a similar age to me (when he enlisted). In fact he might have been a bit younger.
“I have a lot of old letters from him, (one of them) explaining that when he joined up he couldn’t follow orders and wasn’t going to make a good soldier, so he decided to join the Air Force – and he actually trained out at Point Cook, flying a Tiger Moth, which are those little biplanes.
“He said he crash-landed that (aircraft), put it on its roof, and ended up in hospital . . . he was later sent to England and joined the RAF as a pilot.”
By the time of his discharge in April 1945, Corporal McDonald had completed continuous war service as an airman with the RAF, during which time his incredible bravery came to the fore.
By war’s end he was the recipient of a number of medals - amongst them a medal of the highest order from the French, and the Distinguished Flying Cross from the then King of England. Boyd has seen those medals and remembered his great uncle telling him that on being honoured by George VI, “he (McDonald) remembered how the King stuttered, was really nervous and had sweaty hands . . . ”
The citation which accompanied the awarding of the latter medal reads: “Pilot Officer McDonald has completed numerous operations against the enemy, in the course of which he has invariably displayed the utmost fortitude, courage and dedication to duty”.
That said, Boyd was mindful that to the end his great-great uncle never thought of himself as a hero and kept certain wartime stories private.
“My great uncle did find it difficult to talk about,” Boyd conceded. “Later in life he opened up a bit about some of the stuff that happened, but not too much – and it took him about 50 years for him to get back on a plane.”
Through the course of the week, Boyd took the time to visit the Carlton Football Club archive at IKON Park and peruse the relevant wartime annual reports, which carried the names of the brave players past and present who had put their lives on the line in either The Great War or in World War Two.
History shows that of the 44 Carlton footballers or ex-footballers who enlisted for The Great War, 12 did not return – and of the 137 who similarly enlisted for World War Two, five did not make it home.
Boyd’s understanding of Carlton’s lost soldiers cuts deep, to the point that during the week he saw fit to share with his teammates the story of a lost soldier, Alf ‘Lofty’ Williamson – an 11-game Carlton player through the years 1912-’14 (and a great uncle to Geelong’s Gary Ablett sen.) who at just 23 years of age lost his life in an artillery barrage at Bullecourt, Northern France, in April 1917.
Such stories bring welcome perspective to Boyd in terms of his own life.
As he said: “the bravery all these men, and women, showed throughout these conflicts, is pretty crazy – as is hearing stories and seeing pictures of where they were fighting”.
