Flying Officer Donald Galloway Watt McKie (right) was returning from a mission when his, and another plane were shot down by U.K. friendly fire. He did not survive. [McKie family]

He was just two months old on May 29, 1944, when Flying Officer Donald Galloway Watt McKie of Toronto, piloting the Wellington bomber LN443, lost his life, along with all five other crew members, following a friendly fire incident near the rural English village of Hazelbury Bryan in Dorset.

The absence the tragedy left never went away. It was “always there,” recalls Craig. There was “always a missing chair.”

As for many families who lost fathers, brothers and sons, the McKies never really got over it.

The loss became internalized and its ripple felt for generations, including by people who didn’t even meet him. Craig’s daughter Catriana was one of them.

Despite being further removed from the loss, the continued effect it had on her father ultimately transferred the familial trauma to her. She came to understand, not just family, but why one would be willing to sacrifice their life for the lives of unknown strangers through photos of a man she, too, never knew in person.

Now, that sacrifice will be remembered again with a commemorative plaque near the Hazelbury Bryan crash site. The two generations of the McKie family will pay tribute to Donald and his crew with an unveiling ceremony on May 31, 2025—81 years and two days after the incident.

Craig and Catriana spoke about the occasion in a Legion Magazine exclusive.

Rae Cummer and Don McKie in 1942 when they first began to date. [McKie family]

Craig: My father grew up on a working-class street in Toronto, went to high school locally, and became a Bell [Canada] lineman. When the war started, all of the boys residing on that street joined the RCAF. By the war’s end, only two were left alive.

My mother was actually annoyed that they survived because, to her, it wasn’t fair.

Catriana: Had he survived the war, which he didn’t really expect to, I’ve heard he wanted to become a bush pilot. Of course, sadly, that was never destined to happen.

Craig: [Don] wasn’t even supposed to be there [on the night of his passing]. He’d received a posting to a Pathfinder operational squadron somewhere else. But there was a mission with 14 Wellingtons assembled from various bases across England to drop chaff [a radar countermeasure] over Nante, France, as part of a deception scheme to divert German attention away from the imminent Normandy landings.

Coming home, they and another plane got attacked by an RAF Mosquito that shot the engines, which I gather were sputtering as they flew over Dorset. They almost made it over the hill but not quite, with their plane breaking up in a farmer’s field.

A member of the Home Guard named Sydney went out to the crash scene, where he found my father lying beneath a hedge. I gather everybody else was dead. He must have been badly beaten up, mumbling away in Sydney’s arms until he died.

On retracing Don’s final moments

Catriana: I was inspired by the 80th anniversary of D-Day, so I went looking for information about my grandfather. Before that stage, we only ever knew that the crash happened about four miles (6.5 kilometres) southwest of Sturminster Newton. I live in the U.K. now, near where an American bomber crash site is remembered in a local church, and another Wellington crash is remembered with a street named in its honour. I started wondering whether there was local knowledge related to Don.

Using Don’s aircraft registration number, I found an old post on an RAF discussion forum from 2006, and suddenly, we had a village name: Hazelbury Bryan. I got in touch with the parish clerk of the village, and they then put me in touch with local historian Godfrey Symes. Not only did he know all about the crash, but his uncle, Sydney, had been the first on the scene and had held my grandfather until he died.

I think I cried for an hour [after discovering the connection]. It was like finding him again. He was not just a number on a tiny card or a tombstone in a massive military cemetery—knowing that really felt like giving Don his humanity back.

Craig: Walking the ground for the first time was a bit spooky for me. It was like when you visit a place where you know something happened in the past—like if you go to Westminster Abbey, knowing that the people from centuries before are no longer there, but still feeling a strange sense of historical intrusion all around.

Catriana: What struck me was that it looked pretty much the same as it would have back then. You could imagine exactly what it was like all those years ago.

On the unveiling of the commemorative plaque

Catriana: There was previously a memorial to the crew organized by the local rector, and the Canadian high commissioner and a military attaché attended a ceremony, but we’ve not been able to find either the plaque or any record of it.

Godfrey and my dad have worked with the local [Royal British] Legion to arrange a new plaque. It’s been placed at the nearby butterfly reserve as a way of having it in a protected space, just in case the farm field is sold and developed in the future.

Craig: There will be a ceremony with RCAF and RAF representatives, and if the weather’s good and it fits in with their schedule, the Red Arrows will do a fly past and a section of historical aircraft from Yeovilton naval air station will join them.

All I hope for is a piper to play “Flowers of the Forest.” That’s my one request.

This abridged interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.