Pilot came home; six crewmen didn’t

It promised to be an easy mission the morning of March 4, 1945 — or as easy as a long-range bombing raid inside Nazi territory in the waning weeks of World War II could be. The weather was perfect for the flight from Italy across the Alps into southern Austria. Army Air Force 2nd Lt. MacDonell Moore and his B-24 crew had carried out a dozen similar runs under harsher conditions. No German warplanes had been spotted. “We were happy before we took off, because this was to be our last mission before going to a rest camp in a few days,” says Moore, 91, of Catonsville.

But the instant they dropped their bombs, all hell broke loose.

A cannon shell smashed into the B-24’s nose; a second sheared a wing. Moore took the time to help five buddies leap from the flaming aircraft before forcing himself out through its bomb bay at more than 22,000 feet.

Had he not delayed his jump by those few seconds, Moore

would likely have floated to earth near the four crewmates who would be paraded before crowds of civilians and then shot to death. They were victims of

“lynch justice for fliers” — a campaign ordered by the Nazi high command that historians are only now bringing to light.

Moore would live through the day, one of two members of the B-24 crew to survive.

In the following weeks and years he’d learn little about what really happened.

But a team of Austrian historians has studied the incident for years — and will share its findings Monday at a memorial ceremony at the site of the executions.

Moore is too infirm to make the trip. But he says he’s deeply grateful for the public nod to a group of men whose sacrifices might otherwise be lost to history.

In his Catonsville home, he adjusts himself in his favorite overstuffed chair.

“They’re worth remembering,” he says.Young pilot

GEORG HOFFMANN Pictured are the dog tags of Sgt. Levi L. Morrow and Cpl. Harold D. Brocious, two of Moore’s crew members who were murdered by an SS officer at the Strassgang railroad crossing near Graz, Austria. Austrian historians, two classes of Austrian high...

KENNETH K. LAM/BALTIMORE SUN PHOTOS Former World War II pilot MacDonell Moore, 91, enjoys a beer during happy hour at his senior apartment complex. in Catonsville. Moore was one of two crewmen who survived when their B-24 bomber was shot down over Graz, Austria ,on March 4, 1945.

MacDonell and Betty Ann Moore’s wedding picture from September 1944, shortly before the young pilot went off to war.