Local DAR’s November activities focus on Veterans and Active Duty
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur (right) and his father, Lt. Col. Vaughn H. MacArthur, Chaplain (left). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
Lt. Col. Vaughn H. MacArthur, Chaplain (left) with Lt. Col. David W. MacArthur (right). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur. (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur (center). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
Service Cross. (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur (right) and his father, Lt. Col. Vaughn H. MacArthur, Chaplain (left). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
Lt. Col. Vaughn H. MacArthur, Chaplain (left) with Lt. Col. David W. MacArthur (right). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur. (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
LT. Col. David W. MacArthur (center). (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)
Service Cross. (Photo courtesy Kristin MacArthur)Military Lady Knox Chapter, DAR, supported Maine veterans at Togus with a book drive and donations of personal care products this month. The Chapter also participated in the annual Military Holiday Card Challenge, started in 2017.
Members wrote 253 cards to active duty service personnel. Those cards, along with thousands of others from around the country, are distributed to active duty military who are away from home during the holidays.
November is both National Native American Heritage Month and the month when the Nation recognizes Veteran’s Day. As part of Lady Knox’s November meeting, the Chapter promoted the history of Penobscot and other Indigenous infantry troops that stormed Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 and also recognized a list of accomplished female firsts in the military.
The main program was a talk by Kristin MacArthur, of Cushing. MacArthur presented a book talk on Lightning Sky: A U.S. Fighter Pilot Captured in WWII and His Father’s Quest to Find Him written by R.C. George, copyright 2019 Citadel Press. The book outlines the history of Kristin’s father, LT. Col. David W. MacArthur and her grandfather Lt. Col. Vaughn H. MacArthur, Chaplain with the Eighth Armored Division, who both served in WWII in Europe. Dave was shot down over Greece in a P-38 lightening and was captured by the Germans on Oct 6, 1944. He was held in POW camps until April 29, 1945. Vaughn was also serving in Europe at the time when he got word of the liberation of a POW camp that contained thousands of Allied prisoners in Moosburg, Germany. He managed to catch a ride on a plane to Moosburg to try to find his son. He was successful and they were reunited until Dave was sent back to the US.
Vaughn was tragically killed serving in Czechoslovakia on June 6, 1945. Kristin has plans to take some of Dave’s ashes to Vaughn’s grave in the Lorraine American Cemetery in St. Avold, France to fulfill Dave’s one last wish to be reunited with his father again. Kristin said she is confident that they are already reunited in heaven.
Dave subsequently served in Korea and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (the second highest military honor) for “extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy.” Dave also served during Vietnam.
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