He was not aware that he had been hit by flak: there seemed to be no sign of fire in the Spitfire and the aircraft controls were responding normally, but on checking the fuel gauges, he realised that he was out of fuel. Looking down, he saw that he was over the outskirts of Bologna: to bail out would mean prisoner-of-war camp for him, at least, so as he had altitude on his side, he decided to try and glide back over allied lines, some 12 miles away. The problem for Donald was that the friendly lines were in the northern foothills of the Apennines, at a height of 700 to 1700 feet, with some parts a lot higher, so it would be touch-and-go whether he could glide that far. He knew too that he was committing himself to a forced landing in rocky terrain, unless he was exceptionally lucky. He tried to jettison his hood, but it would not release. After a further struggle, it came away, but by now he was down to 2000 feet and he could not see any sign of the front line. On reaching 1000 feet, and almost giving up hope, he saw a road ahead of him and that it was clear of snow: this could only mean that it was in Allied hands, as no roads on the German side would be as clear. As the Spitfire came down to a few hundred feet, Donald saw that he was heading for a farmhouse, so he pulled up slightly over the top of it and ahead appeared a large snow-covered field - but he does not remember anything of what happened next.
In fact, he had over-flown the Allied lines by about 3 miles and, by an amazing coincidence, he had crash-landed just outside Loiano, less than a mile from where the big gun was sited. It was their gunners who rescued him unconscious from the wrecked Spitfire. The aircraft had sustained flak damage in numerous places - in both the mainplane and the fuel tanks, so he had been leaking fuel that way. Donald was handed over to a medical unit of the United States Army and moved to a US Evacuation Hospital at Pietramala, 5 miles south of Loiano. He was unconscious for more than 24 hours. He was told later that he had got the Spitfire down safely but, towards the end of the wheels up landing run, hidden by the snow, was a large pile of stones which the aircraft had hit at some speed. He sustained compression fractures of the spine involving the sixth and seventh vertebrae (the so-called “Hurricane” fracture), but fortunately, the injury had not involved the spinal cord. He also had a fractured skull and multiple lacerations.
Remarkably, Donald was fit enough to return to No 208 Sqn in early April 1945 and he soon had his hand in again. The award of the DSO was promulgated in the London Gazette on 6 April 1945, which recorded that: “his coolness and courage in the face of concentrated enemy fire set a fine example.”
