Flight Lieutenant Arthur Donahue, A St. Charles boy who learned to fly in Winona was the first American pilot to see combat action in World War II. Flight Lieutenant Art Donahue, who died in 1942 flying a Spitfire for the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force, was inducted Saturday into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.
Donahue will be one of nine history-making Minnesota flyers to be honored this year, according to Lyle Harrison, a fellow St. Charles native who, along with retired Air Force Col. Ken Weber, researched Donahue's nomination.
Donahue was 17 when he first took to the sky in 1930 at the Winona airport, under the instruction of Max Conrad. By age 20 he was the youngest licensed commercial and airline pilot in Minnesota, and possibly in the entire country, Harrison said.
He flew a Ford Tri-Motor for Conrad in various ventures, including scheduled passenger service linking Winona, Rochester and St. Paul. That early enterprise was terminated when the underinsured airplane flipped over while parked in a violent windstorm and was damaged beyond repair.
Donahue picked up additional revenue by barnstorming Civilian Conservation Corps camps on the men's paydays, dropping from the sky into a nearby grassy field and offering rides for 50 cents.
At 27, Donahue had already logged 1,807 hours in the air and was not only licensed as a private, commercial and airline pilot, but as an airframe and powerplant mechanic.
In late June 1940, as the United States maintained its neutrality as war raged in Europe, Donahue told his parents he was bound for England. He assured them he would be helping out in a noncombat role, and that they had nothing to worry about.
He wasn't quite telling the truth.
Donahue took a ship for Liverpool on July 7, arrived in England on the 14th, and two days later began training in the legendary Spitfire fighter.
The Battle of Britain was raging and the Royal Air Force was desperate for pilots. Because of the war, its yearlong training course was compressed to 18 days.
Donahue's flying experience was in smaller, slower planes than the Spitfire, Harrison said, but at the end of the course the training commander told Donahue that his best instructor from that point on was combat.
On Aug. 5 Donahue was assigned to Squadron 64. While flying over the English Channel he engaged his first German aircraft, a Messerschmitt, and in the process became the first American involved in the war's aerial combat. He managed to pilot his bullet-ridden plane back to base.
A week later he became the first American pilot shot down in the war, suffering severe burns to his right side. While he recuperated, he commandeered a typewriter and hammered out "Tally Ho! Yankee in a Spitfire," the first of two books chronicling his combat experiences.
The war took Donahue to the Pacific just in time to see the fall of Singapore. He took a .50 caliber machine-gun bullet through his leg while flying a mission against the Japanese in Sumatra, and during his recuperation, he wrote the second of his two books, "Last Flight From Singapore."
It would be published posthumously.
After he recovered and returned to England in early September 1942, Donahue flew routing patrols with Squadron 91. On Sept. 11, flying a dawn patrol along the coast of France, Donahue attempted to lure a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 that had been spotted the previous day into combat.
The German pilot took the bait and Donahue scored his fifth kill, but not before taking one or more shots to his engine, damaging the cooling system.
He informed his base of the damage, but his engine seized and he was forced down into the sea.
No trace of man or machine was ever recovered...

Photo:
Winona County Historical Society