Lightning Sky

A U.S. fighter pilot captured by the enemy. A father determined to rescue his son. One of the most remarkable and moving true stories of faith and perseverance to come out of World War II.

October 6, 1944. Twenty-year-old Army Air Corps second Lieutenant Colonel David "Mac" Warren MacArthur was on a strafing mission over Greece when a round of 88-mm German
anti-aircraft shells turned his P-38 into a comet of fire and smoke. Mac parachuted to safety as the Lightning lived up to her name and struck the Adriatic Sea like a bolt of flames. In minutes, he was plucked from the water-only to find himself on the wrong end of a German rifle pointing straight at his head.

Mac's father, Lt. Col. Vaughn MacArthur, was a chaplain with the 8th Armored Division of Patton's Army when he learned of his son's capture. He made it his personal mission to find him. For the duration of the war, as Mac was shuttled from camp to camp-including Dachau-his father never stopped searching. Then in May, 1945, Vaughn's last hope was Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany. Through the barbed wire fence, he cried out his son's name. Incredibly, out of tens of thousands of POWs, one of them, squinting into the sunlight, turned and smiled.

Father and son spent the next week together celebrating, a forever cherished memory. Over the next twenty-five years, Mac would go on to honor his father on rescue missions of his own, becoming a highly decorated and genuine American war hero. In both Korea and Vietnam, Mac would carry with him the legacy of a great man who gave everything to save his son.

An inspiring, harrowing, and unforgettable chronicle of love of family and love of country, Lightning Sky is a timeless testament to extraordinary lives in extraordinary times.