(Tribune News Service) — Lee Chisholm Colodzin knew little about her uncle, 2nd Lt. David McMahon, until this spring. The World War II fighter pilot died in a plane crash a few years before she was born.
“I learned more about him in the last few weeks than I ever knew,” the Bolinas resident said.
McMahon was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, which is given to those who were wounded or had died during service. He died in the Philippines on Jan. 29, 1945 and was buried in Manila. It is believed that his medal was sent to his brother who lived in New York.
Last month, a historian in Georgia contacted Colodzin about a discovery. A forklift operator found McMahon’s name engraved on a Purple Heart at an auto scrapyard in Newnan, Georgia. The medal was kept in a mud-caked box that was lodged under a seat.
“You couldn’t really tell what it was, it was so muddy,” Gentry Auto Salvage employee Kirby Cheeves told the Newnan Times-Herald last month. “It must’ve been there for 10 years.”
He then brought the medal to Newnan’s VFW Post 2667. The post and several volunteers then started a nationwide search for McMahon’s next-of-kin. They found his niece last month.
“It made me think about my mother and how I wish she was here,” Colodzin said about her mother, who died when she was young.
On Wednesday, Novato’s VFW Post 7816 ceremonially presented the Purple Heart to Colodzin.
Jim Stein, a Post 7816 member who earned the Purple Heart as well as several Silver and Bronze stars when he served as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, handed McMahon’s medal to her. She also received a memorial plaque from the American Battle Monuments Commission.
“Our goal is to be in service to vets regardless of the era of their service,” the Novato post’s incoming commander, Douglas Sekishiro, said at the ceremony.
The Purple Heart was kept in the weathered Air Medal box in which it was discovered.
“You can tell it’s got some mileage,” Post 7816 member Rick Hanley said after viewing the box.
Colodzin told Hanley, “It really means a lot to me in honoring my uncle.”
Questions remain. How did McMahon’s medal end up in Georgia where he had no known connections? And what happened to his Air Medal, which is awarded for heroism?
“I’m not sure that we will ever have those answers,” said Steve Quesinberry, a historian who teaches at the University of West Georgia in Newnan.
He worked with VFW Post 2667 in searching for information on McMahon and his relatives after his Purple Heart was uncovered. He used the internet to find the second lieutenant’s military history and he also learned that McMahon had lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
McMahon flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers with the 348th Fighter Group in the Army Air Force’s 460th Fighter Squadron. He was stationed in the Philippines when U.S. forces battled the Japanese military there.
Georgia news outlets also ran stories on the mysterious Purple Heart, which sparked local interest.
“I still have people asking me about it now,” Quesinberry said.
A group of genealogists joined the search, including a member of the FamilySearch Center, who found a connection between McMahon and Colodzin. Quesinberry called her to confirm.
“She thought I was trying to sell her something,” he recalled. “But we got it straight.”
When it came time to deliver the Purple Heart across the country to Marin County, Quesinberry said that he contacted a courier service owner in Atlanta who had the medal delivered at no charge.
“Being a part of the return of this Purple Heart to the family has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” said Jeffrey Bouchard, senior vice commander of Post 2667.
© 2025 The Marin Independent Journal (Novato, Calif.).
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A World War II-era image of a P-47N Thunderbolt aircraft, which were used as both high-altitude escort fighters and low-level fighter-bombers. (U.S. Air Force)
