VIDEO: Portland Fire & Rescue Battalion Chief Mark Tilden was cleaning out the station around Christmas the first year of the pandemic, 2020, when he opened a cabinet and found a journal from the 1940s.
“Right in the middle of the page was a large picture of David R. Kingsley that said, ‘Congressional Medal of Honor,'” Tilden told KOIN 6 News. “That’s when my jaw dropped, like, how do I not know about this story?”
On this Memorial Day, Tilden met some of Kingsley’s family to talk about and learn more about the man who became a Portland firefighter in 1942 and then, “like many of our fire fighters, he dropped what he was doing and joined the effort to fight for our country.” Kingsley joined the US Army Air Corps and was a bombardier. “Ultimately he sacrificed his life to save a crew member,” Tilden said.