Born and raised in Indiana, Royce McGillvary had four years of High School behind him when he enlisted in the Air Corps in 1943. A member of the 92nd Bomb Group / 407th Bomb Squadron, he was on board B-17 #42-3184 when it had to make a forced landing in The Netherlands. It was Royce's tenth mission, over Osnabrück, Germany, 22 December 1943. 

He managed to evade capture through Holland and Belgium with the help of Dutch and Belgian patriots with the aim of getting him to Spain via France. Hidden in various safehouses, the plans were changed in the Spring of 1944, due to a number of arrests in the Comet evasion network. 

On his way South, he was arrested with other evading airmen in Spontin, Belgium after an unsuccessful identity control. They were led to the Namur prison for questioning, then brought to the Saint-Gilles prison in Brussels. On 2 September 1944, McGillivray and about 40 other Allied airmen, together with some 1500 Belgian civilians were brought to a Brussels station and put on a train, destination Germany. 

Thanks to clever and anti-Nazi Belgian railway workers, the train never left the area and the incident became known as "The Ghost Train". Mc Gillvary was back in England on 15 September 1944. For full details of his evasion, arrest and liberation, see http://www.evasioncomete.org/fmcgillrf.html