Sikeston WWII veteran was held six months as POW in Germany

SIKESTON, Mo. -- In 1943, 18-year-old Judson Willis Jr. wanted to be a pilot in the Army Air Corps, but Uncle Sam had other plans. After a year of training in Texas, Willis graduated as a navigator.

And navigate he did -- from Texas across the country to Virginia then across the ocean to southern Italy. His stint in the military would also take him to Germany as a prisoner of war, after liberation onto France before returning to the U.S., where Willis eventually would settle in Sikeston.

As a member of the 15th Air Force's 464th Bomber Group, 778th squadron, Willis was the navigator for a B-24 Liberator, a bomber capable of carrying up to 10 tons of bombs to a target.

"I had to keep track of all travel," he explained about his duties as the navigator. Sometimes he worked from paper charts and maps, plotting the plane's moves or he could use the stars to navigate.

"The most difficult part of it was you had to keep a record of every direction, the altitudes, tell the pilot whether to go right or left," he said.

The plane carried a crew of 10 -- the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radio operator, nose turret, top turret, waist gunner, ball turret and tail gunner.

Each mission began with a briefing. Willis would be informed of the coordinates for the mission; the pilot would get his instructions and plane assignment.

As their missions began, Willis took his seat on the flight deck with pilot Melvin Roche and co-pilot Jim Davis for take off. Then he would head to the plane's nose where he kept his charts, right next to one of the 50-caliber machine guns. Willis said he would sit on the cases holding the shells, until the gunner was called into action. Then there were the empty bullet casings to be dodged as the gunner fired away at the enemy.

"We got hit pretty hard on every mission," he recalled.

Once the plane was hit by aircraft fire causing it to lose its fuel. Willis, who was at his station tracking the plane's movements, was called by the pilot, who needed the navigator's help in getting the plane safely to a refueling stop in the Adriatic Sea.

Willis worked at his maps, taking the plane safely to an emergency landing strip on a tiny island. There they refueled the undamaged tanks and limped back to Italy.

Rocky start

His fifth mission didn't begin well, Willis recalled. The planes were delayed by an explosion on the runway. Then, as they headed to the target in southern Germany, their fighter escort was no longer in sight.

"The German boys were up there in the clouds waiting," Willis said. The Me-109s headed toward the Liberators, while down below more German guns were aimed at the planes.

Willis' plane, Little Rocket, was hit. First the electrical system was shot out, leaving it without power, then the German planes riddled the plane with bullets catching the engines on fire. There was nothing left for the crew to do but bail out.

Parachuting from his damaged plane, Willis landed in a partially snow-covered field, hitting his head on the frozen ground and blacked out. When he woke, there stood German soldiers.

"They were waiting for me. The Germans were," Willis said.

All the crew was captured but one, Gordon Swygard. According to reports, the radio operator was unable to clear the burning plane, catching his parachute on fire.

The Germans took Willis and the other prisoners to Gyor, Hungary.

Willis recalled he was kept in a small room in solitary confinement. Two or three times a day, the Germans would question him, accuse him of lying, threaten him and occasionally beat him.

Willis shrugs off the treatment, saying only: "I just wished I had a better place to lay and some food. They threatened me but they didn't beat me too bad."

What food he did get was cooked cabbage. So much cabbage, Willis still refuses to eat it.

After a week, he and several other prisoners were moved by train to Vienna, Austria, then to Frankfort, Germany. He smiles recalling an older German guard who accompanied them on the train. The guard, who spoke English, told the young Missourian about his family and about Germany. In turn, Willis would suggest the German let him escape. "No, no, no," he said the guard replied.

Just days before Christmas 1944, Willis arrived at Stalag Luft in Barth, Germany.

He was led into a room into a large barracks, filled with bunk beds, one long wood table and a small coal stove. Here, Willis and 23 other soldiers would spend the next six months.

"Every day was the same. We would sit and talk to each other and play cards. They would take us out in the camp twice a day -- morning and evening. They treated us fairly well," he said quietly.

He described the guards as strict, watching them closely as they arrived for formation.

Each day, the room was allotted just a few pieces of coal, despite the bitterly cold winter. Willis remembers always keeping as much clothing on as possible to stay warm inside their quarters.

Their rations were meager. He said the bread they received was made with sawdust rather than flour and they were given imitation coffee.

In May or June of 1945, the Russians arrived at the prison camp; a few days later the Americans marched in. Soon the prisoners were loaded onto B-17s flown in from England; the planes would take them first to France.

Willis still grins while thinking about that first meal in France. "I ate so much, I got very uncomfortable," he said.

From France, the prisoners boarded a ship for home. Willis said he landed back at Newport News, Virginia, the same port he departed for the war.

Willis credits the Army with giving him an interest in navigation, instruments and engineering.

"I always had a desire to go to college then when I learned Uncle Sam would pay for it, I took advantage of that," he said.

As soon as he was discharged, Willis enrolled in college at Cape Girardeau then earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla, now Missouri University of Science and Technology. It was in Rolla he met his wife, Catherine.

The couple moved to Sikeston, where he worked for the Missouri Department of Transportation and they raised a family -- sons Steve and Jim, and daughter Terri. He remained in the Air Force Reserves until 1958 when a physical exam detected a brain tumor causing him to have seizures. Doctors would eventually attribute it to the blow to the head he received after he parachuted from his plane.

Although his military career had ended, he said it provided him with a love of travel, the basis for a career as an engineer and more.

"I don't think if anyone goes in and learns navigation they will ever forget it," he said.

Willis certainly hasn't. He still loves maps.