Remembering the Greatest Generation

Walt Sehnert, Mildred Zink, Willis Jones on Mildred's 100th Birthday. (Courtesy photo)

Note: This past week we passed a noteworthy milestone here in McCook, though you will not hear about it on the 6 o'clock news. Mildred Zink, longtime McCook resident passed away, in her 105th year. It was also the first anniversary of the passing of Willis Jones. World War II was an important time in the lives of these two members of, what Tom Brokaw called, "The Greatest Generation." Earlier we recalled Mrs. Zink's story in these pages. Today, we would like to look back at the ordeal that Willis Jones endured during World War II.

Wartime Reflections of Willis Jones

Willis Jones, of McCook, grew up in Bloomfield, in Northeastern Nebraska, but by the time he was 24 years old, in 1941, he was working in California for the Santa Fe Railroad. In July of that year he was drafted into the Army's Armored Division. He was made a Company Clerk, a position he did not like at all.

Willis Jones as an Army Air Force cadet. (Courtesy photo)

When an opportunity arose, by which he could take the examination for becoming a Cadet in the Army Air Corps he jumped at the chance. After nine months training at a number of Air Bases in the US he was assigned to a B-17 crew, as a Co-Pilot, in the Air Corps-Heavy Bombardment. It was the fulfillment of a dream of flying.

Jones was married to his wife, Lucille in May 1943. In October of that year he and his B-17 crew shipped out to England. Willis was already a veteran of some dozen bombing missions over France and Germany when news arrived of the birth of his daughter, Dianne in March 1944.

Willis was always optimistic that he would make it through the war OK. He loved flying, though he did not relish flying in formation. Flying in formation was extremely strenuous. Once the path of the formation was set individual planes could not stray from that path till the target was reached. Thus planes in formation were vulnerable to enemy flak. At the other extreme, planes flying in formation were relatively safe from attacks by fighter planes. But lagging behind a formation was an invitation to disaster.

Jones and his B-17 crew flew 26 missions over the continent. All of these missions were good ones (relatively safe) except three.

Mission #13, on February 10, 1944 hit Braunsweig in Germany. From his diary:

"I thought I had been through some rough missions, but I've changed my mind after today's raid...Planes were going down all around us. We hit our target pretty good, but on the way back "Jerry" had everything his own way. We are a very happy bunch of guys to be back well and safe today."

Mission # 14, on February 13th. Initially this mission seemed safer because it was a much closer target, in France, but that soon changed. From the diary: "This was much worse than any other...It was a tremendous burst in the rear of the bomb bay...it blew out the whole bulkhead into the radio room, killing Sgt. Collier and seriously wounding Sgt. Fleming...Our controls were all destroyed except elevator and aileron ... We headed back to England alone ... They tried very hard to shoot us down, but luck was with us and we got out of their range where (our) P-47s picked us up and followed us home ...

One bomb was knocked loose when the bomb bay was hit. Airmen in other planes in the formation could see what was happening and said that the skin of the bomb was peeled back like a banana, leaving the inner workings of the bomb exposed. (Later a munitions expert estimated that there had been only the slimmest chance that that bomb had failed to explode while still on board.)

There was still one unexploded bomb on board. The plane's engineer managed to kick it out over the English Channel, and it fell harmlessly into the sea.

After a short discussion between the pilots it was decided that a landing should be attempted as there was no way the two injured men could make a parachute jump. The crew was afraid of fire, so all switches were turned off before touching the ground. Under those trying circumstances the pilot made a good landing. However, Sgt. Collier passed away just before they hit the ground, and Sgt. Fleming was in critical condition.

At that time during the war, crews on B-17s were rotated back home after 26 missions. Unfortunately for Willis Jones his 26th mission was his third bad mission, and also his last mission. It occurred on April 13, 1944. From the diary: "We were crippled by flak over the target at Augsburg, Germany, then finished off by a fighter...When we lost control of the plane the pilot gave the bail out signal...I reached under my seat for my parachute...and accidentally grabbed the rip cord, which opened the chute inside the plane...I can tell you that a chute opened in a confined area is quite a mess... Somehow I managed to get all the silk in my arms and to get it all through that little forward escape hatch in the nose area of the plane...It was with great relief when found myself floating down with an armful of whiteness that I wasn't sure was going to work as a parachute."

Jones' chute worked OK, and he made a good landing, as did the rest of the members of the crew. As Willis walked over a hill he could see the plane's navigator on the ground, injured. The Germans that hovered over him were non-military potato farmers, who treated the injured navigator, then turned the Americans over to Nazi soldiers.

After considerable interrogation by the Germans, who knew much more about the American unit's location, targets, missions, etc. than did Jones, the men were loaded into box cars to be shipped, first to a marshalling yard in Berlin, then to POW Stalag Luft #1, in the northern part of Germany, on April 22, 1944.

POWs already in the camp were anxious to learn about their units and the progress of the war. On his first day in the camp Willis learned that an escape tunnel was nearing completion, and an escape attempt was to be made that very day. The men had been digging for some time, and had stored the dirt from the tunnel above the false ceiling in the barracks. Before they could make their escape the ceiling gave way, sending the tunnel dirt cascading to the floor. This alerted the German guards, who caught the men escaping. Two of the men were placed in solitary, on bread and water. This was the first of many escape attempts Jones saw during his 13 months in Stalag Luft #1. None were successful.

At home in Nebraska, Lucille was notified almost immediately that Willis was Missing In Action, then two weeks later, much to her relief, that he was a Prisoner of War. During the time he was interned Jones was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and three Oak Leaf Clusters.

During his time as a Kreigie (as POWs were called), Jones (as an officer) was treated relatively well by his captors. His prison guards were older civilian type men, not the hard-core military types that were inclined to be much more strict in their discipline. Nevertheless, the shortage of food was a real problem, and Willis, like the rest of the prisoners, lost a great deal of weight during his confinement. The monthly delivery of Red Cross parcels was eagerly awaited, and the food in those parcels went a long way in supplementing the meager prison fare. (When the prison camp was liberated by the Russia sn May, 1945, an entire warehouse of undistributed Red Cross food parcels was discovered -- food meant for the prisoners, but never delivered.)

Willis remembers that boredom was their biggest problem in the Stalag. To pass the time the POWs engaged in pick up sports, plotted escape attempts, played cards, tended small garden plots, took sun bathes, read books from the prison library, and speculated among themselves on the war news, the 1944 election (Roosevelt), and exchanged innumerable stories about their families back home. At one point some of the men managed to get a few musical instruments and entertained at informal band concerts and dances. They even had a prison paper -- The POWWOW.

In April of 1945 the POWs got news of Roosevelt's death, and they seemed to know that the invading Russians were close at hand. At night the men would open the shutters of the barracks and holler, "Come on Joe (Stalin)". On May 1st 1945, the Russians did arrive to liberate the prison. They found that the German guards had slipped away in the night.

Jones diary concludes, "we were flown to Camp Lucky Strike in France. After a brief R& R in Miami and a few weeks at home I was separated from the service. I felt very lucky to be alive!"

Source: Gazette archives.