How 2 veterans from Huntington Beach served in World War II

George Emerson was riding in the back of a B-17 bomber in the tailgunner position when one of the other aircraft in his squadron was hit by German anti-aircraft fire and collided with his plane, severing the tail.

It was Feb. 9, 1945, and the United States was embroiled in war against Germany and its allies.

Emerson, 92, who now lives in Huntington Beach, fell out of the broken tail but his parachute deployed and he landed in German territory.

He was instantly taken and imprisoned for the night.

“Next morning, I was taken downstairs to police headquarters, interrogated and shown scorched parts of my aircraft, including oxygen tanks and other miscellaneous parts,” Emerson wrote in an online post. “I was also shown scorched I.D. tags of some of my crew members. Although I suppressed my emotions, this confirmed my suspicions. I might be the only survivor of my aircraft.”

He was.

What followed was almost three months of German imprisonment, with much of it spent on the move. Emerson said he spent time in four different camps.

He wasn’t tortured, but hunger became his greatest foe.

“We were always hungry,” he said during a phone interview.

A favorite pastime among the prisoners was discussing the food they enjoyed back home: steaks, baked potatoes and hotcakes smothered with syrup, Emerson wrote.

The uncertainty of his captivity also played with his mind.

“You didn’t know from one day to the next what might happen,” he said.

To keep informed of the progress of the war, the prisoners would listen to BBC broadcasts most nights from a radio cobbled together from stray parts.

On April 28, 1945, Emerson heard artillery nearby, he wrote. He was liberated a day later.

“I can honestly say this is the happiest day I ever remember of,” Emerson wrote on a piece of paper the day his freedom was restored. “What a beautiful sight.”

A few days later, Emerson’s and the rest of the POWs’ hunger was finally sated.

“We are getting our first white bread this evening since being POWs,” Emerson wrote. “It looks like angel food cake.”

Piloting to victory in Asia

Huntington Beach resident David Hayward still remembers the relief he felt when World War II was declared over.

“We lost a lot of good men in that war,” he said.

Hayward, now 95, piloted a B-25 in 54 combat missions during the war. Much of his service was spent in the China Burma India Theater.

He spent many missions attacking Japanese supply lines, including railroads, bridges, airfields, anything being used to move materials around. As a pilot, Hayward’s job was to get the plane to the target, which took an ample amount of fortitude.

Fragments from anti-aircraft shells battered against the exterior of the planes and black puffs of smoke would appear in the flight path, suggesting an impending doom. Still, Hayward would continue to his target.

He remembers his first mission, when the squadron was tasked with flying into central Burma to drop bombs on an enemy airfield.

Just as they arrived, the enemy fighters and bombers had taken off and were heading their way.

“First thing I knew there was a Japanese fighter right alongside our airplane,” he said. “Boy, I was really scared. It was kind of an eerie feeling. He was out of range for our gunners to get a shot at him. He sort of teased us for a while. Finally, he went away.”

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Twitter:@benbrazilpilot