KENT KRIEGHSAUSER/The Register-MailWillis Young looks at the Legion of Honor medal he was recently awarded from France for his actions in World War II. Young, originally from the Hanna City area, now lives in the southwest and is back for a visit with his wife.
'Dangerous one' gets French medal
World War II vet recalls time in combat, as POW
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Willis Young was classified a "dangerous one" by German soldiers after he was captured Nov. 14, 1944The 82-year-old Young, who grew up in the Yates City area, smiled.
"I thought it was kind of flattering," he said.
Dressed in a green plaid shirt and a bolo tie with a replica of the POW medal, Young talked about the experiences that earned him the rank of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
Legion of Honor was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 to honor those who served France with distinction. Young received his medal Thursday at a ceremony in Chicago along with four others.
"The French people will never forget your courage and your devotion to the great cause of freedom," Jean-David Levitte, French Ambassador to the U.S. wrote to Young. The French honor joins his Purple Heart, Bronze Star and other medals.
Young was 18 when he was drafted in early 1944. He thought that he would spend the war at Fort Sheridan, Ill.
"I thought I was going to stay there as a mess sergeant," Young said. Young and two other soldiers cleaned the mess hall. "We had to polish that dang fire extinguisher and other important things like that. You know, see to the ketchup and worchester sauce."
"One day a lieutenant come running and says 'Young what are you doing here,' he said," Young said. "I told him I had my papers signed to stay there and he said, 'You better look again.' "
He soon found himself with and 9,000 other troops boarding a ship for France.
Young was assigned to the B Company of the 95th Infantry Division's 1st Battalion. B company arrived in France in early September 1944 and followed the American advance through Europe. The unit arrived in Nances on Oct. 12, 1944. The next day, Young earned the Bronze star.
Young's Bronze Star was the first issued to the 95th Division. It was also his first time in combat.
He was ordered to escort a wounded soldier to the first aid station. They were halfway there when they came under German fire. The hilly terrain and grape arbors of the region made it difficult for Young to see where the attack was coming from.
"Bullets were flying like the dickens," Young recalled. He sent the wounded man ahead while he searched for the enemy's position. "All of a sudden, I look down this ravine and see these guys lined up like a firing squad. In about three seconds, I fired four shots and they went down." Young fire four more shots, following an order issued by Gen. George Patton to shoot enemy troops twice "so they couldn't shoot you in the back." Young also shot a fifth German who emerged from cover before he made it to the first aid tent.
"I was never nervous in combat. The way I looked at it, either his mama or my mama is going to be unhappy tonight."
The soldier he'd been escorting, though, wasn't wounded at all, Young said.
"We had these leggings and he'd laced them things so tight he cut off all the circulation to his feet," Young chuckled. The two soldiers returned to their unit together. "Only he had to carry his own pack."
The same wounded soldier would help carry Young to the first aid station six weeks later. Young's unit was moved 30 miles north to the Maginot Line, France's defense against Germany.
B Company moved into foxholes that became flooded. Young's feet swelled from constant submersion and split open.
He was asleep in the aid station when the camp was captured the next morning by German forces.
"When you're out there alone in a hole and the Germans are slipping down and causing problems, you don't sleep much," Young said. "I was sound asleep. When I woke up, I thought I saw a jeep and thought the Americans are here." Young paused and laughed softly. "Well no, that was no jeep. That was a sand-bagged machine gun. It was the Germans looking in the door with a machine gun." Young and 12 other men were placed in a German ambulance and taken to a POW hospital.
Young and his fellow POWs were transferred several times. Young was wounded again, this time in the leg from shrapnel during an Allied air raid while en route to Stalag 5-A prison camp in Augsburg, Germany.
"By then we were smelling real bad. Like we were dead, quite frankly." The 13 POWs were held in an attic "because no one wanted to smell us."
The POWs were treated by a German doctor who Young learned had gone to Bradley University in Peoria. The doctor told Young his feet were gangrenous and would have to be amputated.
"They was black, and they was red, and they was green. Every color of the rainbow. My feet was still bleeding a year after."
Young said no, the two argued and the annoyed doctor called a guard who tossed Young out in the snow.
"I walked around in the snow for three weeks bare foot," Young said. "And I'm convinced that saved my feet."
In December 1944, Young was transferred to Stalag 7-A, northeast of Munich. It was there that he learned he was considered dangerous by the Germans. While being interviewed by a German officer, Young was asked about a battle he had taken part in. During the battle, Young had thrown a grenade that killed a German colonel.
"He (the colonel) got over-confident. I pulled the pin and threw it. He picked it up and held it up to his ear with a big grin," Young said. "Then bang! His friends weren't too happy about that." Because of his status as a "dangerous one," Young was one of a few POWs who were forced to build railroads and engage in other heavy physical labor on work details. Young eventually injured his back due to the work. Young and the other POWs at Stalag 7-A were housed in box cars with little food. The box cars were made to house up to 40 men at a time.
"They called them 40 men or eight horses. It wasn't any picnic but at some point, you make up your mind to survive," Young said. Stalag 7-A was liberated by Allied forces on May 1, 1945.
After the war, Young returned to the U.S. and became a farmer and mail carrier. He married his second wife, Rosemary, in 1996 and moved to Greenville, Ariz., last year.
