Lieutenant Victor E. WillardOne of the things the Japs and Germans can't get over is how the American farm lads, drug store clerks, dry cleaners, students, bank clerks, boys from all walks of life, can outfight and outsmart them in every respect. The aim of our gunners, on land, sea and in the air, is positively uncanny, the enemy reveals.
One of Coldwater's young men who has developed a high degree of accuracy as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator bomber in the Southwest Pacific is Second Lieut. Victor E. Willard, son of Mrs. Mabel E. Willard of Coldwater.
"Skeet," as he is popularly known here, graduated from Coldwater High school with the class of 1937, and after working at the Wantland Produce and at other places in Coldwater, went to the Beechcraft factory in Wichita, where he worked two years before enlisting in the Army Air Corps on June 14, 1942. He passed all tests and was accepted as a cadet. He was called to report at Kansas City, December 6, 1942, to begin active training.
At the A. A. F. Classification Center in San Antonio, Texas, he passed his physical, psychological and psychomotor tests for a pilot and was enrolled in the preflight school. He next went to Gibbs Field, Fort Stockton, Texas, the following April for his primary flight training.
Victor graduated from the Pacific Air School Ltd., June 23, 1943, and was sent to Goodfellow Field, San Angelo, Texas, for his basic training. At Primary Flight he got 65 hours in the air and 140 miles of cross country flying. At Basic he had 75 hours of flying in his five weeks training, but like 18 others, washed out at a pilot. However he was the one of 19 whose rating was high enough for that of bombardier.
Victor's next training was at an 18 week preflight school at San Antonio. He studied nine hours a day for three weeks before beginning bombing practice in a Beechcraft AT-11, the same kind of plane he had worked on in the factory.
Victor graduated from the Bombardier School at San Angelo, Texas, December 23, 1943, at which time he received his silver bombardier's wings and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.
Two weeks later he was sent to Hammer Field, Calif., for assignment and was sent to March Field, Calif., for combat training, completing the training last May. The latter part of that month he and his newly assigned crew flew to the Southwest Pacific via Hawaii and Canton Island.
While on the Admiralty Islands he wrote that the natives had fuzzy hair and were funny looking. He had the experience of going swimming in the Pacific among the sharks and coral. This island is where he made himself a special chair and dresser, and he took the dresser with him when his base changed to New Guinea.
Lieut. Willard's pay there is in guilders, a Dutch denomination worth 53 cents each. He says he doesn't know the money well enough to know whether he is being gypped or not.
Some time ago when his bomber base was moved to another part of the large island the mud was knee deep in his tent, so the men went into the nearby jungles and cut poles and put them on the mud, then covered the poles with crushed coral. The coral is used for many things. Sometimes he goes banana hunting but doesn't find many.
There is much of his bombing activities which cannot be divulged, but an official communiqu� from Southwest headquarters tells of a commendation by his commanding officer for aerial bombing. Lieut. Willard did pinpoint bombing on a Jap held Yap Island, knocking out a power plant and damaging their barracks. He has also bombed Neumfor, Weleal and Truk, and says it was not easy, either.
Victor likely is now enjoying a rest period after a campaign of intensive action against Jap installations. On October 9 he wrote his mother: "I may not have much chance to write for awhile. I'll spend my time having a grand old time, eating fresh vegetables, steaks, ice cream, and plenty of desserts. Even will do some Christmas shopping. Some natives were here trading off Jap money. They could talk a little English and said, "Nippons no good." They seem to have no love for the Japs. It is either work or be beheaded."
Thanks to Shirley Brier for finding, transcribing and contributing the above news article to this web site!
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