Camps
Held In: 9c Dulag Luft, Stalag Luft VI and IV, Stalag Luft I
and misc. ( camps in all)
How
Long Interned: 362 days
Liberated
/ repatriated:liberated
Date
Liberated: 05/08/45
Age
at Capture: 19
Medals
Received: Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal 3 Oak Clusters,
Purple Heart, POW Medal
Military
Job: T/Sgt. TOP TURRET GUNNER & ENGINEER
Company:
SELF EMPLOYED
Occupation
after War: CARPENTER
Bio:
John R. Hodgson, born May 13, 1924 in New Brighton, Pennsylvania,
enlisted in the 8th Air Force USAAF on September 2, 1942. Assigned
to Gunnery School, Harlingen, Texas; Arament School, Salt Lake City;
Airplane Mechanic School, Amarillo, Texas; crew make-up training in
Walla Walla, WA and Moses Lake. Assigned to the 390th Bomb Group
570th Bomb Squadron in Framlingham.
Flew with Lt. William Stacy Branum in The Heavenly Body. Completed 25
missions; ordered to complete five more. On his 26th mission in a B-17
over Liege, Belgium with Lt. William Corkrean, flak hit two engines
which burst into flames, followed by a direct hit to the cockpit.
Injured in the left leg and hip by flak. His clothes ignited as he moved
through the plane alerting other crew members to bail out. Parachuting
down he was circled three times by an ME109 fighter. Before losing
consciousness, he saw his face as he smiled, saluted and veered off. He
landed on a Luftwaffe airstrip suffering third degree burns on his face,
around his eyes, neck, back, arms, buttocks and down the backs of his
legs. He awoke several days later in Hertogenbosh, (Amsterdam, Holland).
A German doctor pulled a sheet over his face declaring, Kaput! Lee
T. Jenks, another wounded soldier, saved his life by jerking the sheet
down and screaming, He is like Hell dead! No kaput!
German doctors treated his burns daily with no pain medication, scraping
the dead, burned flesh off his body and dumping iodine on the wounds as
hospital personnel held him down. A captured English doctor performed
plastic surgery around his eyes. Other English doctors provided therapy
at Menningen Orthopedic Hospital by laying him on a table on his stomach
and forced his legs down the opposite way to break the calcification in
his knee joints.
Before being sent to POW Camp, he was held in an insane asylum and a
granary where he would awake to find rats chewing on the bandages of his
infected legs. He was in nine POW Camps: 9-C, Dulag Luft, Stalag Luft VI
& IV, and Stalag Luft I. Conditions were deplorable. They ate
garbage, rats or any animal that strayed into Camp. He saw men have
their throats torn out by attack dogs or shot for the slightest
infraction. They were transported for nine days by boxcars packed so
tightly that it was impossible to move. He saw Jews taken off boxcars,
mercilessly gunned down and buried in trenches. Liberated by the
Russians on May 8, 1945, he was flown to Camp Lucky Strike where he
celebrated his 21st birthday weighing 90 pounds. He was discharged on
November 5, 1945 as a T/Sergeant.
Upon returning home, John married, Margaret Samchuck of Freedom,
Pennsylvania. They have three children, William Stacy, Larry Gail, and
Cynthia Kaye (Hodgson) McClain; thirteen grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren. As a retired carpenter, he enjoys woodworking and
his country home in Darlington, PA. A Life Member of the Disabled
American Veterans and Ex-POW Association, Inc.
Message to Future Generations:
My message to future generations remains the same today as when I was
discharged. Upon my return to the United States, I wrote a letter to the
parents of Lt. William Corkrean. The following is an excerpt from that
letter:
..This is my story, it is to the best of my knowledge as to what
happened on that day of May 11, 1944. I hope you and all your friends
will remember Billy as a good pilot and a man with very much courage and
nerve to try to stick with his ship even when he knew there was but one
chance in a million to land it safely. I hope this letter will answer
all the questions that I know are running through your mind. Please be
brave and have the courage to go on without your Billy as he had the
courage to go to his death for us and his country.
Presented by:
John R. Hodgson
1999
Message to Future Generations:
My message to future generations remains the same today as when I was
discharged. Upon my return to the United States, I wrote a letter to the
parents of Lt. William Corkrean. The following is an excerpt from that
letter: ..This is my story, it is to the best of my knowledge as
to what happened on that day of May 11, 1944. I hope you and all your
friends will remember Billy as a good pilot and a man with very much
courage and nerve to try to stick with his ship even when he knew there
was but one chance in a million to land it safely. I hope this letter
will answer all the questions that I know are running through your mind.
Please be brave and have the courage to go on without your Billy as he
had the courage to go to his death for us and his country. If the people
of the world will stop their selfish fighting and would be willing to
have peace, then Billy and all men like him did not die in vain .
John R. Hodgson 1999
