Rudy Huddleston was assigned to the 50th Bomb Squadron. He flew the radar position (B-52) with crew E-87 (Steve Myers – AC, Dan Massey – CP, Paul Schnucker – NAV, Johnny Young – GUNNER, and Roger Williams – EWO).
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The Liberator “Hula Wahine II” was shot down 07-31-1944 over Ludwigshafen von Flak.
News Times, El Dorado, Arkansas, Volume 106, Number 32
Man feels lucky to be alive
By Shea Wilson
When Rudy Huddleston’s bomber went down over Germany in 1944. he was confident he would escape and quickly return to Allied territory. He never dreamed he would actually be captured and become a prisoner of war, and he certainly never imagined what would happen to some of his fellow crew members.
Fifty years later, after having discovered that three of the men on his bomber were executed after being captured, Huddleston knows he is lucky to be alive. As a student at El Dorado High School, Virgil Rudolph “Rudy” Huddleston became a member of the Civil Air Patrol, which led to his joining the U.S. Army and becoming a gunner on a bomber.
After training, Huddleston’s flight crew arrived at their base in Suffolk, 113 miles northeast of London, on July 4, 1944. The crew was a replacement for the 446th Bombardment Group and was assigned to the 704th Bomb Squadron.
The bomb group Huddleston was with flew many missions to France and Germany, including bombing in support of the breakout of American ground forces at St. Lo in Normandy. But it wasn’t until July 31 that orders came for a mission to Ludwigshafen, where the group would bomb the I. G. Farben chemical plant. During that mission Huddlestone’s plane, piloted by Lt. Emil Berry Jr., was hit by flak in two engines.
“We were shot down,” Huddleston said in a recent telephone interview from his Dallas, Texas. home. “There were quite a few planes shot up so bad that they didn’t make it. After we lost the two engines, we started losing altitude.”
At that point, Berry told the men to do everything possible to lighten the aircraft. Huddleston said they were ordered to bail out at 10,000 feet. He jumped out and fell through some clouds belore opening his parachute and eventually landing in a large fir tree. He managed to free himself and scattered his gear in a wide area around where he had landed near Idar-Oberstein.
“I did exactly what I had been taught in escape and evasion classes when you are unable to hide your parachute, because I knew it would be like a red flag to the search parties. “I went out in one direction and scattered my flying boots, pants, jacket and scarf some 100 feet or so. Then, I went back to the tree, circled around it several times and took off in another direction looking for a place to hide until it got dark.”
Huddleston picked an area thick with trees and pine needles, laid down and covered himself with the needles. He said he had observed a boy and man searching the area and yelling “hands up” occasionally. But, after several hours had passed, he began to feel confident that he would make it to France.“
Enough time had passed to make me feel confident I would be able to start traveling when it got dark, hiding in the daytime and working my way to France at night.” But just when he began plotting his escape, he was approached by a small dog.”
It didn’t growl, but just looked at me. I recognized the shape of the dog as being a dachshund, but I had never seen one with long hair and black and brown markings in my life. “A minute or so later, an older gentleman in uniform pushed his way through the limbs until he was within two feet of the dog. I still didn’t move, hoping that he wouldn’t see me.” But the man had seen him.
He was captured by the man, who turned out to be a forester, and turned over to the German SS, who threatened and interrogated him and eventually took him to a prisoner of war camp, where he was held until he and a fellow crew member escaped on April 25,1945. The two walked during the night and hid during the day, reaching American troops on May 2, 1945.
After his capture, Huddleston had been told that the pilot, copilot and tail gunner of his crew had been killed by civilians in Saarbrucken, and that their plane had crashed into the town.But, after spending years putting together the missing pieces and after several trips to Germany, Huddleston finally discovered what really happened that summer of 1944.A German official who had witnessed the torture and killings of several American airmen had reported it.
In 1992, that information became declassified and Huddleston learned that three men from his squadron, Berry, Lt. John B. Good and Staff Sgt. Lewis E. Pulsipher, along with four other men from the squadron, had been executed by the SS.
After the war, three Germans responsible for the deaths were tried before a general military government court of the War Crimes Office, European Command, and found guilty. The three SS officials were executed in October 1948.
Huddleston said he realizes today how lucky he is to have made it out of Germany alive. He was 19 years old at the time of his capture, but at the time, he never believed that he would become a POW.
“I thought I was going to escape. I had been to the classes. I had my kit and I thought I would make it. “When they were telling us what to do, they didn’t tell us that only one in 500 would make it. I thought I was probably the only one who had been captured. When I got to the prison camp, there were more than 10,000 people there.
Huddleston is the son of the late Virgil and Eitha Huddleston of El Dorado. His sister, Marilyn Riggs, still lives in El Dorado.
News Times, El Dorado, Arkansas, Volume 106, Number 32
Man feels lucky to be alive
By Shea Wilson
When Rudy Huddleston’s bomber went down over Germany in 1944. he was confident he would escape and quickly return to Allied territory. He never dreamed he would actually be captured and become a prisoner of war, and he certainly never imagined what would happen to some of his fellow crew members.
Fifty years later, after having discovered that three of the men on his bomber were executed after being captured, Huddleston knows he is lucky to be alive. As a student at El Dorado High School, Virgil Rudolph “Rudy” Huddleston became a member of the Civil Air Patrol, which led to his joining the U.S. Army and becoming a gunner on a bomber.
After training, Huddleston’s flight crew arrived at their base in Suffolk, 113 miles northeast of London, on July 4, 1944. The crew was a replacement for the 446th Bombardment Group and was assigned to the 704th Bomb Squadron.
The bomb group Huddleston was with flew many missions to France and Germany, including bombing in support of the breakout of American ground forces at St. Lo in Normandy. But it wasn’t until July 31 that orders came for a mission to Ludwigshafen, where the group would bomb the I. G. Farben chemical plant. During that mission Huddlestone’s plane, piloted by Lt. Emil Berry Jr., was hit by flak in two engines.
“We were shot down,” Huddleston said in a recent telephone interview from his Dallas, Texas. home. “There were quite a few planes shot up so bad that they didn’t make it. After we lost the two engines, we started losing altitude.”
At that point, Berry told the men to do everything possible to lighten the aircraft. Huddleston said they were ordered to bail out at 10,000 feet. He jumped out and fell through some clouds belore opening his parachute and eventually landing in a large fir tree. He managed to free himself and scattered his gear in a wide area around where he had landed near Idar-Oberstein.
“I did exactly what I had been taught in escape and evasion classes when you are unable to hide your parachute, because I knew it would be like a red flag to the search parties. “I went out in one direction and scattered my flying boots, pants, jacket and scarf some 100 feet or so. Then, I went back to the tree, circled around it several times and took off in another direction looking for a place to hide until it got dark.”
Huddleston picked an area thick with trees and pine needles, laid down and covered himself with the needles. He said he had observed a boy and man searching the area and yelling “hands up” occasionally. But, after several hours had passed, he began to feel confident that he would make it to France.
“Enough time had passed to make me feel confident I would be able to start traveling when it got dark, hiding in the daytime and working my way to France at night.” But just when he began plotting his escape, he was approached by a small dog.
“It didn’t growl, but just looked at me. I recognized the shape of the dog as being a dachshund, but I had never seen one with long hair and black and brown markings in my life. “A minute or so later, an older gentleman in uniform pushed his way through the limbs until he was within two feet of the dog. I still didn’t move, hoping that he wouldn’t see me.” But the man had seen him.
He was captured by the man, who turned out to be a forester, and turned over to the German SS, who threatened and interrogated him and eventually took him to a prisoner of war camp, where he was held until he and a fellow crew member escaped on April 25,1945. The two walked during the night and hid during the day, reaching American troops on May 2, 1945.
After his capture, Huddleston had been told that the pilot, copilot and tail gunner of his crew had been killed by civilians in Saarbrucken, and that their plane had crashed into the town.
But, after spending years putting together the missing pieces and after several trips to Germany, Huddleston finally discovered what really happened that summer of 1944. A German official who had witnessed the torture and killings of several American airmen had reported it.
In 1992, that information became declassified and Huddleston learned that three men from his squadron, Berry, Lt. John B. Good and Staff Sgt. Lewis E. Pulsipher, along with four other men from the squadron, had been executed by the SS.
After the war, three Germans responsible for the deaths were tried before a general military government court of the War Crimes Office, European Command, and found guilty. The three SS officials were executed in October 1948.
Huddleston said he realizes today how lucky he is to have made it out of Germany alive. He was 19 years old at the time of his capture, but at the time, he never believed that he would become a POW.
“I thought I was going to escape. I had been to the classes. I had my kit and I thought I would make it. “When they were telling us what to do, they didn’t tell us that only one in 500 would make it. I thought I was probably the only one who had been captured. When I got to the prison camp, there were more than 10,000 people there.
Huddleston is the son of the late Virgil and Eitha Huddleston of El Dorado. His sister, Marilyn Riggs, still lives in El Dorado.
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