ENID — Christmas as a prisoner of war is not very pleasant, said an 89-year-old veteran who spent more than four months under German guard during World War II.

M.L. Becker was drafted into the Army during the war and sent to Fort Sill. After testing, he was placed in the Army Air Corps and sent to  Lincoln, Neb., for mechanical training, and Fort Myers, Fla., to gunnery school.

He was part of a crew that flew a B-24 to South America, Africa and finally Breton Wood, France, as part of the 487th Bomb Group. He flew 10 missions as a tail gunner, before he was transferred to the 34th Bomb Group, flying in a B-17.

After two missions, the military reduced the size of the crew from 10 to nine, and he was pulled off the crew. Becker was unhappy waiting around and kept “bothering” the command. He finally was transferred to the 387th Medium Bomb Group aboard a B-26, where he again served as a tail gunner.

On his ninth mission, Dec. 23, 1944, Becker was shot down over Germany.

“Fighters got after us, and they hit one engine,” he said. “It caught fire, and flames went clear past the tail. I decided that was a hell of a place to be.”

Becker and several others bailed out of the plane with parachutes, but the pilot and co-pilot went down with the plane. He ended up landing, stuck, in a tree; he struggled to get free himself, because he had been told the Germans would shoot him if they found him stuck. The parachute tore, and he fell, landing on the side of a hill, where he twisted his ankle, foot, leg and back.

In pain, he got a piece of wood to use as a crutch and sought a place to hide. He was only 10 miles behind enemy lines, and he planned to walk back to camp. However, two German youths saw him and took him down to a small village, where he spent the night in a shed. The following morning, three German soldiers arrived in a car and captured him.

“I thought I must be pretty tough if it took three of them to capture me,” he said.

Becker was placed into a large group of POWs and was befriended by three or four, who took care of him. The group walked three to four weeks, then was put on a heavily guarded train without an engine, which arrived five days later.

Becker said as the engine was attached, a group of American P-51s attacked the train and began strafing it. One of the prisoners opened the door, dodging bullets. The prisoners got out of the train and placed their POW blankets on the ground so the pilots would know it was a prisoner train, but they still disabled the engine.

After the engine was damaged, the prisoners began walking across Germany. They arrived at an overcrowded camp, and Becker recalls sleeping several nights on the floor. They were moved to camp VIIIA near Gorlitz, Germany, then again, walking westward toward the American lines. Food was scarce, and many of the group were ill; all were in very poor health. Becker lost 47 pounds during his captivity.

For a month, they walked closer to American lines. At one rest stop, Becker and some others hid in a ditch and let the group walk away from them.

“We were free for five days,” Becker said. “Then we saw a man standing on a hillside, and this big Polish guy said he would get us some bread. He brought back the bread, but the guy followed him and took us down to his house. He got out more bread and some lard and salt and fixed us a meal.”

They spent the night in his barn, but its owner turned them over to the Germans the next day — if the Germans discovered the man had hidden them, he would have been shot.

Becker and his compatriots were returned to the same group they escaped from, and walked westward another 13 days until they were liberated by American troops on April 13, 1944.

After they were freed, the group went to Camp Lucky Strike in France, and after three days were loaded into a converted World War I-era ship to head home.

“We were in the middle of the ocean when the war blew over, May 8,” he said.

The ship entered the United States at night, and Becker did not get to see the Statue of Liberty. He recalled going back to New York in 1948 and still did not get to see it.

“I never have seen it, and it really irritates me,” he said.

After his discharge from the Army in October 1944, Becker returned to Enid.

“When I got off the bus, my mother said, ‘you can’t be my son, because you’re too thin,’” he said. Becker said he had dysentery at the time.

After his return, Becker said he was very nervous and did not like people approaching him from behind. He even struck his mother when she shook him awake one morning.

He eventually went to work at Vance as a civilian employer, before opening his own aircraft maintenance business at Enid Woodring Regional Airport.