Born Yngve Helmer Andersson, on June 28, 1921, in Kromfors, Sweden, Willie Anderson immigrated with his family to the United States in August 1922. He enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Forces on September 10, 1941, and he was commissioned a 2d Lt and awarded his pilot wings at Luke Field, Arizona, on September 29, 1942. His first assignment was as a P-39 Airacobra pilot with the 79th Fighter Squadron of the 20th Fighter Group at Paine Field, Washington, and then at March Field, California, from August 1942 to January 1943, followed by service as a P-39 and then P-51 Mustang pilot with the 353rd Fighter Squadron of the 354th Fighter Group at Tonopah Army Air Field, Nevada, from January to November 1943. Lt Anderson then deployed with the 353rd Fighter Squadron to England in November 1943, where he was credited with the destruction of 7 enemy aircraft in aerial combat between April and August 1944. He was also credited with shooting down a German V-1 on June 17, 1944, which is not included in his total. He returned to the United States in September 1944, and served as an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, for the last year of the war. Capt Anderson left active duty on May 19, 1945, and flew as an airline pilot for United Airlines, from August 1945 until retiring as a Boeing 747 Captain on January 1, 1981. Willie Anderson Flew West on May 9, 2011. He remains the only Fighter Ace born in Sweden.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.