MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - Standing just steps away from his walker, Cecil Davis gazed at the photos in a faded scrapbook ..each page, filled with memories…Some good, others horrific. They are remembrances of his time as a World War II POW.  

Although he sometimes has difficulty at 95 recalling what he did last week, Davis has never forgotten details of being a prisoner of war.  

At age 18, the Long Beach native went on his first WWII mission as a tail gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps. 

Davis, who goes by the nickname 'Geno,' recalled his squadron had come under heavy fire. He and the crew were forced to abandon their plane, parachuting behind enemy lines.

"As I came floating down my chute got caught in the trees and I was just hanging there," Davis said. "Then I could hear and see the enemy bullets whizzing by into my parachute." 

Along with a handful of other POW’s, Davis marched across the countryside for the next 18 and a half months…they were in and out of prison camps…there was random gunfire, snowfall, and temperatures dipped to 50 below zero.

But then… an eventual triumphant return to the United States.

"I even have a signed letter from the President at the time," Davis said.

Geno remains one of Southern California’s most highly celebrated veterans of World War II. 

More than seven decades later, his service in the war still has a profound effect on his life. Geno’s children encouraged him to share his incredible story of survival to help younger generations define what heroes are made of. Ordinary men who rose to extraordinary circumstances.