"No doubt you will be surprised to receive a letter from me and I hardly know where to start…" (Letter from Homer Hall to 1st Sgt. E Van Enywk, 4/22/1945)

Homer Eslie Hall

Homer Hall in uniform [n.d.] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division Service Location: European Theater Rank: Staff Sergeant POW: Yes

A member of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, Staff Sergeant Homer Hall parachuted into Normandy in the early hours of D-Day, missing his drop zone by several miles. After nearly a week spent dodging Germans, he was captured on June 13th. Interned in Stalag Luft IV, he cobbled together a diary from cigarette labels, and bound it together with a strip of tin from a container of cheese that was sent to the camp by the Red Cross. In this diary, he recorded the names of his fellow prisoners, small vignettes about his buddies, poems, and vocabulary lessons in Spanish—all of which hint at the boredom of life in a POW camp, and the bonds between fellow internees. After nearly eleven months of captivity, and almost two months of forced marching through the countryside, he and two other prisoners successfully escaped from German control in late April 1945.