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| Captain Lloyd Hally was P-47 fighter pilot in the 353rd Fighter Group. http://www.americanairmuseum.com/person/149377 |
Lloyd G. Hally never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on June 4, 1918 in Iowa. His mother Agnes was also born in Iowa and his father George was from Canada and his parents were from the British Isles. His father worked as a railroader and later as a station agent. Lloyd had one older sister and two younger brothers who served in the Marines and Navy during WW2. By 1940 Lloyd had completed four years of college at Iowa State and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He found work as an assistant engineer and lived at home.
He enlisted in the Army on May 29, 1941, volunteered for the Army Air Forces, and was trained to be a fighter pilot. He served as a flight instructor until early 1944. He became a captain in the 351st Fighter Squadron, 353rd Fighter Group, 8th Air Force which was equipped with P-47 Thunderbolts. It was stationed in Raydon, England starting in April 1944. While it first was assigned to escort bombers, after D-Day it increasingly took on the roll of providing ground attack missions.
Captain Hally was credited with destroying five enemy planes. On September 22, 1944, flying Angel of Mercy, Captain Hally was last seen chasing an FW 190 into cloud cover over Arnhem, Holland. He never returned to base and was declared missing in action. His status was changed to killed in action one year later.
His cenotaph grave is at Ames Municipal Cemetery in Iowa.
The Ames Historical Society has a collection of newspaper clippings about Captain Hally that you can read here.
Last year on this date I profiled Silver Star hero and B-24 pilot John Reed. You can read about John here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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