 |
| Lt. Lynn Hadfield was an A-26 Invader pilot in Europe. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131574739/lynn-wilson-hadfield/photo http://www.armymag.it/2019/01/21/bombardiere-usa-abbattuto-in-germania-identificato-equipaggio-english-text-ww2/ |
Lynn Wilson Hadfield never had a chance to reach 100 years old. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Last year I was not able to write a profile everyday from September to November because I was studying for the Certified Financial Planner test (I passed!). I feel my project to honor one U.S. serviceman for each day of the war would be incomplete if I left them off. As I have time, I am going back and adding profiles for the days I missed.
Lynn was born on October 23, 1918 in Utah. His parents William and Latella were born in England and Utah, respectively. William's first wife died in 1903. They had five children. Lynn's father worked as an assistant gardener and florist at the Utah State Capitol. Lynn had two older sister, five older brothers, and one younger sister. By 1940 Lynn was still living at home and had completed four years of college at the University of Utah. He married Betty Jean Taylor in August 1941. They had a daughter and a son.
He enlisted in the army in December 1942. He trained as an officer and a pilot and became a second lieutenant flying A-26 Invaders in the 642nd Bombardment Squadron, 409th Bombardment Group. He arrived in Europe in February 1945.
On March 21, 1945 Lt. Hadfield was flying his A-26 43-22353 with his two crewmen on an interdiction mission against targets in Dulmen, Germany in preparation for Allied crossing of the Rhine two days later. The bomber was shot down by flak that tore off its right wing, but no one at the time found the crash site.
Fast-foward to 2016 and the crash site was finally located and Lt. Hadfield's remains were recovered.
ABC-4 TV did a story about Lt. Hadfield's return home. You can watch it here: https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/74-years-later-a-wwii-veteran-comes-home/
His grave is at Utah Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah.
This story is also found at https://www.fold3.com/page/91289822-lynn-w-hadfield/stories. It is part of an effort to write the stories of all the Utah WW2 fallen.
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
The story of the crew and recovery by History Flight and MIA Project is here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.miaproject.net/mia-search-recoveries/invaders-end/
WQED (PBS Pittsburgh, PA) created a documentary about the crew:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wqed.org/homecoming