Captain Kenneth E. Hagan of Lincoln, Illinois, enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942. By 1943, he was flying missions with the 362nd Fighter Squadron over Germany and Nazi-occupied France. Hagan named his P-51 Mustang “My Bonnie,” after his wife. While over Normandy on his fifty third mission on June 17th, 1944, Hagan’s plane crashed. He was rescued by French resistance fighters, who helped him avoid capture for several weeks, forged travel documents for him, and helped him cross into allied territory.
Bonnie Hagan, wife of Ken Hagan
Hagen's Plane, "My Bonnie"
"My Bonnie after French Burned Her"
First French Contact, Kenny & James Family, La Chapelle, 1944
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
Forged French ID Card and Forged Work Card
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
In December 1944, Dick Lockhart was an infantryman serving with the ill-fated 423rd Infantry Regiment in the “quiet” Ardennes region of Belgium. The regiment surrendered to the Germans en-mass in the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge. One month later his parents were notified that their only child was missing in action. It took two more months, in March, before they receive word that he was alive and a Prisoner of War.
Richard T. Lockhart
Courtesy of Dick Lockhart
Telegrams
Courtesy of Dick Lockhart
Captain Robert Barker of Springfield, Illinois, left his pregnant wife behind in 1941, when he took command of a company in the 31st Infantry Regiment, then stationed in Manila in the Philippines. In April 1942, he and 75,000 other U.S. and allied troops surrendered to the Japanese. He survived the Bataan Death March and was still alive in October 1944, when his captors decided to ship him to Japan. Tragically, CPT Baker died in the depths of a Japanese “hell-ship” while enroute.
CPT Robert Barker, West Point portrait
Robert Barker's Wife, Janet Barker
Emily Barker, Robert Barker's Daughter
POWs disarmed at the fall of Bataan Peninsula
POW form letter
Last letter CPT Barker wrote to his wife
Seven-year-old Mary Ann Ladic was living an idyllic life with her family on northern Luzon Island, when the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941. Mary and her family spent the rest of the war in a series of Japanese internment camps, each worse than the last. They were finally rescued in February 1945. Ironically, one of their liberators was their cousin, Francis Callaghan. Mary Ann’s only possession while in the camps was this hand-made doll.
Doll
Courtesy of Mary Ann Koucky
Marry Ann Ladic and her sisters before capture
Courtesy of Mary Ann Koucky