Looking for Dean E. Hallmark info

[Captain Liger 0]

Dean E. Hallmark was a native of Greenville, TX and played football for Paris (TX) Junior College before transferring to Auburn on a football scholarship in the mid-1930's. From what I know he only played one season, 1936, before dropping out of Auburn to join the US Army Air Corps. When America joined WWII in December 1941, Dean was a 1st Lieutenant and flying B-25 Mitchell bombers with the 95th Bomb Squadron conducting anti-submarine patrols in the Pacific northwest. His claim to fame was that he served as a pilot in Jimmy Doolittle's Tokyo Raid on April 18, 1942. After ditching his plane in the China Sea and swimming to shore, he was captured by the Japanese several days later and was eventually one of three captured Raiders to be executed in Shanghai on October 15, 1942. His remains were recovered after the war by his navigator who survived and he is now interred at Arlington National Cemetary.

An article appeared in 2002 in the Auburn Alumni magazine that featured Dean's story. It mentioned that his photo appeared in the Glomerata and that he was a promising young player. However, a copy of the photo(s) in question were not printed in the article and I don't recall it mentioning what position he played. Does anyone out there have easy access to the Auburn library or a 1936 (I think) Glomerata. I'd like to get a scanned copy of his photo (individual and/or team) and know what position he played and if possible I'd like to know what his jersey number was too. Any information that the Glomerata provides about him would be very useful. If anyone can help, feel free to post here or shoot me an email.

Dean is a cousin of mine and I've spent a good deal of time researching his past. His bomber pilot exploits are well known but his Auburn days are still a little gray. I'd appreciate any help that I can get. Thanks.

Here is a link to Dean's crew photo taken right before he launched from the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. He is second from the left. It is the only photo of him that I know exists.

[Tiger in Spain 0]

Here's a picture of his plane, tail number 40-2298, courtesy of the Naval History website. It's the plane in the center.

Link

You can order this image online, I believe.

[DKW 86 7,440]

Was he the guy that wrote the article in Auburn Magazine last Summer?

[LegalEagle 22]

You might find info here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/...-42/doolt-p.htm

http://doolittleraidersreunion.com/cl.htm

http://www.doolittleraider.com/forum/index.php

http://www.doolittleraid.com/crews.htm

http://www.cv6.org/1942/doolittle/doolittle_crews.htm

http://www.cottonmuseum.com/media.htm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1296093/posts

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wgfarrow.htm

http://www.freemethodistchurch.org/Magazin...orld%20View.htm

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/08.htm

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:PwFMy...+Hallmark&hl=en

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/rep/Do...tle/Report.html

http://yearbooks.bravepages.com/yearbookss.html

http://www.betweenthecovers.com/display.ph...back=/elist.htm

http://www.doolittleraider.com/raiders/deshazer.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/cp6.htm

http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/...doolittle10.htm

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsoni.../aug02/poi.html

[LegalEagle 22]

1936 Glomerata for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Glomerata-1936-Yearboo...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Captain Liger 0]

Was he the guy that wrote the article in Auburn Magazine last Summer?

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No, he was more than likely the subject of the article. Dean was executed by a Japanese firing squad in China in 1942. I wasn't tracking an article from last year. Was there another one written about him? I'm only aware of the one from 2002.

[Captain Liger 0]

1936 Glomerata for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Glomerata-1936-Yearboo...1QQcmdZViewItem

207268[/snapback]

Awesome. Thanks Legal. I'm going to try and win this if it's in relatively good condition.

[oldautiger 1]

Send me your email address, I have a scanned picture of the 1936 team from "War Eagle, A history of Auburn Football 1892-1951)". No Dean Hallmark listed on it, but there is an unknown on the second row. A club list does not list him either.

Good Luck

[Valdosta Tiger 0]

Dean E. Hallmark was a native of Greenville, TX and played football for Paris (TX) Junior College before transferring to Auburn on a football scholarship in the mid-1930's. From what I know he only played one season, 1936, before dropping out of Auburn to join the US Army Air Corps. When America joined WWII in December 1941, Dean was a 1st Lieutenant and flying B-25 Mitchell bombers with the 95th Bomb Squadron conducting anti-submarine patrols in the Pacific northwest. His claim to fame was that he served as a pilot in Jimmy Doolittle's Tokyo Raid on April 18, 1942. After ditching his plane in the China Sea and swimming to shore, he was captured by the Japanese several days later and was eventually one of three captured Raiders to be executed in Shanghai on October 15, 1942. His remains were recovered after the war by his navigator who survived and he is now interred at Arlington National Cemetary.

An article appeared in 2002 in the Auburn Alumni magazine that featured Dean's story. It mentioned that his photo appeared in the Glomerata and that he was a promising young player. However, a copy of the photo(s) in question were not printed in the article and I don't recall it mentioning what position he played. Does anyone out there have easy access to the Auburn library or a 1936 (I think) Glomerata. I'd like to get a scanned copy of his photo (individual and/or team) and know what position he played and if possible I'd like to know what his jersey number was too. Any information that the Glomerata provides about him would be very useful. If anyone can help, feel free to post here or shoot me an email.

Dean is a cousin of mine and I've spent a good deal of time researching his past. His bomber pilot exploits are well known but his Auburn days are still a little gray. I'd appreciate any help that I can get. Thanks.

Here is a link to Dean's crew photo taken right before he launched from the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. He is second from the left. It is the only photo of him that I know exists.

207239[/snapback]

[Valdosta Tiger 0]

I have a program from the Auburn - Santa Clara football game played on October 31, 1936 in the first annual Elks Football Classic (Jack Meagher, Head Coach). The game was apparently played in San Francisco. Sorry to report Dean Hallmark is not listed on the Auburn roster. Good luck in your search!

[saniflush 0]

Amazing information guys. I have really enjoyed scanning through this thread and its links!

[tigereyes 19]

The Auburn Univeristy Club (Golf Course) has all of the Glomeratas in there reading room. You can go in there look though it before you buy it on line.

[Captain Liger 0]

I really appreciate all the help everyone is giving. I love the Auburn family and I'm sure Dean would be proud to know that his brothers and sisters are helping out his cousin.

I just got back to Texas from being on leave and dug out the article I referred to in my original post. It is from the Spring 2002 edition of the Auburn Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 1. On the cover is a color drawing of Dean's crew photo from the USS Hornet. The article begins on page 18 and is entitled "We Died Bravely" by Jimmy Pemberton '58. I decided to type parts of it here that I thought would be of interest. It's too long to type the whole thing and most of it is just a rehash of the Doolittle Raid itself.

"It's impossible to know for sure what thoughts were going through Lt. Robert Edward (Dean) Hallmark's {Note: I have found in my own studies that people confuse Robert Lee, TX where Dean was born and morph it into his name. His name was Dean Edward, not Robert Edward} mind 60 years ago this spring, as he waited in the pilot's seat of his twin-engine B-25 bomber to follow Col. {actually a LTC} Jimmy Doolittle off the swaying deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. It's unlikely however, that, as he reflected on the path which had brought him to his own personal rendezvous with history, he thought of his time at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API), where he had cut short a promising football career to join the Army Air Corps and pursue his dream of becoming a pilot.

Hallmark, a native of Greenville, Tex., {born in Robert Lee, TX; raised in Greenville} entered API from Paris (Tex) Junior College in 1936 on a football scholarship. His freshman photo in the 1936 Glomerata shows a handsome, serious-looking young man. He was an outstanding lineman on the 1936 freshman football team, which beat Georgia Tech and Birmingham-Southern in the only two games they played. His name is referenced in that same Glomerata as an outstanding plebe on the team.

But Hallmark's ambition was not focused on being a football star at Auburn. He inteded to become a pilot, and with war threatening in Europe, he dropped out of Auburn in 1937 and later joined the Army Air Corps. In 1941, he was assigned as a member of pilot training class 41E in Ontario, Calif. His instructor there was an old Auburn classmate and friend, Roland B. Scott '38. After graduating from class 41E, Hallmark went on to Moffett Field, on the south end of San Francisco Bay, for basic training. After finishing there, he took advanced training at Stockton, Calif., where he received his pilot's wings. He went on to specialized B-25 training, and later, joined Doolittle's small group of B-25 aircrew training for a highly secret raid on Japan."

{article goes on to describe military actions in the Pacific theater, how the idea of the Doolittle Raid was thought of, how the Navy task force carrying them was spotted by a Japanese fishing vessel and forced an early launch of the Raid}

"Hallmark's B-25, dubbed the "Green Hornet" by its crew, took off sixth in line and set off just over the wave tops on the flight to Tokyo, where its target was a steel mill and industrial complex. Arriving over the target in the company of two other B-25s, the "Green Hornet" encouraged some antiaircraft fire, but made two runs over the target, dropping its four 500-lb. bombs on the surprised Japanese. Once the bombs were released, Hallmark turned his Mitchell toward China and comparative safety, but the fuel situation alrady looked grim.........."Both motors cut out about the same time," recalled navigator Lt. Chase J. Nielsen in testimony after the war. "The left wing hit the water first and severed the wing off right up close to the fuselage, and, as the fuselage hit, it split open all the way down to the bottom. The pilot [Hallmark] was thrown from his chair right out through the windshield."

{article goes on to describe how the survivors of the crash got ashore, evaded capture, were ratted out by a Chinese army officer, flown to Tokyo for a "trial" and were returned to Shanghai, China and placed in prison. also describes conditions of the prison and Hallmark's deteriorating physical condition leading up to his execution}

"The verdict did not become totally clear until Oct. 14, when Hallmark - by then very near death - was moved to solitary confinement and informed that he and two crewmen from plane 16 were to be executed the next day. Each was allowed to write one note home. Hallmark's letter was directed to his father, mother, and sister in Dallas. He told them he had dreamed of being a commercial pilot after the war, and asked that they pray for him.

"I hardly know what to say," he wrote. "They have just told me I am liable to execution. I can hardly believe it...I am a prisoner of war and I thought I would be taken care of until the end of the war."

{article finishes up by describing the execution itself, how the letters that were written were never delivered, how the remains were cremated and purposely mislabeled, how the remains were recovered after the war and interred at Arlington}

"And Dean Hallmark, despite his short time at Auburn, proudly wearing the orange and blue, left a legacy of patriotism, honor, bravery, and sacrifice for the Auburn family that is hard to match."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I relied heavily on excellent material from the following two references in compiling this story: November-December 1987 The Auburn Alumnews, "Remembering a Fallen Hero, Close Friend" by Roland B. Scott '38; Air Classics, volume 28, number 8, August 1992, "Return to Tokyo" by Michael O'Leary.

It seems no one is able to find proof that Dean actually was a member of the football team; photo's, game programs, etc. I think when I'm on my way back to Ft. Gordon, GA in the spring I'll have to stop off in Auburn and do a little research. Is it entirely possible that the "freshman football team" that Mr. Pemberton writes about was DIFFERENT from the rest of the football team? Sort of like a B team and a varsity team that high schools have? Could this have been a possibility at 1930's Auburn?

The magazine itself was given to me by Lt. Col. (Ret) Chase J. Nielsen...the navigator on Dean's plane who survived the war to testify in the war crimes trial and who returned Dean's remains to the States for burial. Lt. Col. Nielsen received the magazine from an Auburn alumn named Foy Thompson whom I'm guessing played football for Auburn based on the hand written letter that he wrote to Chase which was included with the magazine. Mr. Thompson writes:

Dear Chase,

It has been two months since you and the other "Raiders" were in Columbia, SC. I had hoped to meet you there but I could only attend the gathering for lunch with the "Raiders," and so many people were vieing for y'alls attention it was not possible to get to you. It was a great honor being there and seeing all of you - God was looking out for me tho - He sent your nephew, Zane, to sit by me at our table. It was quite a surprise as I had no idea he was related to you. I was also surprised to have two Auburn alumni sitting to my right. I was truly "blessed" that day.

I want you to know that the memorial to Dean and our other teammates is very nice and is located in a very prominent spot in the football letterman's lounge in the East stands of the stadium. The bronze plaque is placed above the wood carving of War Eagle VI (which I had the honor of carving) and four lights are directed up from the base of the glass case which War Eagle VI stands at the "alert" position in.

Hope you enjoy reading the Auburn Magazine Chase.

Best Regards,

Foy

I know this was a lot of information. Hope someone finds it interesting.