Normal native and lifelong resident Robert S. “Bob” Hall (1915-1976) graduated University High School and later served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. While co-piloting a large British bomber over Belgium in May 1944, his plane was shot down by German craft. He escaped on foot with underground assistance but in a few days was taken by the Gestapo who had infiltrated the underground. Hall spent nearly a year imprisoned in Luftwaffe 7, where he penned most of his diary entries. With Russian troops threatening from the east, the prisoners were death-marched from their southern Poland location to Luckenwalde Germany’s Stalag III-A beginning on January 19, 1945. Russian troops liberated Stalag III-A April 22, 1945.
Returning to Normal after the war, Hall wed Agnes Marie Odell in 1947. He operated the Hall Record & Appliances shop and later became a school equipment salesman.
The collection contains Hall’s daily diary covering his POW experiences, a typed transcription, scans of all pages of the diary, newspaper articles and Prairie Aviation Museum exhibit materials on Hall, etc.