Dean E. Hallmark

Dean E. Hallmark
Dean Edward Hallmark


United States Air Force Pilot Badge.svg
Doolittle Raid Crew 6.jpg
Crew No. 6 of the Doolittle Tokyo Raid, 95th Bomb Squadron, A/C #40-2298; Bombed industrial steel mills inside Tokyo. (Left to right) Lt. Chase J. Nielsen (navigator), Lt. Dean E. Hallmark (pilot), Sgt. Donald E. Fitzmaurice (engineer-gunner), Lt. Robert J. Meder (co-pilot), Staff Sgt. William J. Dieter (bombardier). Hallmark, Meder, Dieter & Fitzmaurice did not survive the war.
(U.S. Air Force photo)
Nickname "Jungle Jim"
Born January 20, 1914(1914-01-20)
Robert Lee, Texas
Died October 15, 1942(1942-10-15) (aged 28)
Shanghai, China
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance  United States of America
Service/branch United States Department of the Army Seal.svg United States Army Air Force
Years of service 1940–1942
Rank US-OF1A.svg 1st Lieutenant
Unit 95th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bomb Group (M)
Battles/wars Doolittle Raid

Dean Edward Hallmark (January 20, 1914 – October 15, 1942) was an avid athlete, adventure seeker and U.S. Army Air Forces pilot during World War II, most noted for having served alongside Jimmy Doolittle in 1942 during the famous raid on Tokyo in April of that year. He was executed by the Japanese Imperial Army for alleged war crimes committed as part of that raid.

Contents

Early life

Dean was born to Ollie Dean and Raleigh Amanda (née Ake) Hallmark in the small town of Robert Lee, Texas which is the county seat for Coke County. Although most genealogical sources indicate that Robert Lee was his place of birth, it is likely that Dean spent his early childhood in nearby Bronte, which is where his father grew up and his grandparents are buried today.

Dean was a fifth generation American, his great-great-great grandfather, George, having come to the British colony of Virginia from Cheshire County in North West England as a bonded servant around the year 1766. George, a veteran of the Virginia Militia during the American Revolution, migrated with his family in the post-war years from southwest Virginia through extreme eastern Tennessee, where Dean’s great-great grandfather, Richard, George’s fifth of 10 children, was born in Knox County sometime between 1785 and 1790. These early American Hallmarks finally settled in what became north Alabama near present day Huntsville. Richard fathered all 13 of his children before picking up and leaving Alabama for Texas sometime during the early to mid 1830s along with several of his brothers and their families. Dean was eventually born and raised in Texas as a result of this move by his great-great grandfather.

Little is know of Dean’s early childhood in Coke County. His parents had only married just years before his birth. Ollie had registered for the draft when America entered World War I but was not called up. Dean’s younger sister, and only sibling, Mozelle Amanda, was born the day World War I ended – November 11, 1918. For whatever reason, Ollie and Raleigh did not participate in the 1920 U.S. Census so it isn’t known for sure whether Dean and his family were still residing in Coke County or had moved east of Dallas to Hunt County in the city of Greenville. What is known, however, by way of existing Greenville telephone directories, is that by 1930 Dean and his family were residing at 1230 King Street.

Adolescent & College Years

During this time, Dean was a standout tackle on the Greenville High School football team, helping lead the school to their first ever appearance in the Texas state playoffs in 1931. After graduating high school in 1932, Dean played football at Paris (TX) Junior College before transferring to Auburn University (known then as Alabama Polytechnic Institute) in Alabama on a football scholarship where he majored in education. Dean was again a standout player on the 1935 “Baby Tigers” team, which amounted to the freshman team as freshman were not allowed to participate on the varsity squad at that time. Dean’s football coach was none other than Ralph “Shug” Jordan, the man who later became Auburn’s most renowned coach and who later led the team to its first ever national championship in 1957. It was during his time at Auburn that Dean would befriend a schoolmate by the name of Roland B. Scott, an aeronautical science major, who is believed to have sparked Dean’s pursuit of a career in aviation.

After one academic year at Auburn, Dean elected to quit college after the spring semester of 1936 and return to Texas. Why he elected to quit is not exactly known but family stories indicate that Ollie had become involved in a tragic farming accident in Greenville which resulted in the loss of one of his legs. As a result, and at about the time Dean returned to Texas, Dean’s parents and sister moved to 808 Wayne Avenue in Dallas, just east of downtown. While Ollie began to recover, Raleigh took a job as a seamstress and Mozelle took a modeling job with Nieman Marcus in downtown Dallas to help support the family. Dean, meanwhile, began pursuing his goal of becoming a pilot by taking flying lessons and eventually became a civilian pilot. Soon afterward, Dean put his new skill to work with Houston based Humble Oil and Refining Company which sent him to Venezuela for six months in 1939 flying petroleum workers in and out of hard to reach locales. He then returned to Texas in January 1940 via New York City. It was because of his time spent in the jungles of South America that Dean would later be awarded the nickname “Jungle Jim” by his fellow Doolittle Raiders.

Army Enlistment & Early Military Experiences

In late 1940, Dean was recruited by the Army Air Corps for his flying abilities and, as a result, he enlisted as an aviation cadet in Houston, Texas on November 21, 1940. Taking primary and basic training through the Cal Aero Academy at Ontario, California from November 1940 to March 1941, Dean’s first experiences with military aircraft were with the Stearman PT-13B Kaydet followed by the Fairchild PT-19. Dean then took advanced training at Stockton, California, where he mastered flying complex aircraft as well as running into an old friend – fellow Auburn man Roland B. Scott, who was by this time an Army Air Corps officer and one of Dean’s flight instructors. Dean eventually graduated with the class of 41-E and earned his wings and officer commission on July 11, 1941. Immediately afterward, Dean reported for duty with the 95th Bomb Squadron (Kickin' Ass), 17th Bombardment Group (Medium) stationed at Pendleton Field, Oregon. Dean and his fellow pilots of the 17th were some of the first pilots to fly the North American B-25B Mitchell medium bomber. Dean’s first military exercise was the 1941 South Carolina War Maneuvers with his squadron being stationed at Daniel Field in Augusta, Georgia. After the maneuvers concluded, Dean and his squadron returned to Pendleton Field where, after the Pearl Harbor attack, he flew anti-submarine patrols off the Pacific Coast of the United States.

The Doolittle Tokyo Raid

In early 1942, world renowned aviator Jimmy Doolittle, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Forces by this time, had been tasked by General Henry “Hap” Arnold with organizing America's first retaliatory strike against Japan. Doolittle asked for volunteers from the 17th Bombardment Group, who had recently relocated to Columbia, South Carolina, thus catapulting Dean towards a rendezvous with history. The selected all-volunteer crews moved to Eglin Field, Florida, near present day Valparaiso, where they trained on short field takeoffs in preparation for a carrier takeoff. Additionally, the crews practiced extremely low altitude flying, over water navigation and stripped their B-25s of all unnecessary equipment to save weight and make room for specially modified fuel bladders.

By the end of March 1942, Doolittle’s Raiders had completed their “crash course” training and flew first to Sacramento Air Depot at McClellan Field, California to receive new propeller blades and rid their aircraft of additional components no longer needed. They then flew to Alameda Naval Air Station in San Francisco where 16 B-25s were loaded aboard the USS Hornet (CV-8), the Navy's newest aircraft carrier at that time. On April 2, 1942 the Hornet, under the command Captain Marc Mitscher, set sail and passed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge for a point north of the Hawaiian Islands where it linked up with the USS Enterprise (CV-6), under the command of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, to form Task Force 16 and continued on to a planned launch point 450 miles from Japan. However, the task force was discovered by a Japanese picket boat 200 miles from the intended launch point on the morning of April 18. Not sure if the aircraft possessed adequate fuel to complete the mission, the raid was launched ahead of schedule as the safety of the Pacific Fleet’s carriers could not be jeopardized.

Dean was the command pilot of the sixth B-25 to launch from the deck of the Hornet, tail number 02298 and dubbed "The Green Hornet." At roughly 0840 hours on April 18, 1942, Dean’s B-25 was airborne and headed for Tokyo where his selected targets were industrial steel mills. No resistance was encountered; Staff Sergeant William Dieter, the Green Hornet’s bombardier, dropped his bombs, scored direct hits and Dean made his way to China. As the Green Hornet approached the Chinese coast, she began to run on fumes. Dean gave his crew two options; bail out over the water or ditch in the ocean. Fearing they may drown in their parachutes, the crew elected to ditch and Dean set his bomber down into the water about three miles from shore. The impact of the ditching was severe and, as a result, the two enlisted crew members on board drown with the three officers surviving, albeit severely injured. Dean was violently launched through the plexiglas windshield as a result of the impact, the seat still strapped to his body. The three officers were able to swim to shore and, at daylight the next morning, slowly found one another and attempted to evade the local Japanese garrison with the help of friendly Chinese. The three were captured by Japanese forces approximately eight days later.

Aftermath

Along with the five captured Raiders from “Bat Out of Hell,” the sixteenth B-25 to launch, the eight were tried by the Japanese in a kangaroo court on phony charges of killing innocent civilians. They were all subjected to horrific torture and purposely starved and malnourished to the point that Dean contracted dysentery which resulted in a massive loss of weight. All eight Raiders were initially sentenced to death but the Emperor Hirohito personally commuted the sentences to life imprisonment for all but three: 1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark, 1st Lt. William G. Farrow and Sgt. Harold A. Spatz, both of Crew 16. During the early evening of October 15, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow and Spatz were made to kneel, blindfolded, tied to crosses and executed by firing squad in Shanghai's Public Cemetery No. 1. Their cremated remains were purposely mislabeled by the Japanese to cover up the execution but were fortunately located after the war by US officials. Dean's mother was presented with his Distinguished Flying Cross at Love Field in Dallas, Texas on December 7, 1942, under the premise that her son was a POW and alive and well. Today, Dean’s final resting place is in Section 12, Site 158 of Arlington National Cemetery where he was interred in January 1949 along with his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Robert J. Meder, who died as a POW, and with 1st Lt. William Farrow.

In Memoriam

  • On April 28, 1943, the city of Greenville, Texas celebrated Dean Hallmark Day which was done in conjunction with the Second War Bond Drive.[1]
  • On April 18, 1946, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 4011 in Greenville, Texas, named their lodge after Dean. Dean's mother was the guest of honor.[2]
  • Auburn University dedicated a bronze plaque to Dean's memory in the Letterman's Lounge in the east wing of Jordan-Hare Stadium (F. Thompson, personal communication to C. Nielsen, October 8, 2002)
  • Study carrel 4431P inside the Auburn University library was named in Dean's honor.[3]

In popular culture

  • Dean's name is mentioned during the carrier takeoff scene in the 1944 MGM film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
  • An officer confined to a stretcher because of sickness in the 1944 20th Century Fox film The Purple Heart is loosely based on Dean.
  • Dean has been one of many subjects in a great number of books detailing the Doolittle Raid, most authored by the Raiders' official historian, Colonel (USAF, Ret.) C.V. Glines.
  • In the 2001 Touchstone film, Pearl Harbor, Ben Affleck's character, Capt. Rafe McCauley, assumes Dean's #6 position in order of flight during the Doolittle Raid sequence as evidenced by the ready room chalkboard.

Awards

Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) (awarded posthumously)
Purple Heart (awarded posthumously)
Prisoner of War Medal (awarded posthumously)
American Defense Service Medal
Bronze star
American Campaign Medal with bronze service star for anti-submarine patrol
Bronze star
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with bronze service star for Doolittle Raid (awarded posthumously)
World War II Victory Medal (awarded posthumously)
Breast Order of Pao Ting awarded by the Republic of China (awarded posthumously)

Notes

  1. ^ Allison, F. (1995, August 20). Hunt County was not without its heroes as World War II came to an end. Greenville Herald Banner, p.?
  2. ^ Dean Hallmark post dedicated. (1946, April 19). The Greenville Morning Herald, p.?
  3. ^ http://www.lib.auburn.edu/circulation//assignments.pdf

External links


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