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The words of a World War II prisoner of war from Normal show a grim situation filled with privation, guard brutality, and occasional diversions. This comes from Robert S. Hall’s wartime journal, recently donated to the McLean County Museum of History.
Robert Hall wrote of campus conditions and copious notes about the food and lack thereof in his POW diary.
Hall was born and raised in Normal, and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. McLean County Museum of History librarian and archivist Bill Kemp said it’s not clear why he went to Canada to serve.
He was sent to Europe and on May 27, 1944, as a second pilot on a British Halifax heavy bomber, Hall was shot down over Belgium. A resistance group sheltered Hall for a few days, but he eventually was captured and sent to Stalag Luft 7, a POW camp in southern Poland. He spent nearly a year as a prisoner of war.
“Robert’s journal was issued to prisoners of war. It's a YMCA journal for British soldiers,” said Kemp. “He spends time in an Allied prison camp, but it's mostly airmen connected with the British Air Force.
