Harold "Hal" Van Every (February 10, 1918August 11, 2007) was an American football back in the National Football League (NFL) who played 21 games for the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

. In 1940, the Green Bay Packers used the ninth pick in the first round of the

1940 NFL Draft The 1940 National Football League Draft was held on December 9, 1939, at the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Chicago Cardinals selected George Cafego. Player selections Round one Round ...

to sign Van Every out of the University of Minnesota. Van Every went on to play for two seasons with the Packers and retired in 1941. Van Every then joined the United States Army for World War II, then transferred to the Air Corps after six months, becoming a bomber pilot. He was assigned to 510th Squadron,

447th Bomb Group The 447th Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Combat Command (ACC) and United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE). The unit is currently stationed at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey in support of Oper ...

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

, flying a

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

heavy bomber out of Rattlesden Air Base in England. On his ninth mission, his B-17 was shot down by flak on May 12, 1944. He was taken prisoner and sent to

Stalag Luft III , partof = ''Luftwaffe'' , location = Sagan, Lower Silesia, Nazi Germany (now Żagań, Poland) , image = , caption = Model of the set used to film the movie ''The Great Escape.'' It depicts a smaller version of a single compound in ''Stalag ...

, arriving just after the famous "Great Escape". Near the end of the war, with the Russians closing in, the Germans marched their

prisoners A prisoner (also known as an inmate or detainee) is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement, captivity, or forcible restraint. The term applies particularly to serving a prison sentence in a prison. ...

away from the camp. Finally, on April 29, 1945, the POWs were liberated by George S. Patton's Third Army.

References

http://packerville.blogspot.com/2007/08/packers-only-wwii-casualty.html

External links

* * 1918 births 2007 deaths American football defensive backs American football halfbacks Green Bay Packers players Minnesota Golden Gophers football players Second Air Force Superbombers football players Shot-down aviators United States Army Air Forces bomber pilots of World War II World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Players of American football from Hennepin County, Minnesota Stalag Luft III prisoners of World War II American prisoners of war in World War II United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army Air Forces officers Military personnel from Minnesota {{defensiveback-1910s-stub