Harold "Hal" Van Every (February 10, 1918August 11, 2007) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

back in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

(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) North division. It is the t ...

. 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 The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. Van Every went on to play for two seasons with the Packers and retired in 1941. Van Every then joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

for

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, then transferred to the Air Corps after six months, becoming a bomber pilot. He was assigned to 510th Squadron, 447th Bomb Group,

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 Forc ...

, 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 Thea ...

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 Stalag Luft III (german: Stammlager Luft III; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a ''Luftwaffe''-run German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II, prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Allies of World ...

, 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 George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...

'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