Mary Landau answered her nation’s call to bring her talents to help the war effort. Little did she know she’d lose her life in a jungle as part of her sacrifice.

Born into a Jewish family, Mary Landau’s parents, Leib “Louis” Landau and Mable (see research notes) Landau had immigrated from Austria. He arrived in America in 1887 and she in 1889. Louis spoke English and Yiddish and Mable spoke Yiddish. Louis supported the family as a tailor in a pants shop and Mable kept house. The family lived in a rental home in Brooklyn, New York. At home were siblings Esther (1902), Sadie (1905) and Jacob “Jack” (1910). According to the 1910 census, the family had lost a child as well.[i] They later had one more daughter named Renee.

Later in life, Louis was a dry goods merchant.[ii]

BEFORE THE MILITARY

Mary graduated from Girl’s Commercial High School, later called Prospect Heights High School, which served the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. After graduation, she completed two years of college. Before the war, she was employed as a stenographer and typist. At the time of her enlistment, she is living in Kings County, New York.

HER MILITARY STORY

As more and more women are encouraged to enlist, Mary steps forward and enlists on March 1, 1944, in New York City, becoming a WAC. Her service number was A-207742. She was posted to New Guinea.

Another New Guinea stationed WAC was Ruth Coster, whose daughter talked about that time with the Bakersfield Californian newspaper. It was reported the WACs slept in tents protected with barbed wire as protection from Japanese soldiers on the island. The ranking female officer in each tent was issued a firearm as additional protection.[iii]

The WACs didn’t just work hard, they also had fun. Coster’s daughter remembers stories of picnics with pork and beans, sausages, and bourbon.[iv]

HER LAST DAY

On one particular day off, the girls in the office decided to play tourist.

With a day off to spend, Mary joined 23 other Army personnel for a site-seeing trip in a transport plane.[v] Colonel Peter J. Prossen was the pilot. Prossen was the chief of maintenance for the Far East Air Service Command. Others on board were:

· Major George H. Nicholson

· Major Herman F. Antonini

· Major Phillip J. Dattle

· Captain Herbert F. Good

· Captain Louis E. Freyman

· Lieutenant Lawrence F. Holding

· Lieutenant Robert E. McCollom

· Staff Sergeant Hilliard Norris

· Corporal Charles R. Miller

· Corporal Melvyn A. Weber

· PFC Melvin A Mollberg

· PFC George R. Newcomer

· T/3 Marion W. McMonagle

· Staff Sergeant Laura Besley

· Sergeant Helen G. Kent

· Sergeant Belle G. Naimer

· PFC Eleanor Hanna

· PFC Alethia M. Fair

· PFC Mary C. Gillis

· Corporal Margaret Hastings

· Lieutenant John B. McCollom

· Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker[vi]

Corporal Margaret Hastings described the day in The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper months later. Hastings’s boss was Colonel Prosson, the pilot. She reported the eight WACs were excited for a chance to fly over the legendary area nick-named “Shangri-La.” The pilots who had flown over the area came back with many tall tales of the sights they had seen – or imagined they had seen- from native’s the size of fictional Paul Bunyon to native women who looked like movie stars.

The WACs filed into the camouflage-painted plane first and the men filled in around them. Hastings said she took the first seat but when she realized she didn’t have a good view, she moved to the last seat near the back door, near Eleanor Hanna and opposite of Laura Besley who she recalled winking at during takeoff.

The plane, taking off from Santini Airstrip, flew at 9,000-10,000 feet for 55 minutes before arriving over Hidden Valley. It only took a few minutes to cross the valley. The plane was in a climb. Suddenly the plane was shearing the tops off tall, jungle trees.[vii] The plane shook fiercely, and suction drew the walls inward. Upon impact with a mountain, the tail section broke off and the plane burst into flames.[viii]

The plane crashed into a 4-mile thin but 25-mile-long jungle surrounded by the Oranje Mountains. The only gorge that serves as an entrance to the valley is cut off by a mountain wall running at direct cross angles, according to a Pittsburg Sun-Telegraph article. It is believed the wall was hidden by clouds when the plane crashed.[ix]

Only three people survived the crash including Corporal Margaret Hastings, Lieutenant John B. McCollom and Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker.[x] Hastings and McCollom crawled out of the torn tail. Decker, with a head wound, was thrown out of the front of the plane. McCollom heard screaming and went into the burning plane and pulled out two women, Eleanor Hanna, and Laura Besley. It was too late to save Mary or any of the others.[xi]

Eleanor Hanna died the first night in the jungle, May 13, 1945.[xii] Laura Besley died during the night of May 15, 1945, at Balim Valley, Dutch New Guinea which is now Papua New Guinea, Indonesia,[xiii] presumably from internal injuries.[xiv]

The crash happened in the nearly inaccessible Owen Stanley Mountains of Netherland New Guinea.[xv] The survivors buried Mary and the others at the crash site.[xvi] It was three days later before the survivors were spotted.[xvii] They had hiked through the jungle to a rock clearing so they could be seen.

The three survivors suffered burns and shock,[xviii] and eventually two had developed gangrene. Decker had deep back wounds[xix]. They were trapped in the jungle for 47 days, were delivered a walkie-talkie, food, and medical supplies by parachute. Eventually, a medical team and other help parachuted in to tend to them.

An airborne funeral service was held at 11,000 feet above the wreckage site with Jewish,[xx] Catholic, and Protestant rites. Volunteer service members parachuted into the area then hiked to the wreckage. Mary’s body and the others were then deemed impossible to move so were buried properly at the crash site. Crosses and Stars of David[xxi] were dropped into the jungle[xxii] and were placed by the volunteers on the graves.

Another team, that parachuted in, built a landing strip to support a glider. It was hacked into the jungle. It took several days to create. After the injured were deemed well enough to make a three-day hike through the jungle, they were moved to the landing strip. For several days, failed attempts were made before the glider rescue worked. The glider was then lifted aloft by a C-47 with a grabline.[xxiii]

PFC Mary Landau’s body remained buried near the wreckage in the New Guinea jungle for the next 14 years until it could be recovered for a proper burial. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper, the army believed at first it would not be able to retrieve the body from the rugged mountains. [xxiv] Many years after the crash, men sent by the Army traveled by plane, boat, and foot, traveling over mountains and through jungles, to reach the Hidden Valley.[xxv]

Mary’s grief-stricken sister, Esther, told the New York Daily News finding the graves and the return of her sister’s body had reopened wounds. “My father has been weeping and we are all very dejected,” she said.

Mary’s body was recovered and buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Mary’s sister, Rene, traveled by train from Brooklyn and her brother, Jack, flew from Buffalo to St. Louis for the rites. Mary’s father made plans to attend his synagogue for prayer during that time and her sister, Esther, said she would be praying from home.[xxvi]

COMMENDATIONS

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal[xxvii]

HER GRAVE

Mary Landau’s body remained on the mountainside until 1958 when an American Search and Recovery team recovered and identified her body.[xxviii] On June 29, 1959[xxix], she was reburied at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.[xxx]

MEMORIALS

PFC Mary Landau is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing however her name is noted with a rosette which indicates her remains were eventually recovered. The Walls of the Missing are in the Manila American Cemetery in Taguig City, Philippines.[xxxi]

Mary Landau is remembered in her hometown of Brooklyn at the Brooklyn War Memorial.[xxxii] The roll call includes Mary and 11,500 of her neighbors who fell in WWII. Fifteen walnut panels, 20-feet high, contain the names. The outside of the memorial is visible to visitors but the inside, with the names, was seldom open to the public although a New York Times article in 2016 said plans were underway to change that.[xxxiii]

RESEACH NOTES

Very little was found about Mary Landau on Ancestry.com. The only census found, 1910, had difficult-to-interpret handwriting. Mary’s mother’s name possibly says “Mable” but might be something else entirely.

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org ). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3 and on TogetherWeServed. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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