A cute, vivacious girl with curly hair[i], Eleanor Hanna found adventure and duty overseas. She saw the world thru her army service and encountered a fascinating journey that ended tragically.

Born in 1922, Eleanor was the second child of Lee Gilbert Hanna and Mary Isabel Bickel Hanna. Waiting for her to be born was her older brother, Max Eugene Hanna. She was born in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania on September 2, 1922.[ii]

Her WWI veteran father, a college graduate[iii], according to the 1930 census, fixed looms in a silk mill. The family lived in a rental home in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a small town on the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania. Her mother stayed at home, tending to the children that now included Max, Eleanor, Roberta V. Hanna Koons and David LeRoy Hanna. The oldest two attended school.[iv]

Ten years later, as 1940 beckons the looming war years, the family is found 16 miles away in Upper Fairfield Township, Pennsylvania. Two more children have been added to the family – Jean Hanna Allen in 1932 and William L. Hanna in 1937. The family of 8 now live in a home they own on their farm where Lee works as a farmer. By this time, Eleanor is a junior in high school and her brother, Max, has finished and is farming too. All the other children attend school as well.[v]

Eleanor graduated from Montoursville High School.[vi] During her time there, she was active in the Girls’ Athletic Association.[vii] As a teen, she was also involved in 4-H where she won awards at the county fair for her bread.[viii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

After graduation, Eleanor moved to the city of Philadelphia.[ix] Just before enlisting, Eleanor was living on W. Venango Street in Philadelphia.[x] She was working as an inspector.[xi]

HER MILITARY STORY

Eleanor Hanna enlisted in the WAC on October 21, 1943 in Philadelphia. Her service number was A-311558.[xii] She served as a WAC in the Army Air Corps. She was posted overseas in 1944.[xiii]

HER LAST DAY

Private First Class Eleanor Hanna was stationed in New Guinea.

With a day off to spend, Eleanor, joined 23 other Army personnel for a site-seeing trip in a transport plane.[xiv] 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 Alethia Fair

· PFC Mariam C Gillis

· PFC Mary Landau

· Corporal Margaret Hastings

· Lieutenant John B. McCollom

· Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker[xv]

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.[xvi] 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.[xvii]

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 Pittsburge Sun-Telegraph article. It is believed the wall was hidden by clouds when the plane crashed.[xviii]

Only three people survived the crash including Corporal Margaret Hastings, Lieutenant John B. McCollom and Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker.[xix] 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. It was too late to save any of the others. First out was Eleanor Hanna. As he carried her out of the smoke, her hair was still crackling with fire. He laid her on the ground.[xx]

Next he carried out Laura Besley and laid her next to Eleanor.

Eleanor Hanna was gravely injured but Laura appeared uninjured except for a few minor burns, according to Hastings’s recollection in the Philadelphia Inquirer.[xxi]

Eleanor’s clothes had burned away leaving burns covering her entire body but somehow her beautiful face was unscarred. She didn’t appear to be in pain. The survivors knew there was nothing to do to save her. Eleanor, who loved to sing, is reported to ask the others to sing with her but in their shock and grief, they tried but could not.[xxii] Eleanor Hanna died the first night in the jungle, May 13, 1945.[xxiii]

According to Hastings newspaper report, Laura was still shaking and hysterical the next day. Laura died during the night of May 15, 1945 at Balim Valley, Dutch New Guinea which is now Papua New Guinea, Indonesia,[xxiv] presumably from internal injuries.[xxv]

The crash happened in the nearly inaccessible Owen Stanley Mountains of Netherland New Guinea.[xxvi] Survivor Corporal Margaret Hastings buried Eleanor and Laura at the crash site.[xxvii] It was three days later before the survivors were spotted.[xxviii] They had hiked through the jungle to a rock clearing so they could be seen.

The three survivors suffered burns and shock,[xxix] and eventually two had developed gangrene. Decker had deep back wounds[xxx]. 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 Catholic and Protestant rites. Volunteer service members parachuted into the area then hiked to the wreckage. Eleanor’s body and the others were then deemed impossible to move so were buried properly at the crash site. Twenty crosses and one Star of David were dropped into the jungle.[xxxi] The crosses 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.[xxxii]

PFC Eleanor Pauline Hanna’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. [xxxiii] 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.[xxxiv]

Eleanor’s body was recovered and first sent to Hawaii. It was given a scientific examination in the U.S. Army Mortuary. Her parents were contacted and given a choice of sites and they chose to have her body sent home. She was transported to Twin Hills Cemetery near Williamsport. A memorial plaque for her had been in place for years by this point.[xxxv]

COMMENDATIONS

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal[xxxvi]

HER GRAVE

While her body remained on that remote mountain, back home, on July 7, 1945, a memorial service was held for PFC Eleanor Hanna at the Mount Zion Evangelical Church in her hometown of Montoursville.[xxxvii]

Eleanor Hanna remained on the mountainside until 1958 when an American Search and Recovery team recovered and identified her body.[xxxviii] Eleanor is buried at the Twin Hills Memorial Park, Muncy, Pennsylvania.[xxxix]

MEMORIALS

Veterans organizations plus drum and bugle corps were a part of the 1948 Memorial Day parade that culminated at Twin Hills Memorial Park. A dedication ceremony was held at the foot of Eleanor Hanna’s grave. A plaque was placed on Eleanor Hanna’s grave marker as the first young woman killed in WWII from Lycoming County. WACs in the area attended.[xl]

The Eugene Garfius American Legion Post held a flag dedication in honor of PFC Eleanor Hanna on May 1, 1952. A flag was presented to her parents and a speech was given on “Americanism.”[xli]

A Veterans’ Day dinner with speakers was held by the American Legion and Eleanor Hanna’s mother, Mary Hanna, was honored along with other Gold Star mothers of the county in November of 1957.[xlii]

RESEARCH NOTES

During the war, Eleanor’s brother, Max Hanna, was a bomber pilot who suffered serious injuries when shot down. He recovered to later fly in the famous Berlin Airlift.[xliii] Another brother, David LeRoy Hanna, served in the U. S. Navy.[xliv]

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. 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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