She’d packed her bags, said her good-byes and boarded the first leg of a long journey back to Missouri from Africa. A WWII WAC, Mildred Rice was never seen again.

Missourians Rheubin Lee Higgins was 17 and his wife, Mary Ethel Ward Higgins was 21 when they wed in 1910. By the time Mildred Ethel Higgins[i] was born in 1914, there was already a three-year-old big brother, Henry Franklin “Frank” Higgins[ii], 1911, waiting for her arrival.

Joining men across the country, Mildred’s father had to register for WWI when she was four. He described his wife and two children under 12 as dependent on him. At that time, he was working for Proctor and Gamble in Kansas City. With little ones at home, he was probably relieved to not get the call.

In 1920, the family of four was living in a rental house in Kansas City. At that time, Rheubin was a machinist for the railroad.[iii] By 1925, he switched to driving trucks for Bulgar Woolf.[iv]

The family grows beyond the original four with the additions of three sisters, Wilma Jean Higgins Butts in 1923, Hazel May Higgins Price, 1927 and Virginia Lee Higgins Barton, 1929.

In 1930, Mildred, 16, found her life changed although she’s still living with her family. Mildred had attended Argentine High School in Kansas City and left after her junior year.[v] Now, she’s a Mrs. having married Roy Louis Rice. The two were each 16 when they married. They are both getting up for work each day with Mildred inspecting sporting goods and Roy working as a laborer.[vi]

The young couple live with her parents in the home they own in Kansas City. Besides Mary and Rheubin, the house includes Frank, who is grown , and three littles ones, Wilma, Hazel and Virginia. Rueben heads off each day to drive trucks for a gas and oil company. Frank works as a painter’s helper for Autoline.[vii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

As the family enters 1940 and the war looms ahead, Mildred and Roy have moved westward into Kansas and she is over 300 miles from her family in Kansas City. The couple are in a home they are renting in Boicourt, Kansas, near the town of Scott, and Roy is farming.[viii]

Meanwhile, Mildred’s parents and siblings are still living in the same home they’d owned for over a decade on 7th Street in Kansas City. The oldest two, Frank and Mildred are out of the house. Mildred’s younger sister, Wilma Jean and her husband, Glenn Butts, live there along with Hazel and Virginia.[ix]

Big brother, Frank, is a candy maker at the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company in Kansas City, manufacturers of crackers and candies.[x] He and his wife, Willie, have three little ones and they live about ten miles outside the city in Shawnee.

Before she enlisted, Mildred was working as a salesclerk.[xi]

On April 9, 1944, Roy Rice filed a divorce suit against Mildred.[xii] Twenty days later, Mildred found a fresh start by enlisting in the army, where she told them she was separated from her husband.

HER MILITARY STORY

PFC Mildred Higgins Rice, service number A-709161, served in the Women’s Army Corp, WACS. Mildred enlisted on April 29, 1944.[xiii]She served in the 1202nd Army Air Force Base Unit, WACS.

According to HonorStates.org, the women who were in the 1202nd were older, with an average age of 28, than the usual recruit and were chosen for their “maturity and work experience.”

Mildred reported for duty on May 8, 1944 along with four other Kansas City women. The group departed to Des Moines, Iowa to begin their basic training.[xiv]

On June 10, 1944, Mildred was granted a divorce from her 14-year marriage to Roy. By the time she left for overseas, she was single for the first time since she was 16.[xv]

In November of 1944, Mildred was one of 159 WACs in Accra, British West Africa to serve with the Air Transport Command. Their job was to deliver troops and supplies as well as transfer aircraft.[xvi]

Her hometown paper, The Kansas City Star, reported on the event with “WACS ARRIVE AT ACCRA” and a sub-headline that read “Pvt. Mildred Rice is Stationed on Gold Coast to Assist in Work at the ATC Base.”[xvii]

“GIs swarmed the airfield cheering as the first plane of WACs landed. Each WAC had a welcome committee and found glistening quarters as well as polished cars awaiting them,” the article stated. These WACs were the first to set foot on the hot, tropical soil of the African Gold Coast.[xviii] Mildred sent home three letters from the Gold Coast on May 29, according to a Kansas City Star article.[xix]

Under command of Lieutenant Patrice A. Brooks of San Francisco, the women were housed in a two-story barracks with wide screened verandas on both floors. They jobs were and desks and motor pools.[xx] Mildred was a typist and file clerk.[xxi]

HER LAST DAY

PFC Mildred Higgins Rice was with 17 other women of the Women’s Army Corp on a normally routine 776- mile[xxii] flight from Accra, British West Africa to Robert’s Field[xxiii], Liberia. Most of the WACs were onboard because they were being transferred to a new assignment. However, Mildred had different orders. She was flying on to England and then home. In fact, she had shipped home most of her belongings including a scrapbook full of photos taken during her time in the army, according to information from nooniefortin.com,[xxiv] which has a web page created by a retired Army Reserve First Sergeant that honor women killed in various wars.

On that last day, there were scattered showers that morning but no other weather of note.[xxv]Her plane, piloted by a crew of three[xxvi], a C-478 #44-76406, disappeared.[xxvii]

The plane was last reported over Takoradi, British West Africa, about 150 miles west of Accra, shortly after departure.[xxviii]

Little is known about what transpired aboard the plane that day but several calls of “Mayday,” an emergency procedure used as a voice distress signal, were heard. The distress signal was loud and clear, lasting five minutes.[xxix] A search was conducted by aircraft and surface craft over a wide area of the French Ivory Coast.[xxx] The search consisted of seven PET’s and British, French, and Native forces, who were informed to search waters and coastline. No sign of the plane was found.

The plane is believed to have crashed into the sea near Takoradi, Ghana.[xxxi] The Chicago Tribune reported the “[xxxii]18 WACs were the first ever reported lost overseas.”

She went missing on May 30, 1945 and was declared dead while missing in action off the coast of Ghana, Africa.[xxxiii] News of the missing planes made newspapers across America on June 6th, 1945. The Kansas City Star reported “WACS MISSING FLIGHT: Two Kansans Among 18 Women Aboard Transport in Africa.”[xxxiv]

Her parents were notified via telegram. No details were given at that time but a press release from Washington followed with news of the missing plane.

Mildred was 31.

**READ THE STORIES OF ALL 21 ON THIS FLIGHT **

Click here- https://www.fold3.com/page/653613892/flight-c-47b-44-76406-stories-of-21-missing-in-action/stories

COMMENDATIONS

Purple Heart

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign[xxxv]

MEMORIALS

On June 16, 1945, a memorial service for the missing women was held by the WACs’ leadership in Portman Square in London and over 660 WACs attended.[xxxvi]

PFC Mildred Higgins Rice is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing, an American Battle Monument, North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage Tunisia.

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.

[i] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44011_05_00053-00963?pId=115136397

[ii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44011_07_00005-01145?treeid=120157459&personid=410194922229&hintid=&queryId=7ede7d5dce644dba3475b5e6d8354a81&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Zvj610&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=25188412

[iii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4300901_01034?pId=74082367

[iv] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/1088/images/KS1925_176-0028?pId=8679474

[v] https://search.ancestryinstitution.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8939&h=579899&ssrc=pt&tid=120157459&pid=410194922562&usePUB=true

[vi] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4584814_00088?pId=34142701

[vii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4584814_00088?pId=34142704

[viii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-01241-00559?pId=59811817

[ix] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-01270-00398?pId=61990684

[x] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44011_07_00005-01145?treeid=120157459&personid=410194922229&hintid=&queryId=7ede7d5dce644dba3475b5e6d8354a81&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Zvj610&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=25188412

[xi] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=44349

[xii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655826835/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xiii] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=44349

[xiv] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655834546/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xv] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655783985/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xvi] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=334268

[xvii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655741433/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xviii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655741433/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xix] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655735729/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xx] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655741433/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xxi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655735729/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xxii]https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=22956270&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM3MDE5ODM5MSwiaWF0IjoxNjAwNjUzOTMxLCJleHAiOjE2MDA3NDAzMzF9.GGROPxU0pGgcIxOv2cUjLCtQalRy9746RfogyVqiR44

[xxiii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56250251/leona-marie_elizabeth-seyfert

[xxiv] http://www.nooniefortin.com/earlierwars.htm

[xxv] https://www.abmceducation.org/understandingsacrifice/soldier/rose-puchalla

[xxvi] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56250251/leona-marie_elizabeth-seyfert

[xxvii] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=334268

[xxviii]https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=22956270&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM3MDE5ODM5MSwiaWF0IjoxNjAwNjUzOTMxLCJleHAiOjE2MDA3NDAzMzF9.GGROPxU0pGgcIxOv2cUjLCtQalRy9746RfogyVqiR44

[xxix] https://www.abmceducation.org/understandingsacrifice/soldier/rose-puchalla

[xxx] New York Times, June 7, 1945 “18 WACS Missing on African Flight”

[xxxi] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56250251/leona-marie_elizabeth-seyfert

[xxxii]https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=22956270&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM3MDE5ODM5MSwiaWF0IjoxNjAwNjUzOTMxLCJleHAiOjE2MDA3NDAzMzF9.GGROPxU0pGgcIxOv2cUjLCtQalRy9746RfogyVqiR44

[xxxiii] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=334268

[xxxiv] https://www.newspapers.com/image/655735729/?terms=%22mildred%2Brice%22

[xxxv] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=44349

[xxxvi] https://www.facebook.com/notes/mia-recoveries-locating-lost-wwii-servicemen/the-tragic-loss-of-c-47-44-76406-the-wacs-worst-disaster/10150778536912463/

Mildred Higgins Rice from findagrave.jpeg

Mildred Rice - The_Kansas_City_Star_Wed__Nov_8__1944_ (1).jpg

Mildred Rice Missing - The_Kansas_City_Star_Wed__Jun_6__1945_.jpg

Mildred Rice Leaves for Basic Training -The_Kansas_City_Star_Wed__May_3__1944_.jpg

Mildred E Rice