Odessa Hollingsworth followed the example of her father and served her country when the need was great.

Odessa Lou Hollingsworth was the first baby to grace the lives of Oklahomans Otis A. Hollingsworth and Lenora “Nora” Edith Davenport Hollingsworth at their home in Wayne, Oklahoma.

As they were awaiting her birth, World War I loomed. In June of 1917, Otis registered for the draft. After registering, Otis was called to serve. He went with a McClain county contingent to Camp Travis, Texas, toward the later part of 1917 and then served over seas.

When Odessa was born at Thanksgiving time, November 24, 1917,[i] it is likely that her father had already left for the service. However, he did get a furlough the first week of January to spend with his wife and new baby.[ii]

In August of 1918, Otis wrote home to Nora and baby Odessa from France. The letter was published in The Purcell Register newspaper. The letter begins “My Dear Wife and Baby.” It goes on to say “I would sure like to see you and the baby. Have a nice Christmas Dinner and I will be there to help you eat it… It will be hard to see a German in a fog but then it is also hard for him to see me so that evens the proposition up…write to me often. Nothing cheers me more than a letter from you.”[iii]

She shared another letter on September 12, 1918 [iv]with The Purcell Register newspaper of Purcell, Oklahoma, which sits just 10 miles from their home in Wayne. She reported that her husband had been in France for four months and that he had gone “over the tops’ and made it through fine.

Apparently, that fog he mentioned wasn’t sufficient as Odessa’s father was severely wounded according to a casualty list[v] in the Daily Oklahoma and reported on October 10, 1918.[vi]

“My grandmother was told he was killed but found out three months later he was in a hospital in France,” said Otis’ granddaughter, Twyla Taylor.

He came home to recuperate.

After the war, the family was living in a home they own in the town of Wayne. Otis was working as a farm laborer.[vii] Following Odessa, came a little sister in 1920, Bertha Lee Hollingsworth[viii], and a little brother in 1922, Charles E. Boy Hollingsworth.[ix] Sadly, in a time before vaccinations, when Odessa was 7 years old in 1924, both Bertha and Charles passed away in the same week.

The Purcell Register newspaper reported on the small children’s deaths from diphtheria. According to the May 8, 1924 paper, the children were just recovering from the measles when diphtheria developed. Bertha Lee died on a Wednesday and was buried on Thursday. Charles dies on that Saturday and was buried on Sunday.[x]

Three years following the sibling’s deaths, Otis and Nora had moved to Sulpher, Oklahoma where they had another baby boy and named him Harold Glenn Hollingsworth in 1925. They called him Pete.[xi]

By 1930, the family, Otis, Nora, Odessa, and Pete, had made a change. They were now living in a rental home in Oklahoma City. Otis has a job working as a salesman for a candy factory.[xii]

Odessa attended high school for three years, leaving when she was 16 or 17.

In 1937, with one child still in school, Odessa’s mother, Nora, is busy with Parent Teacher Association activities.[xiii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

Just before the war years, Odessa is working as a cashier in a drug store. She’s living with another single woman, Ready R. Young, in Oklahoma City. Ready works as a W.P.A. data office stenographer. Odessa has bought a Chevrolet Sedan and is working to pay off the $524.16 she owes to the Downtown Chevrolet Company.[xiv]

In the early 40s, brother Pete was attending Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City. After schooling, her brother Pete also joined the war effort. He served in the Navy.

Odessa’s father joined the war endeavor too by working in an Oklahoma factory. According to “Take-Off,” an Oklahoma City newspaper published in the interest of the personnel of the Oklahoma City Air Technical Service Command, Otis is working in the parts sorting unit.[xv]

At the time of her enlistment, Odessa was working as a tool sharpener and dresser. A dresser can refer to someone who handles costumes for theater performers or may work in the fashion industry dressing clients, fashion models or possibly dressing window displays.

HER MILITARY STORY

Odessa Lou Hollingsworth, service number A-806104, served in the Women’s Army Corp, WACS. Odessa enlisted on December 21, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma as a Private First Class. 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.”

In November of 1944, Odessa 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 departure to Africa made the news back home in Oklahoma. The Seminole County News shared it under the headline “To Serve in Africa.”

HER LAST DAY

PFC Hollingsworth was with 17 other women of the Women’s Army Corp on a normally routine 776- mile[xvii] flight from Accra, British West Africa to Robert’s Field[xviii], Liberia. The WACs were onboard as they were being transferred to a new assignment. There were scattered showers that morning but no other weather of note.[xix]

Her plane, piloted by a crew of three[xx], a C-478 #44-76406, disappeared.[xxi]

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

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.[xxiii] A search was conducted by aircraft and surface craft over a wide area of the French Ivory Coast.[xxiv] 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 Takordi, Ghana.[xxv] The Chicago Tribune reported the “[xxvi]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.[xxvii] News of the missing planes made newspapers across America on June 6th, 1945. News of Odessa missing was The El Reno Daily Tribune in El Reno, Oklahoma.[xxviii]

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. Her family still holds onto the letters received from the commander and the president about her death.

Her brother, Pete, was given a 20 day leave of absence to be with his parents following her death.[xxix] According Pete’s daughter, Twyla Taylor, her father was at Pearl Harbor and was later released as he was the only surviving child of the parents.[xxx]

“My grandmother always kept hope she was alive because the plane was never found,” Taylor said.[xxxi]

Odessa was 28.

**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[xxxii]

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.[xxxiii]

Private First Class Odessa Lou Hollingsworth is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing, an American Battle Monument, North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage Tunisia.

Fifty-seven years after her death, she was remembered, along with little siblings, Bertha and Charles, in the obituary of her brother, Harold Glenn “Pete” in 2002. The only surviving child of his parents, he lived to be 77 and had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.[xxxiv]

HER GRAVE MARKER

Odessa Lou Hollingsworth is remembered on the grave marker she shares with her little sister, Bertha Lee Hollingsworth, and little brother, Charles C. Boy Hollingsworth. The marker is at the Hopping Cemetery in Wayne, Oklahoma. It reads “Lost Over the Atlantic.”[xxxv]

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.findagrave.com/memorial/56247750/odessa-lou-hollingsworth

[ii] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/587352835/?terms=%22Otis%2Bhollingsworth%22

[iii] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/587317566/?terms=%22Otis%2Ba%2Bhollingsworth%22

[iv] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/587317566/?terms=%22otis%2BHollingsworth%22

[v] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/611266719/?terms=%22otis%2BHollingsworth%22

[vi] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/587317889/?terms=%22otis%2BHollingsworth%22

[vii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/family-tree/person/tree/74605139/person/370038976373/facts?_phsrc=Zvj222&_phstart=successSource

[viii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55587071/bertha-lee-hollingsworth

[ix] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55587086/charles-c.-hollingsworth

[x] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/587161050/?terms=%22otis%2BHollingsworth%22

[xi] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56247750/odessa-lou-hollingsworth

[xii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/family-tree/person/tree/74605139/person/370038976373/facts?_phsrc=Zvj222&_phstart=successSource

[xiii] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/594933009/?terms=%22Otis%2Bhollingsworth%22

[xiv] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/593848767/?terms=%22Odessa%2BHollingsworth%22

[xv] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/594950370

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[xxviii] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/663755411/?terms=%22odessa%20hollingsworth&match=1

[xxix] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/594950370

[xxx] Writer interview notes with family member Twyla Taylor

[xxxi] Writer interview notes with family member Twyla Taylor

[xxxii] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=101001

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

[xxxiv] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/25714192/harold-glenn_%22pete%22-hollingsworth

[xxxv] https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2016/57/55587071_1456638562.jpg

WAC Pin

1945 London, England, Memorial Service for the 18 lost WACs

New York Times.jpg

Odessa Hollingsworth grave marker.jpg

Odessa L. Hollingsworth letter from dad when she was a baby.jpg

Odessa L Hollingsworth