MISSING OFFICER, ROBERT HAKALA, NAZI PRISONER
Mrs. Robert W. Hakala, 2016 St. Aubin street, has been notified by the War Department that her husband, First Lt. Robert W. Hakala, was listed as a prisoner of war in a short wave broadcast from Germany. Several persons living along the east coast have written to Mrs. Hakala stating that they picked up the message, also.
Lt. Hakala was an infantryman with the 100th division in the Seventh Army.
His mother, Mrs. Eli V. Hakala, lives at Virginia, Minn.
Lt. Hakala was a graduate of Morningside college and a prominent football player there. He was selected for officer candidate school in September, 1942, and has been overseas for six months.
On January 19 the War Department had reported him as missing in action.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, February 24, 1945
LTs, WALKER, HAKALA SAFE
Wives of 2 Sioux City Officers Receive Good News
Wives of two Sioux City officers have received word of their husbands, who were taken prisoner by the Germans. One learned for the first time her husband had been captured after having been listed previously as “missing,” and the other was informed her husband had been freed by Allied Armies.
Mrs. Darwyn E. Walker, 607 Casselman street, received a card from First Lt. Walker, who was reported missing January 23, that he was in a German prison camp. The card was mailed February 1.
It was the first news she had had of him since the official War Department notification that the officer was missing.
Mrs. Robert Hakala, 201 S. St. Aubin street, learned Tuesday through a story by a Chicago newspaper correspondent that Lt. Hakala, who was reported a German prisoner February 19, had been liberated from a Brunswick Germany officer’s prison camp.
Lt. Walker, son of Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Walker, 519 Collins street, was with the national guard group that trained at Camp Claiborne, La., and went overseas in 1941.
Lt. Hakala, a prominent Morningside football player, is the son of Mrs. Eli V. Hakala, Virginia, Minn.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, April 18, 1945
