Private First Class John Douglas Hall was a paratrooper from Able Company, 1st Battalion, 506th PIR.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Hall was born on 24 March 1922 in Mancos, Colorado. (The "s" was erroneously omitted in both the series and book. The series also depicts Halls as having instead come from New York).
WWII[]
Hall enlisted in the Army in 1942 at Pueblo, Colorado and was assigned to the 506th PIR, in the 101st Airborne. After training, Halls qualified as a Paratrooper at Fort Benning and headed to England in 1943, awaiting further orders.
He jumped into Normandy on 6 June 1944, landing around the town of Sainte-Mère-Église. He met up with 1st Lt. Richard Winters of Easy Company, identified himself as being a radioman from Able Company who had lost his radio. After meeting up with other men from Easy Company and two others from the 82nd Airborne Division, Halls and the rest of the group came to the town of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.
Winters of Easy Company was assigned to lead an attack on Brécourt Manor. Hall and another Able Company trooper joined in for the attack. Hall supplied the men with TNT to take out the guns, and while running back to collect more TNT, was killed by a landmine.
Hall is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
Confusion of name[]
It said that Halls was a radioman from Able Company, in both the series, and the book. However, one veteran of HQ Company confirmed that it was a man named John D. Halls, with an s, that was killed, and was from the 81mm Mortar Platoon in HQ Company. The only man named John D. Hall that was killed on D-Day was T-5 John D. Hall of Service Company, and he was killed when his plane crashed, in the 439th Troop Carrier. This could be because the men of Easy who said his name was Hall forgot that his name had an s, and he could have been from HQ Company, but was attached to Able Company during the attack on Brécourt Manor.