Background
Hall was born in Kings Norton. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force pre-war as a regular service airman with the service number 550173, before the war he had been a photographer in Halton.
Hall was born in Kings Norton. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force pre-war as a regular service airman with the service number 550173, before the war he had been a photographer in Halton.
He was part of the from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, but was captured and subsequently shot by the Gestapo. Hall was a leading aircraftman at the time he was commissioned as pilot officer on 17 April 1941 and promoted flying officer on 17 April 1942. During World World War II he served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, including serving for a time aboard HMS Ark Royal.
He later became a pilot for the 1st Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) flying out of Royal Air Force Benson South Oxfordshire, England.
Hall was promoted flight lieutenant on 17 April 1943. Hall was flying a 1 PRU Spitfire Puerto Rico Mk.IV (AA804) on 28 December 1941 when the aircraft came down over Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands.
He had been on high level reconnaissance mission to Düsseldorf when he was either shot down or suffered engine failure (accounts vary). lieutenant was the aircraft"s first operational flight and Hall"s third operational flight.
He became a prisoner of war and was sent to Stalag Luft III in Germany in the province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan (now Żagań in Poland).
See Stalag Luft III murders
He was one of the 76 men who escaped the prison camp on the night of 24–25 March 1944, in the escape now famous as "the Great Escape". He was recaptured near Sagan. He became one of the 50 executed and murdered by the Gestapo on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler on 30 March 1944 and then cremated at Liegnitz, now part of the Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery.
Before his execution he had written on his cell wall "We who are about to die salute you".