August 6, 1945, marked a day of unparalleled devastation when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
Among the countless lives lost, 12 American prisoners of war (POWs) were tragically caught in the blast. One of these brave souls was Second Lieutenant Durden William Looper from Sebastian County.
Born on March 18, 1923, Looper grew up on a family farm near Greenwood, the son of Walter and Bertha Looper. Walter, was a farmer, and his mother, Bertha, was listed as a housewife in three consecutive census records.
He graduated from Mansfield High School in 1939 and married Ruth Marie Kurtz in 1942, the same year he joined the Army Air Corps.
Looper and his crew were aboard the B-24 bomber Lonesome Lady on July 28, 1945 when it was shot down during a mission over Hiroshima. The crew was on a mission to bomb the Japanese battleship Haruna when their aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire.
From the Yontan airfield on Okinawa, veteran pilot 1st Lt. Emil Turek led four B-24 bombers of the 866th Squadron on the 494th’s bombing run . Usually a squadron formation of 6 planes, one was grounded for a maintenance issue and another may have diverted on the way to the target.
In all, 35 planes from the 494th Bombardment Group left Okinawa's Yontan Airfield for Kure Harbor. That day, Turek flew as Squadron Leader of the fifth of six assigned 494th Squadrons, but not in his usual plane, the Lonesome Lady.
Second Lt. Thomas Cartwright’s crew flew the Lonesome Lady with Lt. Durden as co-pilot , and they were followed in formation by the crew of veteran pilot Joseph Dubinsky in the Taloa.. Both planes were shot down that day.
Captured by Japanese soldiers, Looper and his fellow POWs were taken to the Chugoku military headquarters in Hiroshima. They were interrogated, subjected to torture and pprovided with very little medical or humanitarian aid over the following week.
Of these crewmen men were among the twelve Americans, including Lt. Looper, who were killed when nine days later the U.S. detonated the first of two atomic bombs used in warfare.
At 8:15 a.m., on August 6, the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb, obliterating the city and claiming the lives of all American prisoners held there. The Chugoku building, located about 2,600 feet from the blast, was extensively damaged, and Looper, along with his comrades, either perished in the explosion or succumbed to radiation sickness shortly after.
Ruth Looper was informed six months later that her husband had "probably died" in the atomic explosion, though official confirmation from U.S. military records was delayed due to lost service records in a 1973 fire.
The tragic fate of Looper and his fellow POWs remained largely unknown for years. It wasn't until the efforts of Shigeaki Mori, a Japanese atomic bomb survivor, that their names were finally recognized4. Mori spent decades searching for the identities of the American POWs and helped their families find closure.
In November 1949, a mass funeral was held at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery near St. Louis, where a single coffin was buried, listing Looper and seven other soldiers.
A bronze plaque honoring Looper and eight other American casualties at Hiroshima was dedicated on August 5, 1989, at Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia
A memorial headstone also placed in the Gill; Cemetery in Mansfield next to the plot where his parents were buried.
