Ralph Francis Hogan was born in February 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was one of ten children. His dad owned his own business and was making a decent living for his family. Hogan remembered that he and all his siblings attended Catholic school and paid tuition. Hogan's father died in 1939, and life became more difficult during the Great Depression for him and his family. He had a newspaper route when he was a teenager. He never felt like he was suffering but there was never any money. No one he knew had money. Hogan and his friends were playing basketball on the outside grounds of a church, when a priest came up to them and told them that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Hogan recalls that he did not even know where Pearl Harbor was located or what that event meant. Hogan graduated high school in June 1942 from St. Aloysius [Annotator's Note: now known as Brother Martin High School in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Hogan was given a deferment from the draft because his mother needed him to help support the family. He was drafted six months later in November 1943. Hogan tested well enough to enter in the VFT, or Volunteer Flight Training program. He was sent to Sheppard Field, Texas where he was tested again to see if he was qualified for the program. Hogan always had an interest in flying, so he really was happy when he was accepted into the program. He was sent to a college in Merced, California to begin the program when, in April 1944, the Air Force discontinued the VFT program. They gave the trainees a choice to go to navigation school, bombardier school, and radio school. But all the programs were packed, so Hogan spent six weeks doing nothing. They finally sent him to gunnery school in Kingman, Arizona, and Hogan really enjoyed his experience there. He learned about shot guns, rifles, machine guns, and then .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun]. He loved target practice and shooting moving targets out of a truck. It was a new experience for him. He learned how to assemble a machine gun blind folded. Once he graduated from gunnery school, Hogan was sent to Gulfport [Annotator's Note: Gulfport, Mississippi] for mechanical school where he was trained to work on a Whitney [Annotator's Note: Pratt and Whitney aircraft engines] Cycle 12 and 75 horsepower plane engines. The training was short then Hogan was sent to MacDill [Annotator's Note: MacDill Field; now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida] to be shipped overseas. The Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] began in December 1944 and Hogan remembers everyone on base was excited. He was organized into a crew by WACs [Annotator's Note: Women's Army Corps; women's branch of the United States Army, 1942 to 1978] who granted his wish to be assigned with a couple of his buddies. His crew was sent to Hunters Field [Annotator's Note: Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia], given a plane, and then given orders to fly overseas after a stop in Bangor, Maine. They arrived in Europe in January 1945.

Ralph Francis Hogan and his unit [Annotator's Note: 850th Bombardment Squadron, 490th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] was stationed at Eye Airfield in Diss, England. Hogan and his crew flew 17 missions before being shot down on their 18th mission. Hogan recalls that on days he was scheduled for a mission, he was woken up early, given breakfast, then was sent to a meeting room to find out their mission for the day. Then the crews boarded their planes and took off. Hogan recalls that their missions were long because most of their targets were in Germany by that time. His missions lasted around five or six hours. Hogan, a waist gunner, was responsible for the wellbeing of the lower ball operator because that position could not have a parachute with him and was in a vulnerable position if something went wrong during the mission. Hogan recalls when he fired the gun, he would fire every five seconds so the gun would not overheat. He wore an electrically heated suit to keep warm, because the temperatures in that high altitude were below freezing. His crew was well supported by the fighter pilots when Hogan's team called for help. On his 18th mission, they were to target an airfield. While on their way there, they were told that bandits [Annotator's Note: term for enemy aircraft] were close by. All of a sudden, there were two German fighter planes on their tail. One was shot down, and the other eventually had to retreat, but not before he hit Hogan's plane. Hogan's plane lost two engines, electricity, and communications. It eventually caught fire, so Hogan and his crew bailed out. Hogan put on a flak suit before he jumped out of the plane. He had only received instruction on how to use a parachute and was never trained, so this was the first time he had ever jumped out of a plane. He prayed the whole way down.

Ralph Francis Hogan landed in a farm field after bailing out of his plane. Initially when he landed, he thought he broke every bone in his body, but made out okay. He was gathering his parachute when he saw two of his buddies doing the same thing. They walked into a wooded area and hid their parachutes under some leaves. As they walked out near the edge of the woods, they saw people coming after them. The group forced Hogan and his buddies to find their parachutes and when they did, they carried them out of the woods and into a nearby town, called Celle, Germany. Upon entering the town, he was interrogated by the Burgermeister [Annotator's Note: German for Mayor]. All of a sudden, a German pilot came in and put a gun to Hogan's head and was going to kill him and his buddies, but the Burgermeister stopped the pilot and told him to leave. As kids hit them with sticks, Hogan and his buddies were forced to board a fire engine, which brought them to an airfield. They received a good meal and were put in cell. The next morning, they were transported to Uelzen, Germany. They took them to a dark room for a couple of hours and then to a large barn where British prisoners were being kept. Their first night, the British prisoners were having entertainment night where they would tell stories and sing to pass the time. There were about 500 prisoners and many of them had been there for several years. On 12 April 1945, Hogan heard bells ringing and citizens were yelling that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had died and they were celebrating because they thought war would end. A few days later, the Germans moved the prisoners out of Uelzen because the British were nearby. During the move, British planes attacked, and everyone scattered. With the help of a Belgian boy, Hogan and his buddies hid in a dry gulley and then moved into a wooded area. After the attack, the Germans rounded up all the prisoners they could find and moved out again. Hogan and his buddies set off in the opposite direction. That evening, they saw German police with dogs coming after them. The police realized they were prisoners of war and brought them to a town that had a prisoner compound.

The next day Ralph Francis Hogan was imprisoned at a compound, the city was attacked. Instead of going in a bomb shelter, he and his buddy stayed underneath a bed in the barracks. Hogan found out later after the British arrived, that the barracks he was in had a large cross on the roof, so it was not bombed. When the British took over the town, they liberated the prisoners and gave aid to those who needed medical attention. Hogan and his Belgian friend walked into town to buy cheese and schnapps. Hogan was scared because he was afraid the German civilians might attack them. On the contrary, German civilians were civil with them but were not too friendly. A couple of women gave them some guns, and Hogan and his friend found a jeep and drove it back to the prison camp and picked up some prisoners along the way. They met up with a British infantry which stopped them, put them in a truck, and sent them to Brussels [Annotator's Note: Brussels, Belgium] by plane. The British flew him to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] and turned him over to the Americans. He was interrogated and then sent back to his unit, the 490th Bombardment Group [Annotator's Note: 850th Bombardment Squadron, 490th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. Hogan did not stay too long, and his commander gave orders to send him home. He boarded a medical ship on VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] and was transported back to the United States with a convoy. He was given patrol duty on the ship because he was healthy. He had never been on a ship before and he felt that the voyage took a long time. When he made it back to America, he was ordered to report to Camp Kilmer [Annotator's Note: Camp Kilmer, New Jersey] and then he was given a 60 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], so he went home. He visited with relatives and friends during that time. He was then sent to Miami [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] and stayed at a lush hotel, going through physicals and interrogations which was a standard protocol for recovering POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war]. He was then transferred to the air base in Gulfport [Annotator's Note: Gulfport, Mississippi] and remained there until the World War 2 ended. Hogan remarked that while he was M.I.A. [Annotator's Note: Missing in Action] in Europe his family received a notice, but since he was not missing for very long, he was able to send a telegram ten days later to let them know he was alive and safe.

Ralph Francis Hogan was a staff sergeant when he was discharged at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He was stationed at Gulfport, Mississippi after he returned to the United States as an Ex-POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] as a clerk. There was a lieutenant there who wanted to ship Hogan out, but Hogan went to a commander who gave orders for him to stay in Gulfport. [Annotator's Note: The sound goes in and out at 0:53:49.000.] When Hogan bailed out of his plane over Germany, he was not carrying a weapon. He also remembers that the sky would light up when American planes were under attack, because of all the ammunition that was fired between the enemy and the Allies. World War 2 changed his life because it set him up for a better future. Hogan went to school but then one of his buddies from the war asked him to work at the New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] airport, which he did. Hogan believes it is important to have The National WWII Museum and tries to donate funds through his POW organization.