Raymond 'Hap' Halloran
Feb. 4, 1922-June 7, 2011
Menlo Park, California

Raymond F. (Hap) Halloran, 89, a resident of Menlo Park, died June 7, 2011.

He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Feb. 4, 1922. He developed an early fascination for airplanes and, after Pearl Harbor, joined the Army Air Force. He shipped out to the Pacific Theater in 1944 as a B-29 navigator. He was shot down over Tokyo and was a prisoner of war in Japan until he was liberated in 1945.

After the war he returned to his hometown, recovered from his wartime injuries and went to work for the Rock Island Railroad. After transferring to Detroit and changing from railroads to the trucking business, he met Donna Carolyn Peterman and they were married in 1953. In 1958 he took a job with Consolidated Freightways (CF). In 1973 he was named executive vice president and became the company's top sales and marketing officer. He retired from CF in 1987 and was made senior vice president emeritus.

After battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for 40 years, he began making "reconciliation trips" to Japan, meeting the pilot who had shot him down in the war and making many Japanese friends. He also spoke to groups throughout the U.S. as a proponent of peace and forgiveness. He traveled with CBS-TV to Tokyo in 1995 for a special on the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII and in that year alone did 30 TV interviews and appeared in 12 documentaries on the war.

In 2001, along with former President George H.W. Bush, he was inducted into the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame. At the time of his death he was being cared for by the staff at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Menlo Park and is survived by his immediate family, sons Dan and Tim and daughter Peggy. Their mother Donna died in 1991. Hap will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

Tags: veteran