Lincoln Hudson
*Lincoln Hudson was born on this date in 1916. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force officer, fighter pilot, Prisoner of War in Nazi Germany, and corporate executive.
Lincoln T. Hudson was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was the son of a Methodist minister who traveled to various congregations in the Southern United States. Hudson graduated from high school in Louisiana. After moving to Chicago in 1933, Hudson sold hair care products door-to-door for the C.W. Smith Company, a Black-owned Chicago wholesaler. Hudson also sold insurance and worked in a butcher shop. He was married to Christine Hudson; Hudson had three children: son Lincoln Jr., son Chester, and daughter Crystal. Until he died in 1988, Hudson was a longtime Chicago's Chatham neighborhood resident.
On June 27, 1944, Hudson graduated as a Tuskegee Airman from the pilot cadet training program's Class 44-F-SE, receiving his wings and commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. During official leave, he and fellow Tuskegee Airmen Harold Brown would borrow military planes on the weekend, flying them to Chicago to visit Hudson's wife and to enjoy the city of Chicago. He was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group's 301st Fighter Squadron. Hudson flew 20 missions during World War II. Prisoner of War in Nazi Germany On the afternoon of March 23, 1945, Hudson's P-51 Mustang experienced an engine failure after losing oil. Bailing from his damaged aircraft, Hudson parachuted over eastern Czechoslovakia.
After capturing Hudson, the German military transported him to a prisoner of war (POW) camp at Nuremberg-Langwasser (south of Nuremberg, Germany). The Germans interrogated, severely tortured, and beat Hudson almost beyond recognition. The Germans later transferred Hudson to the multinational Stalag VII-A (in full: Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager VII-A), the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Nazi Germany. On April 29, 1945, General George Patton and his Third Army liberated Hudson, Brown, and approximately 76,000 other POWs as Patton's tanks and troops rolled through Stalag VII-A.
Post-World War II
In 1946, Hudson received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army Air Corps. in 1951, he enrolled at Loyola University Chicago, graduating with a degree in business. After some graduate work at the University of Chicago in November 1952, Hudson became an advertising salesman with Johnson Publishing, the publishers of the historic Ebony Magazine and Jet Magazine. Hudson became Midwest advertising manager, Vice President of Advertising, and Senior Vice President. In the late 1950s, he closed a lucrative advertising contract with Chevrolet, one of the first U.S. automobile companies to advertise in an African American publication. Hudson died on September 26, 1988, in Chicago, Illinois. He was interred at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, in Cook County.
