“F.D.R., Stimson Asked to Probe Soldier Lynching”
Defender Apr 26, 1941: 12

NAACP brands death of Private Felix Hall, 24th infantry, a lynching. To FDR, NAACP wrote that failing to find and punish “the lynchers ‘would be a further blow at the morale of colored Americans who are being urged daily to give unstinted support to the national defense effort.'”

“Press Murder Theory in Soldier’s Hanging Probe”
Defender May 3, 1941: 5

death was last February. investigation no evidence of murder, though provost marshall of the base said it was his opinion that “Hall was murdered.”

Body discovered Mar 28 “danglingover a cliff on the reservation, with one end of a rope around the neck and the other tied to a sapling near the top of the gulley. The feet were bound together with wire and the hands were loosely tied to the body.”

Discovery made by regiment on training exercise. Apparently dead “for several weeks, as the body was badly decomposed.”

Last seen Feb 12, AWOL the next day.