The Dallas Journal, Volume 51, 2005 Page: 7
172 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Remeberance Ceremony for Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Morrow
action was taken all the way. Finally, when at
3,500 feet, Lt. Garrett ordered his crew to bail
out. T/Sgt Jones was the first man out, followed
by S/Sgt McElfrish. S/Sgt Martinez was the
third to jump. Due to his injuries, S/Sgt Braun
had to be dragged to the hatch and dropped out
by Cpl Croft. Lt. Beam, Cpl Croft, Lt. Stone and
Lt. Crantz followed Harold Braun out of the
ship. These eight men bailed out within 3
minutes, and some landed near the train station
of the nearby Westerbeek village, in Belgium.
Lt. Garrett stayed at the controls of the aircraft
to allow his colleagues to bail out safely, and
jumped himself at the very last moment. He
landed very close to his crashed airplane. All
nine survivors were taken care of by a nearby
unit of the British Air Forces and repatriated to
England. Sergeants Braun and McElfrish first
spent a considerable period of time at a British
Army Hospital in Geel.
The crippled bomber crashed at 14.52 hours in a
field at the village of Ramsel, Belgium, with the
body of S/Sgt Morrow on board. His remains
burned with the aircraft wreckage, and wererecovered by local resistance workers after the
fire had been stopped. The blazing tail section
of the aircraft fell on the nearby farm of the
Coomans de Bracene Family, which was
operated by Josef Vleminkx. The farm burnt
down completely. In the early evening of 7
October, Alfons Heylen transported S/Sgt
Morrow's body on a cart to the morgue at
Ramsel. Due to misidentification of the remains
by the local constable Frans Tubbax, the Priest,
members of the town hall and the caretaker of
the cemetery of Ramsel, August Janssens, the
remains were buried on 12 October 1944 near
the parish church of Ramsel as being two
bodies. An investigation by a U. S. Army
Medical Officer in April 1946 revealed however
that there was only one body present,
whereupon the remains of S/Sgt Morrow were
transferred to the U. S. Military Cemetery at
Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium. In 1948,
Thomas Morrow's mother had the body of her
son repatriated and re-buried at his hometown,
Dallas, Texas. There, Thomas is resting in peace
to this day. We will remember him.
(Research by P. Celis and J. Vaes.)g.'
Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Morrow and his B - 24
Dallas Journal 2005 7
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Dallas Genealogical Society. The Dallas Journal, Volume 51, 2005, periodical, October 2005; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth186864/m1/11/?rotate=270: accessed April 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Genealogical Society.