 |
| 1st Lt. Thomas Pace was a Corsair pilot in VMF-452 on the carrier USS Franklin. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36248314/thomas-d-pace https://www.flickr.com/photos/skyhawkpc/25337874457 http://mmpbooks.biz/ksiazki/329 |
Thomas Dee Pace never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Thomas was born on July 9, 1920 in Grand Island, Nebraska. His parents Willis and Alma were born in Missouri and Nebraska, respectively. His father worked as a railroad office clerk. Thomas had two younger sisters. By 1940 Thomas had completed four years of high school. He was still living at home and worked as a railroad shop helper.
With the news of the Marines landing on Guadalcanal fresh in the papers, he enlisted in the US Marines on August 14, 1942.
He became a first lieutenant in VMF 452 known as the Sky Raiders. This unit was equipped with F4U Corsairs and was trained for carrier based operations. On February 7, 1945, this Marine fighter squadron was attached to the carrier USS Franklin and departed San Francisco bound for Okinawa.
Lt. Pace failed to return from a mission to bomb airfields on Kyushu Island on March 18, 1945, the very first day VMF-452 flew in combat. He was first listed as missing but by late March his family was told he was presumed dead. The squadron had an even worse experience the next day when Franklin was hit by two 500 lb bombs dropped by a Judy dive bomber - 33 members of VMF were killed, rendering the squadron ineffective. The rest were sent back to the states.
His cenotaph grave is at Fort McPherson National Cemetery, Maxwell, Nebraska.
This is one of the final 100 stories (57) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.
Last year on this date I profiled Silver Star hero Hugh Breakenridge, 4th Marine Division. You can read about Hugh here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
No comments:
Post a Comment