Peter Graham
Well-Known Member
My main area of collecting interest apart from jackets is US Army uniforms and field gear. A few years ago I bought this rather nice example of an early war canteen set.
The cover, canteen and cup are all 1942 dated and the canteen has the early type aluminium cap. The fact that the cover had three initials and a service number was a nice bonus. I pulled up the owners enlistment record a few years ago but didn't dig any further until last night. Here's the enlistment record.
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-deta ... id=4953705
After another quick search I turned up these.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... 15&df=all&
http://warmemorial.us/mediawiki3/index. ... L_SERGEANT)_WWII
So it seems Norris W Thomas attained the rank of Technical Sergeant but sadly, was killed in action, probably in 1944 or 45. It seems odd that there is no date of death given or any other info regarding his unit etc. Does anyone know where I can go from here to research this guy further ? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I find it really sad that the two items of ID'd service gear that I own, the canteen and the 91st bomb group B-3 both turned out to belong to guys that were killed in action when they were barely 20 years old.
The cover, canteen and cup are all 1942 dated and the canteen has the early type aluminium cap. The fact that the cover had three initials and a service number was a nice bonus. I pulled up the owners enlistment record a few years ago but didn't dig any further until last night. Here's the enlistment record.
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-deta ... id=4953705
After another quick search I turned up these.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... 15&df=all&
http://warmemorial.us/mediawiki3/index. ... L_SERGEANT)_WWII
So it seems Norris W Thomas attained the rank of Technical Sergeant but sadly, was killed in action, probably in 1944 or 45. It seems odd that there is no date of death given or any other info regarding his unit etc. Does anyone know where I can go from here to research this guy further ? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I find it really sad that the two items of ID'd service gear that I own, the canteen and the 91st bomb group B-3 both turned out to belong to guys that were killed in action when they were barely 20 years old.