Personnel

Ground

Crew chief of Cowboy Owen Roane airplanes, "Laden Maiden" and "The BigassBird."



MEMBER OF GROUND CREW HEADED BY M/SGT RAY MORTON..



M/SGT R. C. MORTON  FLIGHT CHIEF



T/SGT FRED A. LEHMAN ASSIT CREW CHIEF - LADEN MAIDEN



S/SGT B.G.WOODWARD "WOODY" PORTLAND OR.  



S/SGT J.E. BAGGETT  AHOSKIE, N.C.



T/SGT PETE COOK  SAINT JO, TX  TAPS OCT. 2001



This quotes are straight out of the paper and subject to editing. A point ofinterest is that Pete Cook and Bob Morton asked Cowboy for permission to try some bullet proof glass on the side windows. Cowboy turned them down since all of the glass area could not be protected and he felt the weight addition would be prohibitive. His instructions were not followed and Morton and Cook installed the protective glass anyway - on the next mission enemy fire did strike the side window by Cowboy and failed to injure him. Little more was said about the glass according to Cowboy. Pete never joined the association but always loved the 100th and maintained a close relationship with Cowboy and Morton.... Paul"Services for J.E. "Pete" Cook are set for the First Methodist Church inSaint Joe, Texas on October the seventh, two thousand and one....He was born October 25, 1918 in Montague County, Texas. He served with the 100th Bomb group during WWII in aircraft maintenance and was stationed at Thorpe Abbotts, England from mid 1943 until late 1945. After the war he returned toSaint Joe and was a life long rancher. He was a charter member of theSouthwestern Cattle Raisers Association."Pete admired and raised what he call 'pretty good horses' most of hislife.""Though too ill to attend, among the Honorary Pallbearers was his old 100thBombgroup comrade, Cowboy Roane."  (sent by paul west)



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It is with a heavy heart that I report my father, Ray Morton, passed away yesterday afternoon, after a long battle with Alzheimer's. The following is a special obituary I wrote for the 100th family.



Ray C. Morton, 94, of Seattle, died peacefully Tuesday, March 26, 2013, at the adult family home he had resided at since 2010.



He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Thelma Morton, two sons Stephen Morton and Scott Morton, daughter-in-law Deborah Morton, and a single grandson Blake Morton, all of Seattle, Washington.



He was born in Soap Lake, Washington, November 4, 1918, as the second child and the oldest brother to his six siblings.  His family moved to Troy, Idaho in the early 1930’s where he attended Troy High School and played on the football team. At 17 years old, when his mother Maude was killed in a hit-and-run auto accident on a rural farm road, he assumed a surrogate role as head of the household to his siblings. He left high school after finishing the 11th grade to work full time driving a 2-ton flatbed truck hauling milk.  By age 20 he learned to maintain all the farm machinery and operate Caterpillar Tractors pulling harvest machinery for a local wheat farmer, William Summer, in Troy.



In late September 1941, just under 23 years old, he was inducted into the US Army at Fort Lewis, Washington. Three days later, on October 3, 1941, he was discharged to enable him to re-enlist in the Regular Army so as to have a choice to be assigned to the Air Corps for three years.  By April 1942 he received his Army Air Force Technical Training Center Diploma and was in the third class to graduate from AAFTTC school at Keesler Field, Mississippi.  Assigned to the 29th Bomb Group, MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida, he was sent on detached service to Genier Field, New Hampshire servicing B-17's at the time the 29th Bomb Group made the move to Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho.  He rejoined the 29th at Gowen Field in July 1942 where he was assigned as a B-17 Engineer Instructor, training crews for combat duty. October 27, 1942, he was one of a small unit of enlisted men and officers that was transferred via "Special Order Number 300" from the 29th Bomb Group to the newly formed 100th Bombardment Group (Heavy). It was while stationed at Gowen Field in Boise that he would meet Thelma Young - on a blind date neither wanted to go on – who he would fall in love with and marry three and a half years later after WWII.



Late October, 1942 Ray was entrained to Walla Walla, Washington at which time the original three 100th Bomb Group’s 349th, 350th, and 351st Bomb Squadrons were formed. He was promoted to Staff Sergeant and assigned to the 349th BS as a Ground Crew Chief and Assistant Flight Chief.  Moving from base to base throughout the US with the 100th Bomb Group, he was quickly promoted to Technical Sergeant, then Master Sergeant by May 1943.  After an eight day voyage on the Queen Elizabeth with thousands of other soldiers he made his way to his assigned ETO air field, Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk, England by early June 1943. He was assigned a five man crew to keep his B-17’s flight worthy for the critical daylight bombing missions over Germany. 



In July 1944 he was awarded the Legion of Merit by Major General E. E. Partridge, commanding officer of the Eighth Air Force's Third Bombardment Division: For exceptionally meritorious con¬duct in the performance of outstanding services as crew chief of heavy bombardment aircraft from 29 June 1943 to 13 May 1944.  Master Sergeant Morton, by his skill, leadership and untiring ef¬fort, has inspired his ground crew to an exceptional degree of efficiency. Because of the uniformly superior condition in which the four airplanes under the care of Master Sergeant Morton have been maintained, fifty-nine combat missions have been completed without a mechanical failure. The efficiency and devotion to duty exhibited by Master Sergeant Morton have been a credit to himself and the armed forces of the United States.



Other citations and awards included: The European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with six battle stars; Air Offensive, Europe; Normandy; Northern France; Rhineland; Ardennes-Alsace; and Central Europe, the Good Conduct Medal; American Defense Service Medal; Distinguished/Presidential Citation with One Oak Leaf Cluster.



He crewed for many B-17 planes on his assigned Hardstand No. 17 during the 2 years he was at Thorpe Abbotts Station 139.  Among the most notable were: 42-5861 “LADEN MAIDEN,” pilots - William W. Veal, then Owen “Cowboy” Roane;  42-30799 “BIGASSBIRD II,” pilots Owen “Cowboy” Roane, then William B. Murray; 42-31986 “ONCE IN A WHILE,” a plane he named after she gave him trouble early on and only flew once in a while, pilot Lewis C. Williams; and 44-8532 “KLEEN SWEEP,” pilot Hal Switzer.  Ray wore an A-2 jacket with KLEEN SWEEP painted on the back.  He flew with Switzer to Marrketch ATC Base, North Africa, and separately on a food drop Chowhound Mission over Holland in May 1945.



By late June 1945, he had earned enough points for rotation back to the US, and flew back in a B-17 he crewed. Late September 1945 he was honorably discharged from his military service at Fort Lewis, Washington.



After Thelma returned to the United States (she had volunteered with the Woman’s Army Auxiliary Corp before becoming a WAC and serving in the South Pacific) they married in March 1946 and made Seattle their home.  They raised two sons after Ray started working for a wholesale sanitary maintenance company, Packer-Scott Company of Washington, where he became General Manager and retired after nearly 40 years of service.



Ray kept in touch with a few close friends from the 100th Bomb Group and in the late 1980’s became a Life Member of the 100th Bomb Group Association.  In his retirement he and his wife traveled to many reunions across the US and in 1992 made the 50th Anniversary “Return to England” reunion at Thorpe Abbotts.  Owen “Cowboy” Roane dedicated his book “A Year in the Life of a Cowboy” to him and they had a lasting friendship and visited together often. He highly valued his friendships and comradely with his 100th family.



The family requests memorials be made in his honor to the 100th Bomb Group Foundation at https://www.100thbg.com/contact/join.htm