Thomas Martin Pettit
Ensign • U.S. Navy
Bombing Squadron 116 (VB-116)
Entered service from New Jersey • Died August 9, 1944
Buried at Locustwood Cemetery, Route 70 & Cooper Landing Road, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Awards: Purple Heart
Introduction
Delaware Township (Cherry Hill), NJ, World War II memorial.
Ensign Thomas Martin Pettit was born on May 12, 1921, the son of Hudson J. and Delia Graves Pettit. His early years were spent in Moorestown NJ, where his family lived at 320 Washington Street. At the time of the 1930 census, Hudson Pettit was working as a carpenter. The family also included a younger daughter, Jane Pettit.
Thomas Pettit was a graduate of Moorestown High School, where he had played football. He had married and settled in Pennsauken NJ before enlisting in the Navy in June of 1942. He went overseas as co-pilot of a Navy PB4Y-1 bomber with Bombing Squadron 116 (VB-116). The PB4Y-1 was the Navy version of the four-engine B-24 bomber.
VPB-116 began ECM operations with PB4Y-1s out of Eniwetok Atoll in March of 1944. They flew sorties against Japanese radar installations on Truk and made radar plots at various altitudes. These plots helped airstrikes pick approach directions which would minimize alert time for the enemy. Ensign Pettit was killed when his plane crashed on take-off from Eniwetok on August 9, 1944.
Thomas Pettit is memorialized on the Delaware Township War Memorial. He was survived by his wife, Marion Drummond Pettit, of 2259 Hollinshed Avenue, Pennsauken NJ, and his parents, then of Marlton NJ. His death was reported in the September 20, 1944, edition of the Camden Courier-Post. Thomas Pettit was brought home to New Jersey after the war and buried at Locustwood Cemetery in Cherry Hill NJ, where today he rests next to his parents. Pettit Road, Pettit Lane, and Pettit Court in Pennsauken NJ are all named after him.