Thomas Marvine Brown
Thomas Marvine Brown, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army.
Staff Sergeant • U.S. Army • Serial 12047852
Entered service from New Jersey • Died March 2, 1943
Introduction
Staff Sergeant Thomas Brown was born in 1916 in Pennsylvania, to Ruggles and Grace Brown. The Brown family moved to New Jersey sometime after the 1927 birth of son Charles Brown, purchasing a home at 60 Grant Avenue in the Erlton section of Delaware Township NJ. In 1930 Ruggles Brown worked as an engineer for a candy company. The family also included a daughter, Grace Brown. Another brother, Richard, was born after the census was taken.
Thomas Brown was a 1935 graduate of Haddonfield (NJ) High School, where he was captain of the baseball team. He also played football and basketball, and was on the track team. After high school, he played football with the Haddonfield Independents and the Atco Imps, and basketball with several teams. He worked at the RCA-Victor plant in Camden NJ.
“He was one of the most popular boys of the 1935 class, with which he graduated,” said Cy Marter, Haddonfield High Coach, in March of 1943. “He was a great pal of John Strandwitz, who was killed in the Solomons.”
Thomas Brown tried to enlist in the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Army after Pearl Harbor. He was turned away at each step because of missing teeth. When the local draft board re-classified him 1B, he went to Newark NJ, and got a commitment from the recruiter that if Brown obtained an artificial molar, he would be guaranteed combat duty. Thomas Brown promptly returned home, got a molar, and enlisted, reporting for active duty on March 1, 1942.
Staff Sergeant Brown completed gunnery school at Harlingen TX, and received training as a bombardier and radio operator. He had returned home on furlough at the end of January 1943, and reported back to Avon Park FL. It was there that he was killed along with four of the other members of a six-man medium bomber crew, when the plane crashed on the bombing range on the morning of Tuesday, March 2, 1943.
Thomas Brown was survived by his parents, sister Mrs. Grace Rogers, and brothers Charles and Richard.
Sgt. Brown, Who Bought Tooth To Enlist, Killed in Plane Crash
Camden Courier-Post —
Erlton Soldier Headed Baseball Team at Haddonfield High School
Staff Sgt. Thomas M. Brown, Erlton soldier who bought a store molar so he could become a combatant, was killed in the crash of a medium bomber on the bombing range at Avon Park, Fla., yesterday morning.
He was 27 and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles R. Brown, of 40 Grant avenue.
Four other crew members of the bomber were killed and a sixth slightly injured Army officials announced. The other dead were identified as 2d Lieut. Eugene J. Laurier, Park Ridge, N. Y.; 2d Lieut. William H. Wahl, Johnson City, N. Y.; 2d Lieut. Jeffery J. Fitzpatrick, Pueblo, Colo., and Sgt. James J. Gorman, Yonkers, N. Y. Sgt. Robert H. Fior, of Muscatine, Iowa, was slightly injured.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Sergeant Brown, a former captain of the Haddonfield High School baseball team quit his job with RCA Victor and tried to enlist in the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard and the Army. All told him he needed one tooth to make him eligible. Then he sat down and waited for his draft board classification.
When the draft board examiner put him in Class 1-B, he went to Newark, made a deal with the Army to be assigned to combatant service if he got the tooth, bought a molar, returned home, enlisted and March 16, 1942, went off to the wars and was put in the Air Corps.
Last Fall he won his sergeant’s stripes at the Army gunnery school, Harlingen, Tex., became a bombardier and radio operator. He was home on furlough about a month ago. The telegram announcing his death was received by the parents last night.
In high school, Sergeant Brown played baseball, football and basketball and was on the track team. After graduation he played football with the Haddonfield Independents and the Atco Imps and basketball with several teams.
“He was one of the most popular boys of the 1935 class, with which he was graduated,” said Cy Marter, Haddonfield High coach. “He was a great pal of John Strandwitz, who was killed in the Solomons.”
Besides his parents, he is survived by a sister, Mrs. James Rogers, of the Erlton address, whose husband also is in the Army; a brother, Charles, attending Haddonfield High school, and another brother, Richard, Erlton grammar school.