Thomas Norman
Thursday
16
October

Memorial Service

3:30 pm
Thursday, October 16, 2014
St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church
2575 W El Campo Grande Ave
North Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Obituary of Thomas Norman

Thomas Norman, age 93, of Las Vegas, Nevada, passed away on Monday, September 29, 2014. Tom was born August 28, 1921 in Detroit, Michigan to the late Norval Otto and the late Alice Marie (Foley) Norman. Born in Detroit, Tom lived there until he retired, then he and his wife moved to Lakeland, Florida. Based on his love for baseball, Tom worked for the Detroit Tigers at spring training as an usher for 26 years, while Florence, his wife, worked as a parking lot attendant. He was well known by all the players and sat in the press box with announcer Ernie Harwell. His love of baseball never diminished, he watched every game that he could when it was on. He seemed as though he waited to find out that they won the divisional championship before he passed. Tom proudly served in the military. He was a captain in the Air Force for 19 years before he was discharged with four years of active service in the OSI, now known as the CIA. Prior to World War II he was recruited by the Michigan minor league farm team, however after the war he became a tool and die maker. Tom was a very devoted husband and caring father. He is preceded in death by his wife of 51 years Florence. He is survived by his daughters Carol (Bruce) Hilton of North Las Vegas, Nevada and Susan (Leonard) Lamarne; grandchildren Stephanie (James) Lowe of Thomasville NC and Robert Hunsaker of Lincoln Park MI; great grandchildren Michael Lambeth, Nicholas Lowe, Ben Hunsaker and Alyvia Hunsaker; sister-in-law Ann Pytel; nieces Sherry Moilanen and Cathy Casada; nephews Dr. Thomas Pytel, Dr. Mark Pytel, Tom Anderson and Denny Carver. A memorial will be held on Thursday, October 16, 2014 at 3:30pm at St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church, 2575 W El Campo Grande Ave, North Las Vegas. Donations may be made in Tom’s honor to Three Squares Food Bank of Las Vegas or the Michael J. Fox foundation for Parkinsons. A newspaper article that appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal, written by Keith Rogers, entitled "Special Ops for D-Day" included memories of D-Day. Tom was asked to provide his memories and thoughts of D-Day. Below is a portion of that article that gives additional insight of the type man that Tom was. "Tom Norman, 92, of Las Vegas, remembers well the secret missions of his 885th Bombardment Squadron of the Army's 15th Air Force Special Group. He was an Army second lieutenant navigator-bombardier in a B-24 Liberator that flew 50 night missions over France before and after D-Day in 1944. But he never dropped a bomb or fired a shot. His B-24, dubbed Pocahontas, had been painted black and modified. "They took out the guns in the front. I couldn't shot anybody." Instead, they air-dropped special agents, "Joes and Josephine's," he said, with parachutes to organize the French underground army and supply them with tons of guns and ammo. On one mission, 11 aircraft from his squadron dropped 18 special agents and "67,000 pounds of arms, ammunition and special supplies to units of the hard pressed French Forces…at clandestine targets scattered throughout Southern France," according to his Distinguished Unit Badge citation from Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining on Nov. 1, 1944. The air crews navigated by stars "in the complete darkness of a moonless night." The agents, arms and ammo were successful dropped for immediate use by the "French Forces of the Interior…in the support of the pending invasion." "in addition 225,000 leaflets, alerting the population of three large cities in Southern France, were dispatched," the citation reads, adding that "Marquis," or guerrilla bands of French resistance fighters provided "invaluable aid to the Allied invasion of Southern France." Norman on Thursday recalled how the night flights were conducted. His B-34 would make a 1,200-mile round t rip from Blida, Algeria, in North Africa, flying over the Mediterranean Sea and into Southern France at 1,000 feet or even 500 feet above ground. They were so close to tree tops, sometimes they'd land back at Blida with twigs caught in the wings' flaps. Norman said his job was to spot the three bon fires in a row that "the reception committee" would light the low-lying areas to mark the drop zone. "at the last one was a Frenchman flashing a Morse code letter with a flashlight," he said. "If it wasn't the right letter, we didn't drop." On the eve of the D-Day landings as the invasion was unfolding, Norman noticed German trucks that typically travel at night without lights to conceal their movements were driving with their lights on. "We were going over France and all the Germans had their lights on and we didn't know why. They were going toward Normandy," he said. It wasn't until his squadron returned to Blida and they reported this during the debriefing that his commander revealed that the invasion was underway. "I was trying to figure out what they were doing that for all of a sudden because we weren't used to seeing headlights on a truck going west," he said. "I never realized that it was D-Day. I never gave it a thought. I just thought something was going on with the Germans. Maybe it was Hitler's birthday. I don't know." Norman said to him D-Day meant there "was a lot of men being killed. A lot of my fellow friends got killed. It also meant the freedom for Europe."
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