Special to The Pass Post
WWII veteran, centenarian and Pass Christian resident Major Thomas D. Adams was recently recognized and promoted by the United States Air Force. Adams was also presented with a Quilt of Valor from the Quilts of Valor Foundation. Pass Christian Police and Fire Department representatives were on site to witness the ceremony.
Adams enlisted in 1941 after working for the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia. At the age of twenty-one, h e was in the first class of aircraft mechanic students in the 305th School Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base. His 25-year career in the Army Air Corps and the Air Force took him to Guam, the Philippines, Korea, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Colorado, New Mexico, Turkey, Vietnam, Louisiana and many other locations for training, assignments and temporary duty. He also served as an instructor at Keesler and the Gulfport Army Airfield.
Adams trained as a B-29 flight engineer and combat crew and flew twenty-four missions with his crew and substituted on two others during World War II.
He reenlisted at Keesler in 1946 and was sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of the Manhattan Project research and development program for bomb drop test flights as part of the 509th Bomb Group.
Adams moved into the officer ranks and became an aircraft maintenance chief and maintenance control officer at England Air Force Base, Louisiana. When he retired in 1966, he had achieved the rank of chief warrant officer 4.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Adams’ military history courtesy of 81st Training Wing Public Affairs.
