Cliff Morris
WORLD WAR II Through the eyes of the Cape Fear
Interview of Cliff Morris Transcript Number 539
[audio begins abruptly]
Q: --bomber pilot and captain in the Army Air Corps. First of all, tell me about how you got into the service in the first place. What year was it, what you were doing at the time when you decided to go into the service, and how you actually became involved in it.
Cliff Morris: Okay. I was in hi- in school, in Louisburg College in 1940. And of course, I had to re-- I had already registered for the draft.
Q: How old were you?
Cliff Morris: I was about 22. And ah.. knowing that I was going to be- had to go into the draft, the National Guard and some of the Reserve units in Wilmington were being ah.. federalized. And so I--
Q: And what does that mean, federalized?
Cliff Morris: They're be- they were being called into the service as a unit. So I knew some boys- some men that ran the 252nd Artillery- Coast Artillery in Wilmington, and they were ah.. recruiting to get up to wartime strength, so I figured that what the heck, I'd just as well go in with somebody then-- it was supposed to be for a year. Well when I- when I got in--
Q: This was what year, again?
Cliff Morris: This was 1940.
Q: So it was before Pearl Harbor.
Cliff Morris: It was before Pearl Harbor, yes. So we got en-en-enlisted in the 252nd Artillery and went down to Fort Screven, Georgia. And that's where we took our basic training. Stayed down there about 6 months and then they ah.. swapped some, what do you call them?--destroyers to the British. And we went down to Trinidad, that was off the coast of Venezuela, where all the um.. ah.. oil fields were and they put us on an island out there called Choca Chiquera [ph?] to pr- to protect the entrance to the oil fields down there. Well, I stayed down there about 18 months.
Q: This was the infantry or Army?
Cliff Morris: It was the Coast Artillery in the Army. Coast Artillery. Well, when I-- while I was down there, ah.. th-they put out a directive that anybody that had two years of school or college, they wanted to be-- they could make applications for the Air Force. Their whole-whole Army Air Corps at the time. And well, I'd always wanted to fly, but it's-- I-I couldn't-couldn't afford it. But anyway, ah.. I went and made application and I was accepted and-and they-they sent me back to the United States. And when I got back, ah.. the war was on at this time.
Q: Back up a little bit, because earlier this summer you told me a funny story about the captain, your commanding officer. Your CO down there didn't want you to--
Cliff Morris: Oh yeah. His name was Wild Bill Blockston [ph?].
Q: Tell me that story.
Cliff Morris: He was the captain at battery A and ah.. when I made application for it, they ah.. and I was told that I would-would not be able to be accepted, because I was a-a-- I was ah.. an essential part of his-his battery. But the only thing I was doing was on the-- loading the 155mm cannon. Well, he would- he wouldn't accept me. He-he said I couldn't accept it, to-to go let me take my a- ah.. physical and anything. Well, the-the executive office, L-Lieutenant Stone, he was a heck of a nice guy. And he-he found out about it and they sent 1/3 of the battery over to the Port of Spain every-every other week to spend a week-long weekend over there. So he called me into an operations office one day and told me, he says- he says there um.. ah.. "Private Morris," said.. if you want to go there and take your app-- or get your physical," he says, "you go over there and I'll give you an or- an order, written order, and you go over there to Whitehall," that's where the headquarters was, "to take your physical." If you didn't pass the physical, there's no use to take anything else. So to make a long story short, I went over there and took the physical and I passed it and then they gave me the written ap-- written, and I passed that and I came on back to the ah.. to the island and stayed out there a couple of weeks and I never did hear anything from them. And then they had a directive ah.. a-address to my commanding officer, Captain Blockston, that I was to report to ah.. ah.. United States in Brooklyn, that they discharged to be accepted in the-the cadet program. Well, he found out-- of course, he found out about it immediately and I was-- we were on-on a firing practice, and then I was on the- on the ah.. headphones at the time and they-they called me and told me, said that Captain Blockston wanted me to report to his head-- to the OP i-immediately. So I went down there, and he was-he was jumping up and down. That's the reason they called him Wild Bill, because he got so excited. And he said, "Private Morris," he says, ah.. "I want you to go to your tent down there and pack all your clothes and I want you to be on that boat going back to Whitehall at 5:00 this afternoon. That's all I've got to say." And I didn't talk or say- have anything to say to him. I said, "Yes sir." I knew what he would. So I went back and packed all my stuff in the duffle bags there and then turned my weapons in and signed out and run on back to ah.. they-they sent me back to ah.. the United States and they-they discharged me from the Artillery, the Army, and told me to go home. I had to si- I had to signed up for the cadet program. They had issued this. And so I did that and he says- they-they told me to go home and they would let me know when to ah.. report. So I stayed home about 3 or 4 weeks before they ev-- I even heard from them. Then they-they told me-- they-they sent me some written orders to report to ah.. ah.. Nashville, Tennessee to-to the reception center over there. That's where I went. I went over there and took a lot of tests, and other physical and mental examinations, and they gave us all kind of tests to find out whether they was going to be a pilot, navigator, or bombardier. Well, I did-- at that time, I didn't know. I thought I was going in, was going to be accepted in pilot training. But when we got over there, that was the way it was, so we had to take all these tests and fortunately, I ultimately was accepted to join the pilot training. And so they ah.. it-- when I was accepted there, they-- I stayed over there about 8 weeks taking ah.. half a year for another what they call a basic training. But I had already had that, you know. Got through that pretty easily and then they sent us to National Field [ph?], Alabama for ah.. preflight. We stayed down there 10 weeks taking all kinds of-of ah.. tests and, you know, to-to acclimate us to find out what we wanted to do. And after we finished there, they sent us to ah.. Avon Park, Florida for pilot training, for pri-- what they call primary. And I stayed down there for-- it was a- it was a 10-week course there. I got through there. I went to Gunter Field, Alabama, which is right outside of Montgomery Alabama, for basic and I went through that and when I got through with basic, they sent me to George Field [ph?], Illinois for twin engine training. And then when I got through with that and graduated and got my wings, that's where I got my wings, that was in '43. And then they sent me down to McDill Field, Florida for-for B-17 transi-transition. And ah.. stayed down there about 9 weeks. You see, the war was still on, it was on at that time. And we actually, even though we were not in the combat area, when we went out over the Gulf of Mexico in these old war tr- ah.. training missions, we actually carried bombs, of course we had in-instructors with us and- to alert us or if we saw any Germans and German submarines running at that time, we had to operate and sink a lot of ah.. tankers coming out of South America, because that's where the oil fields were. And ah.. and I came home for a-a two week ah.. leave and ah.. then I went back down to ah.. Hendrix Field and ah.. had some more training down there and then (cough), excuse me, they send it back down to McDill Field where I took- I picked up a crew. That's where I had crew training down there. And that's about-about the beginning of it.
Q: You got into the National Guard, you enlisted in that prior to the war in 1940. It took three years then, because we're up to 1943 now, before you got with your crew and were sent overseas. How did you go overseas? Did you fly?
Cliff Morris: We flew an aircraft over there, picked up a B-17 at ah.. LaGuardia, the modification center up there. (cough) Excuse me. And at that time, we didn't know where we were going to go. But when we got up to LaGuardia, that's where this-- you get your orders. You either go to the 8th Air Force or the 15th. And ah.. so they- we-we went to the 15th.
Q: I don't know how it's termed-- your squadron or your--?
Cliff Morris: No. We-we just had a crew. We-we weren't assigned to anything until we got overseas. We-we were assigned to the 15th Air Force.
Q: The 15th Air Force is what? Is that just your crew?
Cliff Morris: No, that was the Air Force. It was in North Africa and Italy.
Q: That was your division or whatever?
Cliff Morris: No, that was the Air Force. It was the 15th Air Force. That's when-when we got over there, then they sent us on up and they assigned us to the 301st Bomb Group, 32nd Squadron. And that's where I started flying all my missions.
Q: What year was this?
Cliff Morris: This was ah.. er-er- real early, yeah, I think it was January '44.
Q: January of 1944. You'd been in 3½-4 years?
Cliff Morris: I hadn't been in the Air Force but about 13 or 14 months.
Q: Okay, but from the beginning of your enlistment in the service of any kind, it had been about 3½ or 4 years?
Cliff Morris: Yes. When they sent me, probably be about then. When I got overseas, when I came back, I got a letter from-from my mother. And ah.. of course, I had to ah.. register for the draft. This was back in 1940. Well when I- when I got- I got this letter in the mail from my mother and it's-it's a notice dated ah.. January 30, 1942, whether I was-- where I was supposed to report to the draft board to be- to be accepted into the draft, but I'd already been in-in service almost two years.
Q: They hadn't kept up with you very well, had they?
Cliff Morris: That's happened before. But I-- she saved that for me.
Q: That was going to be one of my other questions. Did you have any correspondence? I know you probably wrote to mother and, of course, your mother a lot and I wondered if y'all had saved any letters or telegrams.
Cliff Morris: Yeah, I saved a lot-lot, a lot of the letters. Some of them were for when-when we moved over there. We moved two or three times and some of them got lost.
Q: But you have some letters somewhere around here?
Cliff Morris: Yeah, uh-huh.
Q: You have to go find them, huh? You went to Europe in the early part of 1944. Exactly where were you?
Cliff Morris: I was stationed mostly at right-- when we- when we left No-North Africa, I was not in the North Africa in that campaign, but there-- I was over there after it was over with, but then they sent us up to Foggia, Italy, and they- and that's where I- that's where I reported to the 301st Bomb Group, 32nd Squadron. And we flew some missions out of Foggia and ah.. then they sent us to an air strip called "______ Number 8," which is about 10 to 15 miles northwest of Foggia. And that's where I flew most of my missions.
Q: I read somewhere or saw somewhere that the average life of an aircraft, a B-17 bomber or any aircraft, I guess, was 160 days. Is that about the average lifespan?
Cliff Morris: That's pretty close. Pretty close.
Q: During that time, if they were damaged in any way, you were saying last night that the ground crew helped with the job.
Cliff Morris: That's another thing. The ground crews and people who were there, the mechanics and people like that, I don't think they got the-the-the recognition of all that they did until r-right recently. About all the things about World War II beginning to-- then-then they're beginning to come out for the work horses they were. They had to work out in terrible weather. No-no tents or anything, out in the weather.
Q: Because if a plane wasn't able to fly, that you were grounded.
Cliff Morris: They went out there. Some of those aircraft, they came off-off of one mission. They were terribly damaged, but of course, some of them it would take several days to repair, but ah.. 90- 85 or 90 percent of them were repaired that night to go on a mission the next day. They didn't have any structural damage or engines which had to be changed.
Q: When you first started on your missions, were you the pilot right away, or did you have to serve like a time as a co-pilot?
Cliff Morris: I was a first pilot. But when-when we went over there, I went over there as a co-pilot. But then after I flew about five missions, then I got my own crew.
Q: What was the name of your ship?
Cliff Morris: Well I didn't have a-a aircraft named until I had flown a lot of missions. Then I picked up one that belonged to the ah.. squadron commander, called Amazing Maisy.
Q: It was named for his wife? Is that what you said?
Cliff Morris: It was named for his wife, not an-an-- it's not named for anybody else.
Q: You flew several missions in one plane and then what happened to that plane?
Cliff Morris: We-we were not assigned to any plane at all. I-I might fly one plane one-one mission, they might fly the next mission, and make three missions. And it might- it might be in for repairs or maintenance or something, and then we picked up something else. But then when I-- after I fl- I had flown about 10 or 15 missions, I was the lead crew and then I- then I got the Amazing Maisy and I flew that, but I didn't fly it all the time. N-new aircraft over there wasn't assigned to any-any group to fly all the time.
Q: I was under the impression it was. You were talking last night about the formation that you flew.
Cliff Morris: E-each squadron had six aircraft in it. And each-- and in each group they had four squadrons. And they flew the lead group, the high right, low left, and the diamond.
Q: It was like a triangle?
Cliff Morris: Yes.
Q: There was a lead plane and one on either side and two below?
Cliff Morris: In the squadron formation, there was a lead aircraft, there was aircraft on the right, aircraft on the left, and then the element--
Q: --the two in the middle.
Cliff Morris: There was aircraft lead and one on the right and one on the left and there was one that of what they flew in the diamond formation. Actually, it was a diamond.
Q: Were they at the same altitude?
Cliff Morris: No, no.
Q: They were at different altitudes?
Cliff Morris: We were-- these-- this-- in-in a squadron formation, you might be 50 or 60 feet between-between elements.
Q: Is that all--50 or 60 feet?
Cliff Morris: Yeah.
Q: That's not much.
Cliff Morris: Then we went-- were in a tight formation like we did.
Q: That was your protection?
Cliff Morris: That was protection. And then the- then the other squadrons in the group, they flew maybe ah.. ah.. five or six hundred feet to the high right, but up 500-600 feet this way and a little left in the- in the diamond. But they were all within 500 or 600 feet either way in the group formation. We had to do- we had to do that, to fly in a tight formation like that, because you had the-the-the best bomb pattern.
Q: To concentrate the bombs and execute your mission?
Cliff Morris: Uh-huh.
Q: What's the difference between a mission and a sortie?
Cliff Morris: A sortie?
Q: Yes.
Cliff Morris: A sortie is one aircraft over the target. So if you had six-six aircraft in a- in a- in a squadron, that would be six sorties. Now a mission was when the whole- the whole squadron went over the target. That was called a mission. But a sortie was a number of aircraft that went over it.
Q: Last night we were looking at this film and the narrator mentioned several times the distinguished unit citation. Is that the same thing as a distinguished flying cross?
Cliff Morris: No, no. A distinguished unit flying citation is when-when a-a-a squadron or a group goes on a mission and does an outstanding job.
Q: Is that when they get the little bomb painted on the side of the--
Cliff Morris: No, we always painted a bomb on the side of the aircraft each time an aircraft went over a target. That had nothing to do with the- with the citation or anything. That was just a mission. Some people put it on the aircraft, some didn't. But some of them had 100 missions on it, 100 bombs on it.
Q: We were looking at the film last night and the subject was brought up of paint on the aircraft. Some aircraft are--
Cliff Morris: _______.
Q: I was talking about some of the aircraft are dark green, that Army green, and some were silver.
Cliff Morris: When they first started that- when they first started the air- flying these aircraft, there was- they painted them ah.. kind of an olive drab. But after about a year or so, they found out it was no use to paint them camouflage, because it didn't do any good, so they just-- they didn't paint them at all.
Q: That added weight to the plane anyway, didn't it?
Cliff Morris: The paint added weight to the plane and it was a- it was a rough- it was like a flat paint on there and it would- it would cut down on the air speed. When they did away with the paint, it actually added ah.. 5-5 or 6 miles per hour to the cruising speed, by not using the paint.
Q: What was the range-- how far out could you go from base before you had to turn around and come back?
Cliff Morris: About 600 miles. We- it was about-- we could go what they called a range was 1,200 miles. That would be 600 miles out and 600 miles back. But actually, they were probably-- they probably could do a little bit more.
Q: Tell me about where you were and when it was that you were shot down and you had to have a--
Cliff Morris: Well actually, I wasn't shot down. I was all shot up.
Q: You had to make an emergency landing?
Cliff Morris: The aircraft was so badly damaged, I cut the engines around. Well, it was December the 11th, 1944. And we were on a mission to Musetheobon [ph?], Germany, which is oil and transportation stuff.
Q: But you were still flying out of Foggia, Italy?
Cliff Morris: Yes. No, I was flying out of Lucera, or out of Italy.
Q: They're within 12, 15, 20 miles of each other?
Cliff Morris: Yeah. But I-I was flying out of Lucera another ____ at the time. And he went over there to bomb and we got just- just before- just after IP, which the initial point when-- the initial point in return went to the target. My-my aircraft was hit.
Q: By--?
Cliff Morris: By FLAK, over 80 aircraft.
Q: Stop right there. I want you to explain what FLAK is.
Cliff Morris: FLAK is German artillery on the ground. Cannons are shooting shells up and they'd burst. You saw those black clouds in the pictures? That was a burst of what they call FLAK. It's a German word or short word for-- it's a long German--
Q: Like an acronym?
Cliff Morris: They shortened it to FLAK, F-L-A-K.
Q: Okay. They shot a shell into the air and at a certain altitude or whatever, the shell explodes?
Cliff Morris: Sometimes they'd set them to go off at a certain altitude. And- but to digress a little bit, later on in the war, the United States developed what's called a proximity fuse. And that fuse, they would shoot it up and if that- if that shell came- came ahead about 25 or 30 feet of any solid object, it would go off automatically. It didn't have to-- the fuse didn't have to be cut. And if the Germans had had one of- had that, it-it would have decimated us.
Q: But the United States developed that technology.
Cliff Morris: That was later on during the war.
Q: Okay. Let's get back to December 11, 1944.
Cliff Morris: The aircraft was all shot up (clears throat), excuse me, and ah.. it knocked- it knocked one engine out and it went- we went on over the target and dropped out bombs and ah.. then when we were rallying around to the right to come back, another shell hit us and knocked another engine out.
Q: On both sides or the same--?
Cliff Morris: On a- on a- number 2, the number 3 and number 4 engines, which is on the right side.
Q: Does that make you fly cockeyed?
Cliff Morris: Well, it- you had to set to trim the aircraft up, but we ah.. we spiraled down. We had to get down because we were about 25,000 feet and it knocked the oxygen out, too. So we had to get down to at least 10,000 feet or 15,000 feet.
Q: To breathe?
Cliff Morris: To breathe. (doorbell ring) Do you want to cut that off?
Q: All right. Before the doorbell rang, we were talking about--
Cliff Morris: Well the aircraft got-got hit and we-we got down to about 6,000-7,000 feet and finally leveled off and we could- we could maintain a denser a-atmosphere then we could maintain on two engines, because we had all the-- and we burned a lot of fuel up and we dropped the bombs so we were light and were flying on two engines a B-17 was not too difficult, un-unless it had-had real battle damage. But see, we were down so low and two engines out, and the oil crew on the number 2 engine had been me-- at that time, we didn't know it, but it had been damaged and it wasn't getting sufficient oil to the o-other two engines. And it was beginning to act up, it was running real high. So we couldn't get back over the- over the house, I mean, over the mountains to ah.. to Italy. So we all had been briefed if anything like that happened, to head-to head east to the Russian lines. And they were-- the Russian lines at that time were about at Debrecen, Hungary. And we went on down, which is-- which is east of Bucharest, Romania. Well we finally made it to a little airstrip called "Arab."
Q: Was this behind enemy lines?
Cliff Morris: No. It was-- yeah, it was behind them, but they- the lines were pretty close to where we were when we finally landed. In fact, it was- it was a Russian airfield. The Russians had it and they were flying missions off of it. And when we landed, ah.. it was a real short runway. They had a concrete runway, but it was real short. And we didn't have any brakes. And we ran off the end of the runway in fortunately, mud and it just-- no-nobody was- nobody on the aircraft got hit. We got- they got some ah.. where the flight to get to your windscreens and all. Some of the glass, it cut us, but other than that, we were alright. And when we finally, we landed there and stayed with them ah.. for about 3 or 4 days. And they had a hospital- a little hospital there, they directed us at a hospital. And they put us in a- in a couple rooms out there and they kept guards on us.
Q: Russians were our allies, were they not?
Cliff Morris: Earlier. They were allies. Fortunate, I had one ah.. ah.. I had a crew chief on there who was from-- of German ah.. his family was from Germany and he could speak German. And we started and I told him, I said, "Sergeant Keaton [ph?]," I said, "Don't you speak a word of German." (chuckle) But anyway, it- it fortunately had a doctor over there who could speak English and we-he-we could make ourselves understood. But if it hadn't been for that, we probably would have been- had a handicap in making, you know, ______. But they took pretty good care of us. The reason they kept us under guard is because the Germans were within about 4-5 miles of you. You could hear the artillery and all there. But when-- after that three days, they put us on a- a Romanian G-52, which is a German community transport ________, forward _______. They flew as many as they could. They couldn't fly us all. They flew me to Bucharest, Romania where they had an American military mission over there. They were sent over there to repatriate the-the shot down prisoners of war after they had gotten them out of-- they were originally taken to Romania. And my crew, the finally put through my crew up there and another B-24 crew. We were the first four crews that were in there. And fortunately, the commanding o-officer of the military mission over there was my former group commander from Chinet [ph?] Beach and I thought he'd gone home. And then when I got over there and stepped out of the aircraft, of course, they-they knew we were coming, and they met the aircraft. And he said, "Captain Morris," he says, "What are you doing over here?" And I said, Colonel Rich, I thought you'd gone home." And he said, "No," he said-- he wasn't married at the time and he said, "I had a chance to come over here. There's no use for me to go home, so here I am."
Q: I heard the story that you got to eat Christmas dinner with the king.
Cliff Morris: Yeah. What it was, they-they had declared Bucharest an open city at that time and King Michael, who was- who was a young-young king had just taken over from his father, tried to abdicate. And they invited all of the allies, in fact, there was some German, and then some Japanese, Italians over there, which-which was-- they were diplomats. And the-the English diplomat, I forgot what his name was now, but in fact, he- we got to talking to him. In fact, he found out I-I was-- we were from-- I was from Wilmington, and he had actually visited in Wilmington way before the war. He was attached to the embassy in Washington. But anyway, we got to talking to him and got to meet the king. And they-they really put on a spread for us.
Q: All this time, your plane was listed as missing in action?
Cliff Morris: We had to leave the plane, because you-you- they couldn't fly it anymore.
Q: Was that Amazing Maisy?
Cliff Morris: No, no, that was not Amazing.
Q: That was a different one?
Cliff Morris: That was a different one.
Q: As far as anybody in the States knew, you were missing in action?
Cliff Morris: Yeah. In fact, I-I've got the telegram that my mother got when they-they declared me missing in action. And then when we got back to when-when the American military mission in Bucharest, they notified the 15th Air Force headquarters in Bari that we were there, so they-they had sent another telegram about two weeks later and mother got that. It's stating that I had-had returned to Italy. I've still- I've got them.
Q: I'm glad you kept those. There was a large dinner on Christmas?
Cliff Morris: Oh, yes.
Q: It wasn't just you and the king?
Cliff Morris: No, no. They had-- it was a whole big old spread at the embassy. It was quite an experience.
Q: That was about how far into your missions? Were you halfway through?
Cliff Morris: No. I had about ten more missions to go.
Q: Then once you got back with your original crew--
Cliff Morris: When we got back to-to Foggia-- I mean, when we landed at Bari, that was the headquarters for the 15th Air Force. They put us in a hospital and quarantined us for 30 days, because they didn't know what-what kind of-- we'd been eating all kinds of funny food over there and everything and sleeping and had to have baths. But anyway, they quarantined us as a precaution, to see if we had picked up any diseases or anything. Of course, we'd already-- we had all kinds of shots and things, but you never can tell what you're going to pick up. Then they sent me on back to my group and that's when I finished up flying the missions.
Q: All of your missions were flown out of Foggia and Luceria?
Cliff Morris: Luceria, yeah.
Q: I'm sorry, Lucera. Did you ever get a chance to go to the USO shows?
Cliff Morris: Oh yeah. Yeah, they had USO shows over there. Bob Hope and his troupe was over there at one time, but we-we didn't get a chance to see him, because they were- we were flying missions and all. He was in Foggia and that-that was headquarters.
Q: You never got to see any shows?
Cliff Morris: I never got to see him, but we did see some USO shows.
Q: Do you remember who you got to see?
Cliff Morris: No, I-I can't remember who they were.
Q: Did you ever get to see Glenn Miller?
Cliff Morris: No. He was- he was in the 8th Air Force.
Q: I didn't know if he had--
Cliff Morris: No. He was in the 8th Air Force.
Q: How many missions did you fly altogether?
Cliff Morris: 52.
Q: And 25 would qualify you to return to the States, is that correct?
Cliff Morris: No. I had to fly. Th-there's a misnomer about that. Actually, I only flew about 40 missions, 40 times over the target. But the 15th Air Force had a policy if you went over a- went over a certain barrier in the air to a certain-- so many hours in the air, they gave you credit for two missions. So on some of these lo- real long missions, if you went to a target and back, you got- you got credit for two missions. That's the reason I-I say 52 missions. But actually I only few about 40 times over the target.
Q: Were you flying any of your missions at the time of D-Day? Were you involved in that at all?
Cliff Morris: Not D-- not D-Day in-in-in Europe. I-I was flying missions out of ah.. Italy at the time.
Q: Right. But on June 5, 1944, were you flying?
Cliff Morris: I was flying a mission to ah.. to Grenoble, France, which is-- and they-- and Grenoble was on the main ah.. railroad lines in southern France into northern France where they were. We bombed a viaduct over Rhone River. That was to stop if-if they tried to bring their troops out of southern France they-they-we bombed that railroad bridge.
Q: Was that on the day of the overlord that was on June 5th?
Cliff Morris: That was on the 6th of June.
Q: The different bombs that your plane dropped. You were talking earlier about the different types of bombs that were used.
Cliff Morris: Well depending-depending on the target, most-most-most of the times we carried 500 pounds of a general purpose. But we carried 1,000-pounders and sometimes- one time we carried 2,000-pounders. That was when we went after a goods depot or someplace like that that was pretty well protected and underground and all. But then we-- two or three missions we carried what they call FRAG bombs. And what FRAG bombs are a small, about a 50-pound-- 25 or 50 pound bomb that was wrapped with steel bands and when it- when it exploded, it just looked like shrapnel.
Q: It fragmented?
Cliff Morris: It fragmented. So we used that on what they call built up areas or where they had a lot of troops. And then they would go up there and carpet bomb them like that, especially when the
1st Lt. Cliff C Morris Jr was assigned to the 301st BG 32nd Squadron.
The following information on Cliff Morris is gathered and extracted from military records. We have many documents and copies of documents, including military award documents. It is from these documents that we have found this information on 1st Lt. Morris. These serviceman's records are nowhere near complete and we are always looking for more material. If you can help add to Cliff Morris's military record please contact us.
| |
Rank |
General Order |
Date |
Notes |
Award |
Ribbon & Device |
Cliff Morris |
1st Lt |
3780 |
10/03/1944 |
|
AM/OLC |
 
|
Clifford Morris |
1st Lt |
2711 |
04/24/1945 |
|
AM/3OLC |
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3/28/1945 General Orders 1846 AM
Please contact us if you can assist with any biographical data, pictures or other information regarding the service and life of Cliff Morris.
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