Capt. Thurmond Morrison, roaring down the metal-plank runway, never got off the ground. At the end of the runway was a gasoline dump (a fine place for it, right?) and Capt. Morrison smashed right into it. A tremendous explosion resulted and those of us on "sweater's hill" wrote him off as one dead fighter pilot. To our utter amazement, he walked back into the operations tent a little later, carrying his parachute and totally unscathed. Two anti-aircraft GIs had run to Capt. Morrison's aid and, using a pickax, pried open his canopy and dragged him out of the burning plane. Capt. Morrison, plane and all, had skidded right through the blazing inferno he had started, but he sat there trapped in his plane until the two GIs pried him out. You have to give credit to a couple of heroes there, to leap on a burning plane carrying a very volatile load of high octane gasoline.
