Memorial

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S/Sgt Frank Morales enlisted at Fort Bliss, El Paso in Texas on 5 November 1942.

The aircraft caught on fire and blew up due to enemy fighter action. According to T/Sgt Loyal E. Messler, S/Sgt Morales was unable to get out of the plane. He saw the wreckage of the plane on the road and Germans reported they had buried him.

Eyewitness statement from a crewmember:
"After “Bail-out”- “Bail-out” came over the interphone S/Sgt William O. Ford and myself put S/Sgt Frank V. Morales harness and chute on. We had just snapped his chute on when the ship turned over and went into a dive. I started crawling up towards the waist door with Frank V. Morales behind me. It was approx. four feet from the door when I turned around and looked at Morales, he tried to yell something, but I could not hear him. As I turned my head back towards the door, I've seen Means lying face down. I did not see Ford again. It must have been then that the explosion took place, as I came to, – approx. 8,000 feet and seen three chutes under my own. Pieces of the ship were coming down around me afire and the chute had a rip, or was severed by cannon fragments. After I landed I hid my chute and Mae West in a small clump of brush. A rifle shot sounded and I turned around and seen two persons behind waving. I tried to run but could not. I then helped the Eng. Take his Mae West off and we started for the other chutes and the woods which were in line. The Eng. was shocked and he didn’t know where he was or what happened to him. We then found the radio man and put him between us (as he had an sprained ankle) and continued for the other chute and the woods. But the rifle sounded again and the soldier and civilian were a block away and civilians had us cut off from the woods in the opposite direction. We were then captured an taken to Poppenhafen, in the Ger. Luftwaffes air base for two days. Then to Frankfurt for interrogation, next the prison camps."