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Morris L. Thomas worked in the food canning and preserving industry.

He enlisted in Buffalo, New York on 5 March 1943.

He participated in the D-Day Normandy invasion

He was reported missing in action on 6 October 1944 due to enemy artillery shelling and mortar fire during te battle of Opheusden. At that time he end S/Sgt Harry A. Clawson were being treated for not life-threatening injuries in the sgnalman's house at Smachtkamp that served as an aid station. During a German counter-attack, the house was set on fire, killing both men.

At some point, after the house was hit, the Germans moved the bodies of Clawson and Thomas to a forward aid station on the southern side of the railway embankmen, where they established a temporary cemetery. Their corpses were then buried on the northern side of the tracks, to keep them separate from the German dead. Over the weeks following the battle the shallow graves were covered by floodwater and any external sign of their existance washed away.

In December 1971, Karel Huibers, a nineteen year old Dutch tree nurseryman found the remains of the two paratroopers in an unmarked grave in his tree nursery, next to the railway from Geldermalsen to Elst.

He was given his final resting place at Westfield Cemetery, New York in April 1972.