PVT Ernest Matthew Thomas was born 4 Nov 1921 in Queen Shoals, West Virginia. He was the first of the 4 children that would be born to James Howard and Austella (Shamblin) Thomas. His father supported his family as a coal miner. Ernest's mother died in 1937 at the age of 40. His father would not remarry until 1941 but Mary Percy, aged 27, was living with the family in 1940 and she might have been helping with Ernest's younger siblings. Ernest moved to Leevale, West Virginia but was unemployed in 1942 when he applied for the draft. It was while he was living in Fayette County that he met and married Lilla Ethel Morton in 1942.
Ernest was drafted in November 1943. After his basic military training he was sent to the European theater and, on 9 Aug 1944, was transferred from the replacement depot to E Company 116th Infantry. He would then fight with the unit in the campaign to take Brest and surviving that he was with the unit as it moved through the Netherlands into Germany. PVT Thomas was killed in action on 14 Oct 1944.
PVT Thomas was repatriated in 1950 and was re-interred in Montgomery Memorial Park in London, West Virginia.
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