Record #: R2016-888   
Type: Resolution Status: Adopted
Intro date: 11/9/2016 Current Controlling Legislative Body:
Final action: 11/9/2016
Title: Recognition extended to Thomas V. Jones for military service as Army Air Corps and Tuskegee Airman
Sponsors: Burke, Edward M.
Attachments: 1. R2016-888.pdf

RESOLUTION

 

 

 

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones served his country with valor and great distinction as a member of the United States Army Air Corps and as a qualified replacement for the 99th Pursuit Squadron, an African American Air Corps unit more commonly known as the 99th Tuskegee Airmen established by the War Department in January of 1941; and

WHEREAS, The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, instructors and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was born and raised in Chicago and attended Wendell Phillips High School; and

 

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones entered military service in 1943 at the age of seventeen; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones qualified to become a replacement in the famed 99th Tuskegee Airmen Corps; and

WHEREAS, Early in his service Thomas V. Jones was sent to McDill, Florida where he received training as a mapmaker in preparation for his role as a topography surveyor in the South Pacific theater of war; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones served his country with distinction for three-and-a-half years, including an eighteen month tour of duty under extreme conditions on the islands of Guam, Saipan and Iwo Jima; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was stationed in Okinawa when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan; and

WHEREAS, Following his discharge from active duty, Thomas V. Jones worked as a Ford Motor Company assembly line worker and in the U.S. Postal Service as a mail handler; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was one of ninety-one honored veterans from the Chicagoland area invited to visit Washington D.C. and attend formal ceremonies at the World War II Memorial in 2014 as part of the "Honor Flight Chicago" sponsored by the Ford Fund; and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones is truly an example of what journalist Tom Brokaw called "Our Greatest Generation;" and

WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones is exceedingly worthy of our highest admiration and esteem; now, therefore

 

 

BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council, assembled this ninth day of November, 2016 do hereby express our sincere appreciation to Thomas V. Jones for his military service; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to The*nas V. Jones

Alderman - 14in Ward