Morgan H Vaux
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Morgan Vaux was born in 1918 in Waterstown, South Dakota. After entering the Army Air Corps in 1939, he spent the first phase of his military career at Selfridge Field, Michigan, where he began training in all things related to radios, an area in which he would apply his expertise throughout his life. After joining the AVG in 1941, Morgan was assigned to the Adam & Eves installing radios into P-40s, and soon found himself serving as part of the AVG s early-warning net from a pagoda-based station in remote south China, With the help of a Chinese interpreter, he would transmit updates to the main base at Kunming, knowing that within roughly 100 miles from his location, a Japanese air base was operating around the clock. On one occasion, Morgan was strafed by enemy fighters while ferrying a drum of gasoline along the Burma Road, but managed to escape disaster. There were other hazards there, however. Morgan recalled, 'One night I was awakened, being bitten by rats! I got infected, and when the AVG was disbanded, I was offered the rank of a 1st lieutenant. I was still sick then, and went home instead. The army wouldnt provide transportation, so I was able to bum a ride aboard a CNAC transport to India.' After the AVG, Morgan joined the Marines and was soon sent back into action in the Solomon Islands, attached to VMB-413, the first Marine B-25 unit, doing night-bombing at Rabaul. After the war, Morgan finished college and entered a career involving the production of radios, working 27 years with GM/Delco until his retirement in 1980. He died on 3rd August 2010. |