Navy Chief AMM Thomas Wilson Miller was born in Missouri in 1917, the son of Mrs. Mae Kahn. There is little information about his formative years, but we do know that he enlisted in the US Navy in Missouri in approximately 1937-1938. He was stationed at NAS Pensacola and may have reenlisted on June 27, 1941. By this time, he had met and married a Pensacola girl by the name of Helen Christine Sinclair (1919-1967), the daughter of a local Scottish house painter William Sinclair (1885-1950) and Nettie Alberta Smith (1891-1961).
During their early marriage, Thomas and Hazel lived at 219 Cypress Street before moving out to Warrington to 2301 1st Street after WWII began. From late 1942 to early 1943, he was sent to sea in the South Pacific. There is no indication that he was stationed aboard a carrier at the time of his death so he may have been flying from a land-based field. Regardless, Hazel was notified that Thomas was aboard a plane and was missing in action over the South Pacific. Later, that designation was changed to killed in the performance of his duty. After the war his name was entered on the Walls of the Missing in Manila where they remain today.
Hazel would go on with her life and marry Lloyd Charles Campbell (1911-1958), a US Army WWII veteran and a pipefitter at NAS. He would pass away in March 1958 and was buried in the Pensacola Memorial Gardens Cemetery where he was joined by Hazel in 1967.
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