7 decades overdue, honor for black soldier
LOWER MERION Seventy years to the day that he was killed fighting a fire in Oregon, Army paratrooper Malvin Brown, an African American from Lower Merion Township, was honored Thursday at a ceremony at a cemetery near Baltimore.
LOWER MERION Seventy years to the day that he was killed fighting a fire in Oregon, Army paratrooper Malvin Brown, an African American from Lower Merion Township, was honored Thursday at a ceremony at a cemetery near Baltimore.
About 50 people attended the event, including representatives of the Triple Nickles, Brown's all-black battalion; the National Smokejumpers Association; and the U.S. Forest Service, along with five of Brown's relatives, said Deidra McGee, the service's national liaison.
The whereabouts of Brown's burial place remained a mystery until last year, after an NSA member contacted The Inquirer seeking help in finding it. Thursday's event was particularly gratifying for McGee, a Philadelphia native who was instrumental in tracking down members of Brown's family, acting on advice from her genealogically savvy godmother.
Brown's battalion, sent to the Pacific Northwest on a top-secret mission in response to balloon-bomb attacks by the Japanese, joined forces with Forest Service smoke jumpers, or parachuting firefighters. Brown died in a 150-foot fall from a tree on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Brown's mission was so secret that family members learned about his career only recently.
On Thursday, at Mount Calvary Cemetery, he was honored as a hero. - Anthony R. Wood