I don't know a lot about cousin Thomas, since I was 8 years old when he died, but I remember he was very handsome and his nickname was "Snookie." He was in the Army Air Corps, an engineer gunner, on his way to duty in the European Theatre of WW II when his plane went down in British Guinea.  At that time it was too dangerous to route the planes over the North Atlantic, so they detoured over South America in route to Africa, then Europe. Two of his brothers also served in WW II. I am inclosing an old newspaper picture of him.

  Son of Mr. & Mrs. Ernest Dewey Gleason, Groves; graduate of Evergreen High School, received the Purple Heart; killed in action in 1944 in a plane crash in British Guinea. Ernest Dewey Gleason Was La. State Representative from 1952-1960; born in Webster Parish, La.; died in Evergreen, La. married Mary Smith; Son of William Thomas Gleason and his first wife, Ida Lunsford, who is buried in Cotton Valley.