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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Tom Woodruff

Date and Place of Birth: November 30, 1917 St Louis, Missouri
Date and Place of Death: December 2, 1944 Pacific Ocean
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Shortstop
Rank: Lieutenant (jg)
Military Unit: US Navy
Area Served: Pacific Theater of Operations

 

Thomas J "Tom" Woodruff was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 30, 1917. He attended St Louis University High School and St Louis University before signing with the St Louis Browns in 1938. He played for the Corpus Christi Spudders of the Texas Valley League his rookie season and batted .271 with a league-leading 44 stolen bases.

 

In 1939 he joined the Paragould Browns of the Northeast Arkansas League and batted .279 in 120 games with a league-leading 62 stolen bases. The young shortstop began the 1940 season with the Springfield Browns of the Class B Three-I League but after batting only .248 in 55 games he joined the St Joseph Autos of the Michigan State League where, in 27 games, he batted .404 and stole 17 bases.

 

Woodruff was back with St Joseph at the start of the 1941 season but was called to military service after playing 19 games. He served with the Navy as a Grumman F6F Hellcat pilot and saw action in the Pacific aboard the USS Enterprise. Lieutenant Junior-Grade Woodruff was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and Navy Cross before being reported missing by the Navy Department on December 2, 1944.

 

A year later he was awarded a third gold star to go with his Air Medal for aerial bravery against a Japanese destroyer off the Philippines on Armistice Day 1944.

 

Tom Woodruff's body was never recovered. He is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery at Fort Bonifacio in the Philippines where his date of death is listed as November 15, 1945 - one year after he was reported missing.

 

Grumman F6F Hellcat

Thanks to Gary Fink for supplying much of this information.

 

Added May 23, 2008. Updated September 16, 2008.

 

Copyright © 2008 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.