Alexander M. Morris served in WWII as a Corporal in the 181st (Airlanding) Field Ambulance. Born in Northumberland, England, in 1911, Alex was the sixth of ten children, and after his schooling started a career in the British military. At age 20 he became a baptised member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and at age 25 he married Ivy Ella Abell in London, with a little daughter being born a few years later.
Corporal Morris saw active duty throughout WWII and at the end of the war participated in Operation Doomsday. This involved the landing in Norway of the 181st Airlanding Field Ambulance, which was a Royal Army Medical Corps Unit of the British airborne forces. On 11th May 1945, they entered Norway and established a hospital in Oslo, but they operated within the larger objective of supervising the surrender of the German troops, and maintaining law and order as the soldiers left the country. The medics were also tasked with treating the large number of ex-Russian prisoners of war, and many medical personnell were needed to help safely escort both the Russians and the Germans back to their homelands. Once they cleaned up the German buildings, Alex Morris declares them to be quite comfortable living quarters.
Sister Ivy Morris, Corporal Morris’ wife, submitted a series of her husband’s letters to The Millennial Star for publication. He relates how happy the Norwegians are “to be free from Nazi control. Branch President Strang has told me of the imprisonments, 'grilling' and punishments that he and his sons have had to endure and I know that the others have also had to suffer much. Yet all seemed to want to say: God had cared for us here in Norway.”
The Church members did not wallow in their recent sorrows. In fact, Alex Morris declares, “I have just had one of the outstanding experiences of my army career here in Oslo, Norway . . . To just sit in an LDS meeting and not understand a word of what is being spoken and yet be thrilled by the power of the spirit in the building.” He speaks highly of the members in the Oslo Branch who treated him well, and who wanted to hear all about the British Mission. He asks his wife if she could send him something that he could give to the children of the kind members who gave him respite in their home. He suggests, “do you think you could send a little cake of something, soap would be very useful, in fact any small thing like that, a tin of Ovaltine or anything for a treat for them. You should have seen their eyes when they tasted chocolate for the first time. My it’s good to meet so many Saints, they are just the same, stand around the aisle talking before and after the meeting shaking hands all round.”
Other pages in the August 1945 Millennial Star reverberate with the joy of peace returning to the land. The frontispiece states, “Holiday time is here. Sunshine and seaside, sand and space, the good earth and the tall trees . . . Now that man is released somewhat from the sordid business of making guns and bombs, he will be able to appreciate the works of God.”
Regarding the vicissitudes of war, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. addressed the April 1945 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with words of comfort. To the returning soldiers he said, “I have no doubt . . . that those who die [for their families, their homes, and their god] as described by Moroni, will not be held guilty of the death of their brethren, and they will have opportunity to go on to salvation and exaltation in the celestial kingdom.”
To the families who endured much during the war, he gave words of instruction to help the returning soldiers re-enter their former civilian lives:
“To bridge over the time when they return as heroes for achievements in war, until they may resume their peace-time occupations and become heroes in peace and in peaceful occupations, to bridge that over is one of the tasks we shall have to undertake and to which we must give our best effort and best thought. I am not thinking of the temporal side of the bridge-over, I am thinking of the spiritual side, and what that means; and in that connection it seems to me that they who are to play the greatest part are the mothers, the wives, and the sweethearts of those who return.”
Without mental health experts trained in protocols to ameliorate shell shock, or PTSD, as it came to be known, the returning soldiers needed whatever their loved ones could give them in terms of understanding and especially love.
Sources:
“Operation Doomsday,” accessed 25 March 2025
“Forces’ Pages,” The Millennial Star, Vol. 107, No. 8 (1945), pp. 238-9
Alex Morris - centre