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| Article tacked to bulletin board in Natchez church. |
(Several months ago I paid a visit to the New Hope Baptist
Church in Natchez, Ala. While there, I found an old newspaper or magazine
article about aviation hero William C. Maxwell that someone had tacked to a
bulletin board near the entrance to the church. The article was originally written
by Susan F. Turner, but I couldn’t determine when or where the article had been
originally published. The article also included four photos taken by Oliver P.
Turner. What follows is the complete text of the article.)
“MAXWELL’S NAMESAKE”
Story by Susan F. Turner with photographs by Oliver P. Turner
An unmarked country churchyard in the sparsely settled,
rural community of Robinsonville in southwest Alabama is the burial ground of
the young native Alabama hero for whom Maxwell Air Force Base was named.
As the honor to his memory has increased with the growth and
importance of Maxwell Air Force Base, the gravesite of 2nd Lieutenant William
Calvin Maxwell seemingly has become more isolated and more obscure.
A paved road about six miles northeast of Atmore has no
name, and the school in Robinsonville, also named for Maxwell, is closed. The
post office has been replaced by rural free delivery.
In the cemetery are a great many headstones with the name
Robinson, and Maxwell’s white marble marker is on the western edge of the
cemetery at the rear of a white painted church. It is separated from a dirt
road by a sagging wire with unpainted wood posts. The inscription reads:
William Calvin Maxwell
3rd Aero Squadron
Born Nov. 9, 1892
Died in Service, Manila P.I.
Aug. 12, 1920
Affectionate son, fond brother, and a friend to all.
The cemetery is located about a mile from the home of his
father, John Robert Maxwell, built in Robinsonville in the early part of the
century and still today in good repair. It is where the older man wanted his
son buried so he could “tend the grave,” according to Maxwell’s sister, Mrs.
Jennie Maxwell Parker of Punta Gorda, Fla.
Their father, who died in 1926 when he was 59 years old, is
buried between the graves of his son and his second wife, who died in 1938.
Mrs. Parker, who feels the responsibility of caring for the
graves and upholds it with periodic visits, has wistfully expressed the wish
that her brother were buried in Arlington’s National Cemetery where perpetual
care is assured.
A quite, unassuming young man who was six feet tall, her
brother died before his 28th birthday. It was in peacetime, a little more than
three years after his enlistment in the Army and following his graduation from
the University of Alabama and before marriage to his Austin, Texas fiancé.
The story of “Willie,” as his family called him, has been
pieced together from scrapbooks full of clippings and pictures and from the
memories of his sister and their two octogenarian aunts, Mrs. Jodie Nettles
Stallworth and Mrs. Nealie Nettles Stallworth of Beatrice, Ala.
One other surviving sister is Mrs. Mattie Lee Snuggs of
Birmingham. None of his three brothers, Roscoe Steele, James Finklea or John
Nettles, is living.
Willie’s birthplace is described by his Aunt Jodie as a
small frame house near a post office at Fork, Ala.
“I used to ride horseback from our house in Natchez to see
sister Jennie,” she said. “It was about a mile and a half west of Natchez, out
in the woods.
“Brother John wasn’t a prosperous farmer,” she added.
Maxwell’s birthplace is recorded at the Montgomery facility
carrying his name as Natchez, Ala. It was a farm community about three miles
west of Beatrice in Monroe County, and today, the Nettles home is its old
landmark on the new paved road. The property has been acquired by Monroe County
for a 90-acre public fishing lake.
Fork, Ala. is a woodland now. It is probably named for the
“fork of the road.”
The Maxwell family moved to Robinsonville when Willie was a
boy, and he was only 12 years old and the oldest of six children when his
mother was accidentally killed as she rummaged in a chest for some flannel
stored there. Her son, James Finklea, had an infected foot from a nail wound
and “smoking the wound” with smoldering cloth was a home remedy. She did not
know her husband had wrapped his pistol in the flannel and hidden it in the
chest.
Willie graduated from Escambia High School in Atmore and
entered the University of Alabama, where he paid his expenses by working in the
power plant.
Enlisting in the Army at Fort McPherson, Ga. in May 1917,
“his diploma was mailed to him from the University of Alabama,” said his
sister, Mrs. Parker.
Following enlistment, he was assigned to 5th Co., 7th
Provisional Training Regiment and then to the School of Military Aeronautics at
Atlanta, Ga.
In November 1917, he was sent to flying cadet training at
Kelly Field, Texas and discharged April 3, 1918 to accept commission as an
officer. Most of 1918, he was an instructor at Aerial Gunnery School at
Ellington Field, Texas.
From February to June 1919, Lt. Maxwell was an instructor in
Aerial Gunnery School back at Kelly Field.
During this period of his career, Mrs. Parker said he
considered leaving the service, but “he re-enlisted and was ordered to Mitchel
Field, N.Y., in the 3rd Squadron,” she said. “It was being reorganized for
service in the Philippines.”
Six fliers went to the islands together on the Sherman, his
sister said, and Willie enjoyed a stopover in Hawaii.
A few last months of his life was spent at Camp Stotsenburg,
Luzon. On the day of his death, he was flying a DH4 (with Liberty engine) to
Manila to pick up mail for the American airmen. The plane developed engine
trouble while flying over Del Carmen Sugar Central, about 20 miles south of
Clark Field, Camp Stotsenburg.
In making an emergency landing, he was gliding near the
ground when he saw children playing below.
To avoid them, he deliberately swerved the plane, struck a
flagpole and was instantly killed in the crash. Pvt. Jorge Chase, the mechanic
flying with him, escaped with a broken thigh, according to his sister.
His family received a letter from a Mrs. Clayton of Del
Carmen Sugar Central, noting she felt he had saved the lives of her children.
A letter also came from his commanding officer, Major Roy C.
Brown, and one of three airmen who flew formation over his Philippine funeral,
dropping flowers from the planes.
Lt. Maxwell’s body was brought back to the states and sent
from San Francisco to the churchyard cemetery at Robinsonville on Oct. 11,
1920, for a simple and final ceremony.
Some further research has brought out “the records of the
Air Service in the National Archives indicate that on Oct. 10, 1922, Maj. Roy
S. Brown, the commanding officer of the Montgomery Air Intermediate Depot at
Montgomery, Ala., suggests that the installation be renamed Maxwell Field in
honor of Lt. William C. Maxwell, a member of the 3rd Aero Squadron who was
killed in an airplane accident on Aug. 12, 1920.
“This suggestion which was embodied in the War Department
General Orders No. 45, dated Nov. 8, 1922, did not contain any reference to
Lieutenant Maxwell’s career except his fatal accident.
“Major Brown was in command of the 3rd Aero Squadron at the
time of Lt. Maxwell’s death,” according to the letter from Washington, D.C.
There is in the Maxwell Room of the Officers Club at the
base today a portrait of Lt. Maxwell. It was painted by Essie Grant and is
dated 1942.
There is also a marble border at the base. It jointly honors
Lt. Maxwell and the Wright Brothers whose early flying ventures occurred there.
The marble border was unveiled when the new airfield was dedicated Dec. 29,
1943.
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