Forgotten Hero: Ensign James S. Maddox (West Virginia 20th Century Regional History)

by M. Raymond Alvarez

In the mid 1970s, a story was told by an elderly neighbor to young woman about the former residents of her home on Pittsburgh Avenue in Fairmont, West Virginia. The son was a WWII Navy Ensign who died at sea. Recalling anecdotes of what was spoken 40 years later offered the chance to explore the facts behind the story and to discover a significant but otherwise forgotten event. This is about the power of a story. Lieutenant James Show Maddox (USNR) died at sea on January 17, 1943 after surviving 77 days on a raft following a U-Boat torpedo attack on a wartime merchant vessel where he commanded a Navy Armed Guard unit. After floating helplessly in the ocean for a day and two nights, he was pulled onto a raft where he became the unlikely leader of two other American Sailors and two Dutch mariners, all desperate to survive. His ingenuity, compassion, and servant leadership enabled three of them to be rescued a week after his death in one of the longest recorded periods adrift at sea in Navy records. Ensign Maddox was a slight, unassuming college instructor thrust into a role where others' lives would depend on his knowledge, story telling and creativity. It is a story of empowerment for a young man from Fairmont, his parents, and his young widow left behind during World War II. Ironically in most historical information about the event that exists today, Maddox was never identified as a West Virginia native ... until now.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1973318857
• ISBN13: 9781973318859
• Release Date: November 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 62 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"