Max Denton Jr. (January 10, 1922 – January 1, 1945)

Headquarters Company, 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division

By Nicole Bennett and Luci Meier

Early Life

Max Denton Jr. was born on January 10, 1922, in Atlanta, GA to Max Denton Sr. and Hettie Denton (née Stewart).¹ His father, Max Sr. was born on October 5, 1900, in Paducah, KY while his mother Hettie was born on September 14, 1903, in Atlanta.² Denton’s father enlisted in the US Army in 1916. He served overseas during World War I and fought in the Chateau Thierry and Meuse-Argonne Campaigns, two of the toughest and most important engagements in which the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) fought during 1918. He earned military decorations from the US, France, England, and Belgium. After his service in the Army, he worked as a police officer for the Atlanta Police Department until 1925.³ On January 9, 1923, the family welcomed Max Jr.’s younger brother John Lewis Denton.⁴

Hettie Odell Cole’s 1930 Death Certificate

In February 1925, the local newspaper reported that Denton’s mother filed for divorce because of domestic violence in the household.⁵ By 1930, Denton’s mother had remarried, living with her new husband Louie Harold Cole. John and Max Jr. lived with their mother, stepfather, and two half-brothers, William Harold (1927) and James Kenneth (1929), in Atlanta.⁶ After doing all she could to provide for her sons, on December 5, 1930, Denton’s mother died suddenly at the age of twenty-seven. Her death certificate, pictured here, listed her cause of death as bronchopneumonia. The blended family seems to have bonded as Max Jr. and John stayed with their stepfather and half-siblings. Then at the height of the Great Depression, the family suffered another tragic event; their half-brother William Harold Cole died on July 21, 1932. Struck by a car after he ran out into the street, William was only five years old.⁷

It appears that Max Jr. and John moved in with their father, who by 1930 lived in Jacksonville, FL. In 1931, Max Sr. married Maralyn Pate in nearby Nassau County, FL.⁸ Both Max Jr. and John attended high school in Jacksonville. As the son of a World War I Veteran, Max Jr. belonged to the Sons of the American Legion, chartered by Congress in 1919 to both honor and assist Veterans, lobbying the government to create the U.S. Veterans Bureau, today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).⁹ By 1940, Denton’s father and his wife lived in St. Augustine, FL where he worked as an assistant state supervisor, likely for the Florida National Guard.¹⁰

Military Life

In 1940, at just eighteen years old, Max Jr. enlisted into the US Army at Fort Benning, GA where he also received his basic training. He became an expert in weaponry and earned an expert infantryman’s badge. The Army assigned Denton to the 4th Infantry Division (ID). The 4th ID relocated to Camp Gordon in Augusta, GA in December 1941. Then, in April 1943, Fort Dix, NJ became its new station. This is likely when Max Jr. met Robin Stacey of Riverton, NJ, and became engaged to her. The 4th ID received three more transfers – first to Camp Gordon Johnston in Carrabelle, FL, then to Fort Jackson, SC, and finally to Camp Kilmer, NJ – before heading overseas on January 18, 1944. Once in England, the 4th ID established its base of operations in Devon less than 200 miles southwest of London. Over time, Denton rose to the rank of Sergeant and became part of Headquarters Company, 8th Infantry Regiment.¹¹

Denton Greets a French Baby after Landing in Normandy

Denton first saw combat on D-Day, June 6, 1944, when he and the 8th Infantry became the first of the Allied units to land on the beaches of Normandy, France.¹² During this time, Max became a national hero when newspapers around the country printed a photograph of him, seen here, touching a French infant with her family.¹³ Over the next few weeks, his unit sought to clear the Cherbourg peninsula, part of Normandy on France’s northwest coast, of German troops in hopes of capturing the port of Cherbourg. They needed to gain control of the port to ensure the supply lines for the Allied troops that had landed at Normandy; without adequate supplies, the Allies would have been unable to continue their push to liberate France. They succeeded in taking Cherbourg on June 25, 1944. By the end of August, Max and the 8th Infantry had moved over 200 miles east into Paris. Together with the 2nd French Armored Division, and French troops under General Jaques LeClerc, the 8th ID freed Paris after four years of Nazi control, the only American infantry regiment that went into Paris.¹⁴

The 4th ID fought its way toward Germany, finally reaching Luxembourg in December 1944. The unit expected to rest and resupply, as it seemed the war would soon be over. Nevertheless, on December 16, 1944, German forces launched a counteroffensive against the Allied troops in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge in the US and the Second Battle of the Ardennes in Europe. During the battle, Max injured his hand, which earned him a Purple Heart. The 4th ID held off the Germans and maintained control over Luxembourg. Unfortunately, Max did not make it out of Luxembourg; he was killed in action on January 1, 1945.¹⁵

Legacy

Overall, the 4th ID participated in several campaigns including Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe. In just under a year, the unit suffered over 30,000 casualties from June 6, 1944 to May 8, 1945. For its actions in Normandy, the 8th Infantry Regiment received a Presidential Unit Citation.¹⁶ The image of Denton greeting the French family in Normandy gained him and his family national attention. His father and stepmother began to receive letters from people all over the world. Two of those letters came from General Dwight D. Eisenhower and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Years after Max’s death, his stepmother Maralyn continued to write to two French girls that had known Max, even sending them food and clothing.¹⁷

Initially buried in the Hamm Luxembourg Cemetery in Luxembourg City. The Army’s Quartermaster Corps established the cemetery on December 29, 1944, just days before Denton died, due to the brutal fighting and high death toll during the Battle of the Bulge.¹⁸ In 1949, following his father’s request, the Army returned Max Jr.’s body to the US; on March 25, 1949, officials reinterred him in the St. Augustine National Cemetery to be closer to his family. He rests in Section B, Site 123.¹⁹ Denton is also memorialized on the World War II Memorial Plaque in St. Augustine for St. Johns County, FL Veterans.²⁰

Denton’s brother John served in the US Navy during World War II, enlisting on September 10, 1940, and serving until September 11, 1945. He served in the Pacific Theater including the Pearl Harbor Naval Station in Hawaii which served as his ship’s home station for much of the war. In August 1942, he served aboard the U.S.S. Lassen docked near San Francisco, CA. During his time in the Navy, John’s ship encountered damage from two torpedoes and several Japanese bombs. Yet, through all of this, John and his fellow sailors managed to take down six Japanese planes as his ship assisted the Pacific fleet at Tarawa, Palau, Saipan, and Leyte in Southeast Asia and Oceania.²¹ He earned many battle citations for his service in the Pacific, including during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942 and 1943 in the Solomon Islands. After his discharge from the Navy, John returned to the US and by 1950 lived in Rochelle, IL with his wife Clara and four-year-old daughter Judy. In Rochelle, more than eighty miles west of Chicago, John worked as a supervisor in the wood spinning industry.²² John eventually returned to Jacksonville where he lived until his death on January 22, 1981, at the age of fifty-eight.²³

Denton’s father, Max Sr., also continued his military career during World War II and the Korean War. He initially served in Miami, Florida as the assistant Adjunct General for the state of Florida and in 1942 was commissioned as a captain in the Army Air Force and transferred to Keesler Field in Biloxi, MS where he served as a squadron commander for several years. By 1946, the Army Air Force promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he returned to inactive status and his position as the assistant Adjutant General in Florida.²⁴ During the Korean War, Denton Sr. commanded the 3201st Air Police Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base. He remained on active duty until July 1953, reverting to the Air Force Reserve. Because of his experience in military leadership, in 1956, he became the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the state of Florida.²⁵ He remained in the active reserve until his retirement on October 30, 1960, returning to his home in St. Augustine. On February 10, 1962, Denton Sr. passed away at a Jacksonville hospital. He was interred one row away from his son Max Jr. in the St. Augustine National Cemetery, Section D, Site 158.²⁶

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