Memorial

More information

Maxwell Brown attended Lafayette College for two years.

He joined the U.S. Army Reserve on 21 September 1942 and was called to active duty on 17 May 1943. He received his early training at Fort McClellan, Alabama and Camp Atterbury, Indiana, completed the Officer Candidate Course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on 9 May 1944. He was sent overseas the first of November 1944.

He was killed by shrapnel in the head.

Lt Maxwell Brown was awarded the Silver Star Medal posthumously for gallantry in action on 13 January 1945. When his advancing platoon was suddenly halted by devastating machine gun fire from wel-concealed hostile positions, Lt Brown ordered his men to take cover. To draw fire revealing the enemy's exact loaction to his deployed platoon, he courageously advanced toward the German lines until fatally wounded by withering blasts from their guns. By his valiant sacrifice and inspiring action, Lt Brown enabled his men to locate the camouflaged emplacements, withdraw with a minimum of casualities and flank the positions, thereby neuralizing a well-planned enemy trap.

He was initially buried in a temporary grave at Henri-Chapelle on 16 January 1945. After being disinterred and after the cemetery was given a permanent status, he was given hin final resting place on 7 August 1948.