On February 27, 1948 Fort Worth Army Air Field was renamed “Carswell Air Force Base” in honor of Fort Worth native Major Horace Seaver “Stump” Carswell Jr. (1916–1944) (photo from Wikipedia).
Carswell grew up on the North Side, attended North Side High School.
Carswell played football at TCU, graduated in 1939.
The 1940 census listed Horace Jr. living with his parents on Denver Avenue on the North Side.
The Carswell house on Denver Avenue was built in 1916, the year Horace Jr. was born—106 years ago.
In 1940 Horace Jr. enlisted in the Army, became an Army Air Corps pilot.
Major Carswell was reported missing in action over China in October 1944 after his B-24 crash-landed.
This front page of December 8, 1944 shows how the war dominated news. In the lower right corner is a story stating that Carswell, by then declared killed in action, had been recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Carswell had remained at the controls of his crippled B-24 Liberator as the bomber crash-landed in China. (Consolidated Aircraft Company, adjacent to Fort Worth Army Air Field, built B-24s during the war.) Carswell was twenty-eight years old.
Carswell was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1946.
Carswell’s heroism was recalled as the air base was renamed for him in 1948. During the ceremony sixteen B-29s flew overhead, and a B-36 was taxied over from the bomber plant.
Carswell Air Force Base originally was called “Tarrant Field Airdrome” and then just “Tarrant Field” and then “Fort Worth Army Air Field.”
Today the base is known as “Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth” and is operated by the Navy (1947 photo from Lockheed Martin).
Major Horace Seaver “Stump” Carswell Jr. was buried in 1944 at Tungchen, China. In 1945 he was reburied at the American Military Cemetery at Kunming, China. In 1947 he was reburied in Hawaii. In 1948 he was reburied in Rose Hill Cemetery in east Fort Worth. Finally, in 1986 his remains were moved to Carswell Air Force Base.
But wait! One more deployment for the remains of Major Carswell came in 1993 when Carswell Air Force Base ceased active Air Force active duty operations, and Major Carswell’s remains were reburied yet again, this time in Carswell Memorial Park in Oakwood Cemetery.
Carswell’s grave at Oakwood Cemetery is part of Carswell Memorial Park.
This marker is at Airfield Falls near the base that was named for Horace Seaver Carswell Jr.
Footnote: The 1955 movie Strategic Air Command starring Jimmy Stewart was filmed in part at Major Carswell’s namesake base. In the control tower scene the adjacent bomber plant’s assembly building can be seen in the background and B-36s in the middle ground. In the bottom scene Stewart is walking with actor Harry Morgan alongside B-36 s/n 5734. Fame is fleeting: In 1957 B-36 s/n 5734 was scrapped.
