To the Max:
A Story of Poverty, War and Success
by Janis Williams
You could say that Max Carr has had four lives. The first was a childhood of urban poverty in Akron, Ohio. Then, during World War II, he was a combat cargo pilot who flew 283 missions in the China-Burma-India theatre, one of those elite few pilots who “flew the hump,” or flew over the Himalayas. His third life came after the war and lasted more than twenty years, during which time he was married and a father, moving up in the company—Southwestern Bell, where he spent his professional life—while building a house in town and one at the lake with his own hands. It was during that time that he oversaw the communications for the LBJ Ranch, getting the entire system up and running within a two-week period after JFK was shot and Johnson was catapulted into office.
And Max’s fourth life began when he was fifty and met Cassandra, who became his second wife. Today, at eighty-nine and after two heart attacks and a stroke that have affected his vision and short-term memory, Max is finally ready to think about his life. “I’ve never wanted to delve into it before,” he says. “For some reason, now I’m ready.”
At Cassandra’s encouragement, Max here examines the charmed life he has lived. In these pages, he reconstructs the yearning and accomplishment, the adventure, high risk, and impulsiveness. And with a kind of amazement, he looks back at his journey from poverty to a quiet, hard-earned prosperity.
Max’s story is emblematic of a generation of young men who, having survived the Great Depression, reported for service, undertook great risks, and won World War II for the Allies.
Those who managed to stay alive then dusted themselves off and came home to shape America for a future that, like the mountains beyond the mountains of the Himalayas, they could not begin to see.