This Day In Texas History - February 27

[joe817]

1795 - José Antonio Navarro was born in San Antonio de Béxar. He later became one of three Tejanos to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence.

1836 - The first prisoners taken by Gen. José de Urrea, were the survivors of Francis W. Johnson's party, captured at and near San Patricio, now called the Battle of San Patricio. When the Mexican general reported to Santa Anna that he was holding the San Patricio prisoners, Santa Anna ordered Urrea to comply with the decree of December 30(Santa Anna sought and obtained from the Mexican Congress the decree of December 30, 1835, which directed that all foreigners taken in arms against the government should be treated as pirates and shot). Urrea complied to the extent of issuing an order to shoot his prisoners, along with those captured in the battle of Agua Dulce Creek, but he had no stomach for such cold-blooded killing; and when Father Thomas J. Malloy, priest of the Irish colonists, protested the execution, Urrea remitted the prisoners to Matamoros, asking Santa Anna's pardon for having done so and washing his hands of their fate.

1836 - The Gonzales Rangers Respond to Fannin's plea for help: Two appeals to Col. Fannin at Goliad had resulted in an aborted start toward San Antonio with his force of 350 men when Fannin heard of the approach of Gen. Urrea's army. Responding to Col. Travis' appeals, the main contingent of the Gonzales Alamo Relief Force departed the town square of Gonzales at 2 PM Saturday 27 Feb, led by commanding officer Lieutenant George C. Kimble of the Gonzales Rangers. The senior officer accompanying the relief force was courier Capt. Albert Martin who had delivered the appeal to both Smithers and Gonzales. The force was guided by Alamo courier John W. Smith, a resident of San Antonio de Bexar. According to Dr. John Sutherland, the group consisted of 25 men who left Gonzales and increased to 32 with those who joined along the way, in particular near Cibola Creek.

The Gonzales Alamo Relief Force consisting of primarily the men of the DeWitt Colony listed here was the only organized force in Texas which effectively responded without question to the appeals of Travis to aid their doomed colleagues in the mission.

1850 - Carlos Esparza, a supporter of the Mexican folk hero Juan N. Cortina, and various followers attempted to establish a territorial government and separate themselves from the rest of Texas. The Territory of the Rio Grande was intended to protect the interests of Hispanics, but the proposal became politically complicated and was dropped.

1907 - Justina Luckenbach died, four years to the day before the death of her husband Jacob. Both Luckenbachs were born in Germany and came to Texas in late 1845. In January 1846 they were among the first settlers in Fredericksburg. The Luckenbach family became American citizens in 1852 and shortly thereafter sold both Fredericksburg properties and moved twelve miles southeast. When she was appointed postmistress at the site, Sophie Engel named the post office Luckenbach in honor of her fiancé, Jacob and Justina's son Albert. John Russell (Hondo) Crouch, from nearby Comfort, bought the "town" in 1971. Popularized in regional culture as the place where "Everybody is Somebody," Luckenbach achieved mythic proportions in 1977, the year after Crouch's death, when the Waylon Jennings song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" became a national favorite.

1917 - Future governor John B. Connally, Jr., was born on a farm near Floresville. Although he was associated with Lyndon Johnson, Connally switched to the Republican party in the middle of his political career. The most famous, and the gravest, moment in his public life came when he was wounded in the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963.

1948 - Fort Worth Army Airfield is renamed today for Major Horace S Carswell, Jr, a hero of the Pacific War. Carswell stayed with his plane in 1944 rather than abandon a crew member whose parachute was shot up. His plane did not make it, and eventually crashed into a mountain. In 1946 Carswell was postumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

[ELB]

...

1948 - Fort Worth Army Airfield is renamed today for Major Horace S Carswell, Jr, a hero of the Pacific War. Carswell stayed with his plane in 1944 rather than abandon a crew member whose parachute was shot up. His plane did not make it, and eventually crashed into a mountain. In 1946 Carswell was postumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

According to other sources the copilot, having been wounded and probably not a candidate for bailing out, also remained with the plane and was killed when it crashed into the mountain, and two of the crew members who bailed out were killed when their parachutes malfunctioned.

The remains of the three killed in the crash were found by locals and buried at a Catholic mission in China. Maj Carswell was then reburied six more times as he moved within China, then to Hawaii, and then three more times in Texas before reaching his final (I hope!) resting place in the Carswell Memorial Park in Oakwood Cemetary, Fort Worth, Texas.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcabx
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... &GRid=9812

[joe817]

Awesome read ELB! Many thanks for posting. Lots of things I didn't know about him, and I should have.

I was born & raised in west Ft.Worth. I remember as a boy of 6 or 7, the neighborhood guys(8 or 9) of us would walk from our neighborhood out to the bluffs overlooking Carswell AFB. It's now the Ridgmar subdivision, but back then it was open country, and nothing there at all. There was an awesome view of the runway, and we watched all sorts of take offs & landings. That was around 1953 or '54. Built into the side of the "mountain" were the remains of what the older kids described as an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. Made sense to me. A concrete circular affair about 10' in diameter, with some large steel bolts in the center. IIRC, around the circumference was a wall about 2 or 3' high. Don't know if any of that was true, but it sure made some fun times playing "army".

[ELB]

...Built into the side of the "mountain" were the remains of what the older kids described as an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. Made sense to me. A concrete circular affair about 10' in diameter, with some large steel bolts in the center. IIRC, around the circumference was a wall about 2 or 3' high. Don't know if any of that was true, but it sure made some fun times playing "army".

I'm guessing that was more likely the remains of the base for some navigational aid or radio antenna, especially if there was only one of them. I can't think of any inland AFBs that had AA. During WWII the border areas, especially the coasts had some, but I don't think they went too far inland. If nothing else, there were too many bases to cover! Uncle Sam dropped flying fields anywhere there was a flat spot, it seems.

But it's more fun playin' army in a former AA site than a former radio beacon, I'm sure!