Henry S. Maxfield ’45

Henry S. Maxfield ’45 died November 3, 2013, in Wolfeboro, N.H. He was born in Boston on June 4, 1923, and prepared for college at the Browne & Nichols School. He served to first lieutenant the Army Air Corps during World War II, serving as a navigator on a B-24 Liberator operating out of England. He was one of only four survivors out of a crew of ten when their plane was shot down over Germany. After six months in a POW camp, he was liberated by Gen. George Patton. A member of Delta Upsilon fraternity, he graduated in 1947, remaining a member of the class of 1945. While trying to get his writing career off the ground, he tried many occupations, including selling shrubbery door to door. He did graduate work in Switzerland and signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency, working the Berlin desk in Germany. By 1954, with the war and the CIA behind him, he moved his family back to Wolfeboro and opened a real estate office in his home. In 1957, he wrote a play titled Money in the Bank, which aired on television’s Matinee Playhouse. In 1958, his first book, Legacy of a Spy, was published and was made into the 1967 movie, The Double Man, starring Yul Brynner and Britt Ekland. His second book, Another Spring, was published in 1974. He wrote and published five other novels, as well as Detours 1, an autobiography covering the early years of his life through 1942. As a younger man he had an Actors’ Equity card and performed summer stock with the Barnstormers in Tamworth, N.H. He sold the real estate company to his son and daughter-in-law in 1982. He was passionate about politics and for the past several years was a regular contributor to the letters section of the Granite State News. He is survived by his wife of sixty-nine years, Elizabeth (Betty) Dura Burchenal Maxfield; daughter Dura Winder; son Henry Maxfield Jr.; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

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