On This Day In Alabama History: Author William March Was Born

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

William Edward Campbell was one of 11 children. His father was the orphaned son of a Confederate soldier who worked as an itinerant laborer. His mother was from a prominent Mobile family. The Campbells had little money and William left school at 14 to work but later obtained a high school diploma and briefly studied law. The defining period in his life was World War I. Enlisting in 1917, he earned the French Croix de Guerre, the Distinguished Service Cross and Navy Cross for bravery in combat, but his war experiences also left him mentally scarred. He returned to his native Mobile and had a successful career with the Waterman Steamship Company, which posted him to New York, London and Hamburg, Germany. He began to write seriously in the late 1920s using the pen name William March. His first novel, Company K, was based on his war experiences.

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