David Marshall Williams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Marshall Williams (aka "Carbine Williams") was born 13 November 1900 in Godwin, Cumberland County, North Carolina, the eldest of seven children. As a young boy, he worked on his family's farm, but showed a marked affinity as a machinist. He dropped out of school after eighth grade, and began work in Ellery Ezzell’s Blacksmith Shop in Godwin, learning the craft of working metals.
Known as “Marshall” to his friends, he caught some of the American military fervor of the early twentieth century, and although not yet officially old enough, enlisted in the US Navy, giving the recruiter a false age. He spent only a short time in the navy before this was realized, and he was discharged for being underage. An alternative account is that he contacted his father and told him he was unhappy in the Navy and his father used the underage excuse to get him discharged. After returning home from the navy, he spent one semester at Blackstone Military Academy in Virginia before being expelled.
After returning to Godwin from the military academy, he was employed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad at the station in town. This job assisted with his other business, an illegal distillery in the woods just outside of town. The distillery apparently had some high-level customers. During the time of Prohibition, a suitcase would be loaded with moonshine and placed on a train destined for Washington, DC every other day. On alternate days, when a shipment was not placed on the train, another suitcase containing a similar shipment was loaded onto the bus for Raleigh, the state capitol. The specific destinations and receivers of these shipments have never been revealed, but assumptions are rife about who in those cities would circumvent Prohibition to satisfy a taste for 'shine.
The operation of the distillery was generally common knowledge to most people in the area, but the local constabulary were still obligated to enforce the law whenever possible. A raid was conducted on the distillery in 1921, and during the course of this action, Deputy Sheriff Al Pate was shot to death. Williams was some distance away at the time of the shooting, assisting Ellery Ezzell, the blacksmith, in repairing a metal roof. Hearing the shooting he ran to the distillery, arriving just as the shooter, a man he employed to operate the distillery, had fled, dropping the pistol used in the shooting on the ground. Williams picked up the weapon just as the Sheriff arrived, and was arrested. An alternative account says that Williams was not arrested till several days later when he turned himself in with the help of his father.
According to the book by Ross Beard the policeman was killed by a rifle which belonged to Williams (probably a Krag). One of the policemen present testified at the trial that he clearly saw Williams shooting at them from the edge of the woods which was 150 yards away.
Williams was initially charged with first-degree murder since a law enforcement officer had been killed, but the trial ended in a hung jury, unable to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather than go through another trial, Williams was persuaded to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder, being promised a lesser penalty. The shooting had occurred on his land, at his distillery, and that made him an accessory. The judge, however, was not in the mood for making deals, and Williams was sentenced to a twenty to thirty year term for a crime he did not commit.
Williams was transported to Caledonia State Prison in Halifax County, North Carolina. During the early part of his incarceration, the prison superintendent began to observe in him a certain genius for metal work and gunsmithing. He was assigned to the prison's machine shop where he repaired weapons for the guards.
His extraordinary skills in the machine shop permitted him to stay ahead of the workload, and allowed him time for his own hobby. He began building lathes and other tools, and then parts for guns. He saved paper and pencils, and stayed up late at night drawing plans for various firearms. His mother sent him technical data on guns, and provided him with contacts with patent attorneys. While in prison, he invented the short-stroke piston and the floating chamber principles, eventually revolutionizing small arms manufacture.
According to W.H.B Smith in "Mauser, Walther and Mannlicher Firearms", the short stroke piston was invented by Mannlicher and can be clearly seen in his 1900 automatic rifle design. This eventually led to the dispute between Williams and Winchester over his right to hold the US Patent. According to an Internet article the M1 carbine was originally designed by Winchester engineers as a cut-down version of the Garand. Unfortunately the Winchester engineers lacked the skill to make it work and they hired Williams to fix the design; which he did.
The Williams Family went on a campaign to have his sentence commuted, and received assistance from the Cumberland County Sheriff having arrested him and the widow of the man he was accused of killing. In 1929, North Carolina Governor Angus W. McLean reduced the sentence, and Williams left prison after only seven years.
Back in Cumberland County, he set to work perfecting his inventions, and filing patents. In 1933, he traveled to Washington, DC to show his work to the US War Department. His first contract was to modify the .30 caliber Browning rifle to fire .22 caliber smokeless ammunition. The use of his short-stroke piston, developed while he had been in prison, in the US Army M-1 Carbine manufactured by the Winchester Arms Company and others, brought his greatest fame and the nickname "Carbine Williams." General Douglas MacArthur called this light rapid-fire carbine, "One of the strongest contributing factors in our victory in the Pacific." His fame was great enough for him to be portrayed by the actor Jimmy Stewart in the movie Carbine Williams released in 1952.
Williams spent the remainder of his life alternating his time between his home in Godwin and an apartment he kept in Connecticut near the offices of the major arms manufacturers where he worked under contract as a consultant. He died of pneumonia in Dorothea Dix Hospital Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina on 8 January 1975. He is buried in the Old Bluff Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Godwin, Cumberland County, North Carolina.
