The Southworth card is one of the greatest father/son sports cards ever produced ...
William Brooks Southworth (June 20, 1917 — February 15, 1945), known also as Billy Southworth Jr., was an American professional baseball player (1936–1940) who became a decorated bomber pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Rising to the rank of Major, Southworth was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal after completing 25 bombing missions in the European Theater of Operations in 1942 and 1943. He lost his life at age 27 while leading flight training for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, when his aircraft crashed into Flushing Bay, off the Borough of Queens in New York City, in early 1945. He was the first U.S. professional baseball player to enlist in the armed forces prior to World War II, almost a year before the Bombing of Pearl Harbor.
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