Ships
- USS Claxton (DD-571) Captain, 20 November 1944 – 21 September 1945
Maxim William Firth was born in Bennington, Vermont, on 22 June 1908. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1931 and spent his career as a line officer in surface ships. He was promoted to lieutenant on 8 September 1938, to temporary lieutenant commander on 15 June 1942, and to temporary commander on 1 November 1942. He retired in 1960 as a captain.
Early in the Second World War he commanded ships in the Atlantic. He took the patrol gunboat Spry (PG-64) on 2 May 1942, while still a lieutenant. He then commanded the destroyer escort Flaherty (DE-135) from 26 June 1943, the day that ship was commissioned, until 16 October 1943. Before he reached the western Pacific he also commanded Escort Division 37.
On 20 November 1944 Commander Firth became captain of the Fletcher-class destroyer Claxton (DD-571). The ship already had a hard combat record with Destroyer Squadron 23. Under Herald Franklin Stout and William Van Hamilton she had fought through the Solomons campaign with the squadron known as the Little Beavers, service later recognized with a Presidential Unit Citation. Firth had her for the last ten months of the war.
His sternest test came off Okinawa. From 28 May to 1 July 1945, eighteen days of them on a radar picket station, Claxton worked under the steady threat of Japanese air attack and under alerts that seldom eased. Firth held the crew at a high level of fighting efficiency. In that period the destroyer destroyed five enemy aircraft and came through with no casualties and no damage. He received the Silver Star for that duty.
A Bronze Star Medal with Combat V covered the wider Okinawa campaign. From 16 May through 12 August 1945 he commanded Claxton during the capture and defense of Okinawa and the islands nearby, in waters where suicide aircraft were a constant danger. On 6 June the ship's guns broke up an attack by twelve kamikaze planes. Claxton left Okinawa on 10 September 1945 for the voyage home. Firth's command ended on 21 September 1945, when Albert P. Stello relieved him. The destroyer reached Washington the next month for the formal presentation of the squadron citation earned in the Solomons.
After the war he served in the Navy Department, as executive officer of the cruiser Toledo, and on the staff of the commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Germany. He later commanded the amphibious command ship Estes and finished afloat and ashore duty as commanding officer of the administrative command at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
In 1961 he moved to San Rafael, California, and studied for teaching credentials at San Francisco State, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Portland, and Dominican College. He taught chemistry at San Rafael Military Academy from 1961 to 1968, and chemistry and physics at the Katherine Branson School from 1970 to 1972. Fishing, refinishing furniture, cooking, and gardening occupied his spare hours. He died on 3 September 2002, at the age of 94, survived by his wife of eighteen years, Junetta Younglove-Firth.