Navy Aviation Ensign Donald Edward Spofford was born in Pensacola, Florida on June 4, 1931, the son of William Preston Spofford (1895-1988) and Annie Belle McMillan (1896-1960). His father was born in Providence, RI and came to Pensacola in 1949. In his career as a naval architect he had built over 230 ships. He enlisted in the Army on August 10, 1914, and was sent into Mexico prior to his discharge on December 6, 1915. He then enlisted in the Navy in September 1917 during WWI serving as a 1st Class aboard the USS Vulcan till May 26, 1917. He would finish the war as a LTjg aboard a ship. He was placed in inactive service on September 26, 1919. During WWII, he would service as an Army colonel. Following the war he took a position as a manager of a shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware where he would eventually retire. He would remain in Swarthmore for about a year before returning to Pensacola. However, retirement bored him, so he went to work for the Civil Service at NAS as an industrial engineer. After his wife Annie died in 1960, he married her sister Mattie Mae McMillan, a school teacher, in 1962.
His son Donald would graduate from Swarthmore High School in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 1949. He then enrolled at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, graduating in 1953. There, he met a fellow student Miss Anna Marie Sperry (1933-1999) whom he married in June 1953 after graduation. Having commanded Duke University's Naval ROTC cadets, he reported to his hometown to enter the US Navy's flight program at NAS as an ensign.
At 0540 hours on Wednesday, September 9, 1953, Donald (22) was a passenger in an automobile driven by Ensign George A. Crepeau (23) and heading for Whiting Field in Milton. Other passengers were Ensign Robert A. Coleman (22) and Ensign Lowell E. Scheuer (22). They were traveling at 55-mph heading east on Brent Lane and approaching the railroad tracks. In those days there was no "overpass" across the tracks. Whether he was trying to cross the tracks ahead of the train or perhaps never saw it will never be known. The engineer had sounded his train whistle before entering the intersection and was part way across when he saw the car begin to slide towards the train. Crepeau slammed into the first coach behind the locomotive and the impact knocked the automobile 112 feet through the air with the car's engine landing 60 feet away.
Scheuer was killed instantly whereas Donald, Coleman, and Crepeau were rushed to the US Naval Hospital at NAS. Donald would pass away from his injuries at 0810 with Coleman following him in death ten minutes later. Crepeau would survive. Donald was buried in St. John's Cemetery on September 11 where he was joined later by his parents and brother. His wife Anne Marie would remarry in March 1956 to Richard Inman Rule (1924-1984), a former WWII pilot with the US Army Air Corps. He would retire as a Lt. Colonel of the US Air Force. Both are buried in Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.
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