Background
William Purtell was born in a tenement neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut. He was the son of Thomas Michael and Nora Mary (née O"Connor) Purtell, who were tobacco workers.
politician United States senator
William Purtell was born in a tenement neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut. He was the son of Thomas Michael and Nora Mary (née O"Connor) Purtell, who were tobacco workers.
He first attended the Boston Latin School and subsequently Harvard and Boston University Law School before entering the Marine Corps Reserve from the Massachusetts Naval Militia on March 29, 1917.
Worton also served as interim Los Angeles Police Department police chief from June 1949 to 1950. He saw combat service in France, particularly the Battle of Belleau Wood where he was seriously wounded. After the War, Worton remained in the Marine Corps, spending twelve years on Marine assignments in China in the 1920s and 1930s, including two years as an undercover Intelligence officer, conducting the first American espionage operations against Japan using agents recruited on the Chinese mainland.
In 1935, having already served in China for ten years as a Marine officer, Worton was assigned to the Far East Section of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Given a "cover story" as "a disgruntled officer leaving the Corps to establish a business in the International Settlement in Shanghai", he returned to China once again, and began to recruit agents who agreed to travel to Japan to secretly collect information for the United States Navy. Working with closely with Chiang Kai-shek"s secret police chief, Dai Li, Worton performed his assignment ably until he returned to Washington in June 1936.
As a Brigadier General, Worton served with the III Amphibious Corps (IIIAC) during the Battle of Okinawa, being elevated to chief of staff of IIIAC on June 30, 1945. IIIAC was tasked with assaulting the Tokyo Plain during Operation Downfall, the planned Invasion of Japan.
When the war ended after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, IIIAC subsequently was tasked as part of the American forces designated to occupy northern China to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces in the region.
As part of that mission, Worton was with an advance party to Shanghai, China. In northern China, IIIAC battled with Chinese puppet troops aligned with Japan (many of whom later switched allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek) and with Communist guerrillas and regulars. Worton was appointed the 42nd chief of the L.A.P.D. on June 30, 1949 by Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron after the resignation of Chief Clemence B. Horrall in the wake of the Brenda Allen scandal.
Horrall"s assistant chief, Joe Reed, also eventually resigned after Worton took office, as he too was ensnared by the police corruption scandal.
Worton was tasked by Mayor Bowron with the job of cleaning up the department. A little more than a year later, Worton resigned on August 9, 1950 and was replaced by his chief of Internal Affairs, William H. Parker, whom he had groomed for the office.
During his campaign against Benton, Purtell supported General Eisenhower"s campaign platform on "Communism, corruption, and of Korea." Benton accused Purtell of being so conservative that he "makes Bob Taft look like a left-wing New Dealer." He eventually defeated Benton by a margin of 88,788 votes, receiving 52% of the vote.
A member of the Republican Party, he represented Connecticut in the United States Senate in 1952 and from 1953 to 1959.