Stormy Weather

Written by: Kelly Durham

When we think about airplane pilots and stormy weather, we often picture disaster in the skies.  James Crisp Akers Salter suffered the effects of stormy weather on terra firma.

Jimmy Salter came to Clemson from Atlanta, Georgia and majored in civil engineering.  As an upper classman, he was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and he also completed ROTC training held at Clemson in the summer of 1941.  That training led to his commissioning as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in the spring of 1942.

Salter applied for service in the Army Air Force and was accepted into flight training.  After earning his pilot’s wings and qualifying to command the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, Salter joined the 499^th Bombardment Squadron , the “Bats Outta Hell,” which had been formed in Columbia.  Originally designated for the European Theater, the 499^th was diverted to Australia after the successful use of medium bombers in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.  In early June 1943, the 499^th reached its combat station near Port Moresby, New Guinea.  Over the next two years, Salter flew fifty-seven combat missions, mostly bombing and strafing of Japanese installations on New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.

     A 499th Bombardment Squadron B-25 with              distinctive “Bat Outta Hell” nose art.

The 499^th flew missions against the Japanese Navy base at Rabaul earning a Distinguished Unit Citation.  The squadron earned a second such citation for its attacks on the Admiralty Islands.  In July 1944, the squadron moved to a new base on Biak Island in the Dutch East Indies from which it supported General MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Campaign.  In November, Salter and the 499^th moved once again, this time to a base in the Philippines from which it could support Allied operations throughout that island chain and launch attacks as far north as Formosa.

After earning an Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters and three campaign stars, flight leader Salter was finally sent back to the United States in the summer of 1945.  The Japanese had been beaten back to their home islands, but the Army was still training bomber pilots and crews for the anticipated invasion of Japan planned to begin that November.  Salter was assigned to Williams Army Airfield, about thirty miles south of Phoenix, Arizona, a key training base for multi-engine pilots.

On August 2, Captain Salter was killed when the car in which he was a passenger struck a tree which had been uprooted and flung into the road by a tornado.  He was survived by his mother, grandmother, three uncles, and an aunt.

For more information about James Crisp Akers Salter see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/james-crisp-akers-salter/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

A Fitting Day to Die 

Written by: Kelly Durham

The 1918 edition of Taps, the Clemson College annual, included a dedication “To those of our class-mates who have departed their college halls in order to prepare themselves for service in the Army of Democracy.”  James Edward Vernon was one of the men to whom the dedication was addressed.

Vernon, from Spartanburg, was a civil engineering major who found time to participate in many of the activities available on the small, rural campus.  He was a member of his class’s dancing clubs, serving as vice president as a senior.  As assistant athletics editor of Taps, he helped guide coverage of Clemson’s early intercollegiate sports teams.  He was a member of the Hobo Club, the Thalian Society, and the Spartanburg County Club, which he served as president during his senior year.  Vernon’s classmates described him as “Being endowed with a good intellect, a remarkable amount of common sense, and a determination that never knows defeat.”

Vernon was awarded his degree with the Class of 1918 despite having already left campus to join in the Great War in France.  Over there, Vernon became one of America’s early military aviators reaching the rank of first lieutenant in the Army’s Air Service.

Following the war, Vernon returned to Spartanburg and joined Harwood Beebe, a newly established engineering firm.  When America entered the Second World War, Vernon set aside his career and once again answered the call to duty, this time as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve.  Rather than assigning him to sea duty, the Navy utilized Vernon’s engineering expertise and his personal experience as an aviator.

Naval Air Station Olathe in the 1940s

With the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy suddenly had urgent need for new training facilities.  Thousands of carrier-borne pilots would eventually be needed to drive the Japanese back across the Pacific to their home islands.  Vernon was dispatched to the new Naval Air Station at Olathe, Kansas.  While it was a long way from the ocean, Olathe was still described by one of its pilot trainees as a sea—of mud.  Vernon and his colleagues set about turning the prairie land into a modern, working airfield with all of the operations, maintenance, and training facilities required to support it.

On July 4, 1944, Vernon “died suddenly at his post,” according to a newspaper report.  It seemed a fitting date for the passing of this patriotic veteran of two World Wars.  At age fifty, Vernon is the oldest Clemson alumnus to die while on active duty during World War II.  He was survived by two daughters and a son, then a Navy aviation cadet in Pensacola, Florida.

For more information on Lieutenant James Edward Vernon see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/james-edward-vernon/

For additional information on Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Arts and Science

Written by: Kelly Durham

Joseph L. Ruzicka, Jr. of North Augusta was a man of both arts and sciences.  A chemistry major in the Class of 1967, Ruzicka participated in Clemson’s Honors Program, maintaining a high grade point average throughout his academic career.  He was a four-year participant in Air Force ROTC and was selected for membership in Arnold Air Society.  He was  also a member of the Aero Club, serving as the organization’s secretary.   During his junior and senior years, Ruzicka served as vice president of Phi Eta Sigma, the national academic honor society.  He was a member of the Canterbury Club, the campus organization for Episcopal students, and served as president of the Jaberwocky Coffee House.

Ruzicka was also a member of Tiger Band, which he served in a variety of roles including assistant librarian, supply officer, and band master.  He also played in the Concert Band and served as the music chairman for Tigerama.  Friends remembered his “boundless energy and enthusiasm” and his striving for excellence in everything he attempted.

Ruzicka was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama in 1967.  Next, he attended Aerospace Munitions Officers School at Lowry Air Force Base near Denver.  In April 1970, Ruzicka reported to Mather Air Force Base in California to train as a navigator and bombardier.  While there, he met Calista Muck and they were married in March 1971.  In February 1972, during a subsequent  assignment at the Strategic Air Command’s Beale Air Force Base in California, the Ruzickas welcomed a daughter, Jennifer.  In June, Ruzicka, now assigned to the 744^th Bomb Squadron, was ordered to Guam and then to Thailand the following month.

The 744^th was flying Arc Light missions in support of American combat operations in Vietnam.  These missions, flown by B-52D bombers, were mounted in three-aircraft formations known as “cells.”  Flying in the stratosphere, the big bombers were too high to be heard or seen from the ground.  Their targets included enemy bases and supply routes as well as troop concentrations behind the lines.

On July 30, 1972, Captain Ruzicka was assigned as the navigator on an Arc Light mission originating from U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Base in Thailand.

The three-plane cell, designated “Snow,” was scheduled for take-off at 1857 hours, but Ruzicka’s aircraft, Snow 3, reported a hydraulics problem that required maintenance attention.  As a result, the cell’s departure was delayed until 1905.  The subsequent climb to 35,000 feet was without incident.  Instrument flight conditions existed in cirrus clouds with an increasing number of thunderstorms in the vicinity.  At one point, the cell, with Snow 3 flying eight miles behind the lead aircraft, turned to avoid thunderstorms.  Moderate turbulence, moderate icing, and heavy St. Elmo’s fire were experienced by the cell.  St. Elmo’s fire is a weather phenomenon in which a luminous discharge is created by a ship or aircraft during a storm.  The discharge itself is not considered dangerous, but it indicates the presence of potentially deadly thunderstorms containing heavy precipitation, damaging hail, and violent updrafts and downdrafts.

At 2025, Snow 1 directed an increase in true airspeed to 470 knots.  Three minutes later, Snow 3 transmitted, “Three’s in a dive, bail out, bail out, bail out!”  Of the six crewmembers on board, only the gunner was able to cleanly exit the aircraft.  He reported that “G” forces and the nose down attitude of the aircraft made it difficult to escape.  The bomber crashed into the ground and exploded.  A search and rescue mission arrived on the scene about two hours later.  The gunner was picked up at 2325.  The bodies of the remaining crew member were recovered the following morning.

Captain Ruzicka was survived by his wife and their five-month-old daughter, his mother, sister, and grandmother.  A memorial service was held at Beale Air Force Base.  Captain Ruzicka’s decorations include the Air Force Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Vietnam Service Medal.  He is buried in the Mount Vernon Cemetery, Fair Oaks, California.

For more information on Joseph L. Ruzicka, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/joseph-l-ruzicka-jr/

For additional information on Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Flight from Iwo Jima

Written by: Kelly Durham

46th Fighter Squadron P-51s with Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi in the background

The idea was to capture Iwo Jima, one of the Pacific’s Volcano Islands, in order to prevent the Japanese from continuing to use the island’s airfields.  Iwo Jima, about seven hundred sixty miles south-southeast of Tokyo, was home to Japanese fighter aircraft that were attacking American B-29 strategic bombers as they flew missions to bomb Japanese cities from recently captured bases in the Marianna Islands.  After a bloody campaign in which American casualties were higher than the enemy’s, Iwo Jima finally fell to US Marines in late March 1945.  Even before the battle was won, American Army Air Force units began to operate from airfields newly-wrested from Japanese control.  The 46^th Fighter Squadron was one of these units.  At the controls of one of the 46^th’s P-51 Mustang fighters was Second Lieutenant Henry Randolph Peebles, Clemson College Class of 1945.

Peebles was born in North Carolina, but his family moved to Clemson and in 1941, he enrolled in his hometown college as a freshman.  A mechanical engineering major, Peebles quit school in 1942.  He traveled to Miami Beach and enlisted on February 28, volunteering for the Army Air Force.  Selected for flight training, Peebles was designated a fighter pilot, earning his wings and being assigned to the 46^th Fighter Squadron.  The 46^th was one of the Army Air Force units surprised by the Japanese attack on Hawaii in December 1941.  It was largely destroyed by the strike on Hickam Field, but by the spring of 1945, the reconstituted squadron was on the offensive.  It had long since retired its P-39 and P-40 fighters in favor of the long-range P-38 Lightning and the Mustang.  Flying these aircraft, the squadron flew long missions over the empty Pacific escorting B-29 Superfortresses on their fire bombing missions against Japanese cities.

On May 10, 1945, rather than escort duty, Peebles was assigned to fly an offensive strafing and dive bombing mission against Japanese facilities on Chichi Jima island, about one hundred fifty miles to the north.  At approximately 1000 hours, Peebles, flying in the fourth position of the formation, started his dive bomb run from 10,000 feet above Chichi Jima.  His airplane disappeared through an overcast.  After about five seconds, the next pilot in the formation, First Lieutenant George Dunstan, pushed his control stick forward and followed Peebles down.  Dunstan then saw a big explosion east of the target.  He could not discern whether the explosion was from a bomb or was Peebles’s P-51. There was no further contact with Lieutenant Peebles and despite a thorough search of the area, no trace of the aircraft or of Lieutenant Peebles was found.

Peebles was listed as missing in action.  He was awarded the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.  On May 11, 1946, he was declared dead.  He is memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii.

For more information on Henry Randolph Peebles see: https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/henry-randolph-peebles/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit: https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Photo: https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-51-mustang/p-51d-44-63955-tiny-gay-baba-of-the-46th-fs-21st-fg-iwo-jima-1945/

Whiskey Run

Written by: Kelly Durham

By mid-April 1945, the Eighth Air Force, America’s strategic bomber armada operating from English airfields, had run out of targets.  So effective, so devastating had been the bombing campaign against Axis targets, that American strategic air forces in Europe switched their mission to supporting Allied ground forces.  This change in tactics didn’t ground the big bombers, but it did ease the strain on its fliers as they, like so many others, waited for the inevitable German surrender.

Derrell Sevier Jones of Anderson graduated from Clemson in 1930.  A horticulture major, he was a member of the Thalian Club, one of the campus’s non-fraternal social organizations which met downtown in the Masonic Lodge.

As the war in Europe struggled toward its finish, Jones was serving as a master sergeant in the 367^th Bomb Squadron, the “Reich Wreckers,” based at Thurleigh Airfield in southeastern England.  Jones had been awarded the Air Medal, indicating that he had completed twenty-five combat missions over Europe.  On April 14, 1945, Jones departed Thurleigh on his final flight, one that was listed as a navigation training flight, but which in reality had a distinctly different purpose.

The flight, aboard a B-17G nicknamed Combined Operations, departed at 1500 hours into cloudy skies.  The pilot, First Lieutenant Robert Vieille, was briefed that lower clouds along his planned route would necessitate flying at an altitude of six thousand feet.  That route was to the northwest, across England, to the north of  Wales, over the Irish Sea, with the destination of Langford Lodge Airfield in Northern Ireland.  As this was a training rather than a combat mission, the aircraft’s aerial gunners would not be aboard.  Instead, the Saturday afternoon flight was accommodating several passengers bound for Northern Ireland and a weekend of rest and relaxation.  The passengers included the 367^th Squadron’s executive officer, its operations officer, a female American Red Cross officer on leave from France, and Derrell Jones.  The flight would have had one additional passenger, but squadron flight surgeon Dr. McClung was unable to attract Lieutenant Vieille’s attention despite chasing the B-17 down the runway in a jeep.  Missing the flight saved the doctor’s life.

A little more than halfway through its planned two-hour flight, Combined Operations was about four miles to the north of it briefed course.  Over the sea, that would not have been remarkable, except that the aircraft was droning along only three hundred fifty feet above sea level, not the six thousand foot altitude for which it had been cleared.  While heading northwest underneath the low clouds, the pilot suddenly saw land directly ahead.  He pulled the airplane up and attempted to turn to the left, but his actions were too late.  The big bomber skipped across the ground and slammed into a stone wall, exploding and bursting into flame.  The drift off its planned heading had put the aircraft on a collision course with the Chasms, the steep, rocky southwest coast of the Isle of Man.

The noise of the explosion alerted local residents who rushed to the site.  Intense flames prevented them from getting too close to the wreckage.  All eleven aboard were killed.

Investigators examine the crash site the following day.

The official “cover” for the flight was navigation practice. Why would an experienced pilot, copilot, and navigator be practicing navigation the day after completing a combat mission?  They weren’t.  The real purpose of that fatal flight had nothing to do with training and everything to do with preparing for the German surrender.  That the flight was a “whiskey run” was confirmed years later by surviving members of the aircrew who didn’t go on the trip as well as other officers from the squadron.  In anticipation of the end of the war—and the celebration that would accompany it—the officers of the squadron had chipped in to buy a planeload of Irish whiskey and bring it back to Thurleigh.  Among the ironies of the tragic mission is that Lieutenant Vieille was a non-drinker.

Squadron commander Major Earl Kesling wrote Vieille’s father that the crash “was by far the most heartfelt accident this group ever had,” that despite the combat losses he had witnessed “never have I felt so badly about any misfortune… Army records,” Major Kesling continued, “don’t tell the whole story.”  The whole story didn’t emerge until Lieutenant Vielle’s niece and her husband began to piece the story together by reviewing those “Army records” and interviewing surviving members of the squadron.

Whether Master Sergeant Jones was in on the “whiskey run” or simply an unlucky passenger is unknown.  He is buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England.

For more information about Master Sergeant Derrell Sevier Jones see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/derrell-sevier-jones/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Superfortress Pilot  

Written by: Kelly Durham

It was described as a technological marvel, a quantum leap forward in aviation science and engineering. The B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber demonstrated the ingenuity and capability of American science and engineering under the grave pressures of a world at war.  Even before the war began, the Army Air Corps realized that the B-17 Flying Fortress would not be adequate for the vast distances encompassed by the Pacific theater.  To fulfill anticipated mission requirements, the Air Corps required a new, very heavy bomber that could carry greater bomb loads longer distances at higher altitudes and at greater speeds.  Boeing Aircraft’s answer was the B-29, at $3 billion the most expensive weapons system ever developed, surpassing even the Manhattan Project with which it would be inevitably linked.  One of the pilots training to fly this modern marvel was Vallentin Tulla, Clemson College Class of 1943.

Vallentin Tulla, left, and Jesus Bardia were both members of the Class of 1943, both from Puerto Rico, both Army Air Force pilots, and are both listed on the Scroll of Honor.

In an era in which more than eighty percent of Clemson’s upper classmen were from South Carolina, Tulla was a rarity.  He wasn’t a Palmetto State native, nor was he from the continental United States.  Tulla was from Santurce, Puerto Rico, one of five upper classmen from the island attending Clemson in 1942.  Tulla was a civil engineering major and a member of the Newman Club, the Catholic students’ organization.  Tulla left Clemson at the end of his junior year in the spring of 1942.  He volunteered for the Army Air Force, perhaps eager to put his engineering skills to use.

Tulla advanced through the phases of flight training and qualified as pilot on the B-17, the Army Air Force’s workhorse heavy bomber.  He was assigned to the 501^st Bomb Group, activated June 1, 1944 at Dalhart, Texas.  The 501^st would transition to the new, state-of-the-art B-29 Superfortress.  In August, the Group moved to Harvard Army Airfield in Nebraska.  In November, air crews were formed for the transition training to begin.  Long distance flights were part of the training regimen as the B-29s would undertake long-range missions from Pacific Islands like Tinian to attack Japan’s home islands some fifteen hundred miles distant.

On March 12, 1945, Tulla was the pilot for a navigational training flight that departed Harvard at 1025 Central War Time.  The aircraft carried a full crew and was scheduled to remain airborne for fourteen hours, simulating the length of a round trip mission.

The urgency of the war and the need to field a bomber that could reach Japan fromthe greatest possible distance rushed the development of the B-29.  Its advanced design and challenging specifications inevitably resulted in setbacks.  The second prototype of the big bomber had experienced an engine fire on its very first flight on December 30, 1942.  Less than two months later, the prototype was back in the skies, having lifted off from Seattle’s Boeing Field with chief test pilot Eddie Anderson at the controls.  Once again, an engine caught fire, but this time the results were fatal.  All eleven aboard the aircraft were killed, along with twenty workers and a fireman when the plane crashed into a Seattle meat-packing plant.

Despite its sleek appearance and modern design, the B-29 continued to experience engine problems.  Engineering changes were being designed so rapidly that aircraft came off of the production lines and were immediately flown to modification centers for continued adjustments.  The most common problem with the advanced aircraft continued to be catastrophic engine failure.

Tulla with his wife, the former Betty Goodman of Clemson.

Ten hours into the flight, Second Lieutenant Tulla radioed the control tower at Alexandria, Louisiana stating that he was coming in for an emergency landing due to engine trouble.  The tower granted an emergency clearance, but according to the subsequent accident report, an engine backfire sucked fire into the aircraft’s induction system.  The aircraft veered to the left of the runway and dropped steeply, resulting in a cartwheeling crash, explosion, and fire.  All ten aboard the aircraft were killed.

Vallentin Tulla was survived by his wife, the former Betty Goodman of Clemson, his parents, two brothers and four sisters.  His sister, Haydee Tulla, then a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, attended her brother’s burial service at Clemson’s Old Stone Church Cemetery.  After the war, Tulla’s remains were returned to Puerto Rico and buried at the Puerto Rico Memorial in Carolina.

For additional information on Vallentin Tulla see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/valentin-tulla/

For more information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Cassino

The slaughter got so bad that a German soldier carrying a white flag carefully picked his way down the slope among the snow sprinkled rocks.  Surrender wasn’t his intent.  It was to propose a temporary truce to allow both sides to collect their dead from the bloody battlefield just north of Monte Cassino.

By that Valentine’s Day in 1944, the Allies had been struggling for weeks to break through the Gustav Line, the German defensive belt that stretched across the Italian peninsula from the Adriatic Sea in the east to the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west.  The Gustav Line blocked the Allied advance through the Liri River Valley toward Rome.  The key terrain anchoring the line in the west was fifteen hundred foot high Monte Cassino which dominated the entrance into the valley. 

Captain Robert Adams Guy, Clemson Class of 1939, was assigned to the 3^rd Chemical Battalion which was involved in the battle to capture this critical ground.  Bob Guy, from Chester, majored in textile chemistry.  He served as vice president of Phi Psi Honorary Textile Fraternity and as president of the Catawba County Club.

Following graduation, Guy joined CIBA, the chemical company, in New York.  He resigned from CIBA and joined the Army in November 1940.  With his academic training and work experience, Guy was assigned as a chemical warfare officer.  He was initially stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, then in April 1942 was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas.  Subsequent postings took him to North Africa, then Sicily, and finally to Italy, were he was assigned to A Company of the 3^rd Chemical Battalion.  Guy was assigned to the same battalion as his Clemson classmate and fellow chemical warfare officer Harry Raysor.

By mid-February 1944, Allied forces had suffered heavy casualties in repeated attempts to capture the dominant high ground around Monte Cassino.  American, British, French, Algerian, and New Zealand troops had all taken their turn on the front lines.  With varying degrees of success, each force had spent itself against the well-fortified and determined German defenders.

The 3^rd Chemical Battalion’s role was to provide indirect fire support to the infantry troops.  The battalion was equipped with 4.2 inch mortars for firing chemicals, smoke, and high explosive rounds in support of infantry operations.  While most of its rounds were high explosive munitions, the battalion also fired white phosphorous rounds which set fire to everything on which they landed—including bodies. 

On February 17, Bob Guy was killed in battle.  He was awarded the Purple Heart and the French Croix de Guerre.  Captain Guy was survived by his wife and daughter.   Following the war, his remains were returned to the United States and were buried in the family plot at Zion Presbyterian Cemetery near Lowrys.

For more information on Robert Adams Guy see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/robert-adams-guy/

For additional information on Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Birthday Flight

Written by: Kelly Durham

The mission was supposed to be a routine training flight.  That it fell on the pilot’s birthday was a mere coincidence.  It turned out to be anything but routine.

Donald Anthony Callia of Inman was an electrical engineering major and a member of the Class of 1960.  He was a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and Institute for Radio Engineers.

January of 1963 found Navy Lieutenant (JG) Callia at Oceana Naval Air Station at Virginia Beach, Virginia.  He was assigned to the 101^st Fighter Squadron, the Atlantic Fleet’s readiness squadron.  The 101^st trained air crews and aircraft maintainers on the F4 Phantom, the Navy’s versatile, new all-purpose fighter.

On January 16, 1963, Callia’s twenty-fifth birthday, he was assigned to an evening training mission, flying in an F4B fighter as the aerial observer.  As such, Callia’s duties would have been to operate and monitor the aircraft’s reconnaissance systems.   About ten miles off the coast of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Callia’s aircraft crashed into the sea.  Although the airplane’s wreckage was located, Callia’s body was not recovered.

Callia was survived by his wife, Marie, and his parents.  He is memorialized at Arlington National Cemetery.

For more information on Donald Anthony Callia see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/donald-anthony-callia/

For additional information on Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Blunting the Bulge

Written by: Kelly Durham

Charles Alex Brown of Starr spent two years on the Clemson campus.  An agriculture major, Brown arrived in 1938 as a member of the Class of 1942.  He was a member of the Animal Husbandry Club and was assigned to H Company, 2^nd Battalion, 2^nd Regiment of the Cadet Brigade.  Brown left Clemson after his sophomore year and took a job with C. M. Best Construction Company.  When he entered the Army in 1941, the service took note of his work experience and classified him as a construction foreman.  He was assigned to the 33^rd Engineer Battalion of the 7^th Armored Division.

The 7^th Armored Division was formed in March 1942 as America ramped up for the war it had been trying to avoid.  The division trained at Camp Coxcomb, California and arrived in England in June 1944.  The roles of combat engineers in an armored division were varied. The main task of Brown and his battalion would have been to facilitate the movement of their division.  This would have involved erecting tactical bridges, clearing enemy minefields, breaching trenches and other obstacles.  Engineers were also trained as infantrymen and tactical circumstances would often dictate that they fight alongside their frontline comrades.

The 7^th Armored spent little time in England.  On August 13 and 14, 1944, it landed on Omaha and Utah Beaches in France and was assigned to General George Patton’s Third Army.  The division participated in the offensive on Chartres which fell on August 18.  It crossed the Seine River on August 24, no doubt under the watchful eyes of Brown and his fellow engineers.  The division pushed on to liberate World War I battlegrounds Château-Thierry and then Verdun on August 31.  After a brief halt for maintenance, rest, and refueling, the division resumed the offensive on September 6.  It made several attempts to cross the Moselle River northwest of Metz, but the deep river valley was unsuitable for tanks.  By linking up with elements of the 5^th Infantry Division, the 7^th finally was able to cross the river on September 15.

On September 25, the division was transferred to General William Simpson’s Ninth Army as part of the ground support forces for the Airborne Market-Garden offensive into the Netherlands. The division marched north to protect the operation’s east flank from German counterattacks.

In early November, the division was moved into a rest area in order to receive and train replacements for the many men who had fallen in France and the Netherlands.  By the end of the month, the division had moved to positions straddling the Dutch-German

The December 22, 1944 situation map shows the 7th Armored Division’s success in blunting the German offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Library of Congress

border.  Part of the division was attached to the neighboring 84^th Infantry Division on what was thought to be a relatively quiet sector of the front.

When the Germans launched their surprise Ardennes offensive in mid-December, the 7^th Armored Division was transferred to General Courtney Hodges’ First Army and, along with the 106^th Infantry Division, ordered to hold St. Vith, Belgium, a critical road and rail center the Germans needed to capture in order to sustain their offensive.  The German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 1800 hours on December 17.  Over the course of a snowy, frigid week, the 7^th Armored absorbed much of the weight of the German offensive, blunting its progress, and wrecking its precarious timetable.  Sergeant Brown was killed near Neundorf during vicious winter combat on December 22.  The weakened division was forced to withdraw the following day. By Christmas Eve, the Germans had reached the limits of their supplies, spelling the end of their final offensive.

The 7th Armored Division would recapture St. Vith from the depleted Germans in January 1945.  Brown’s body was recovered and buried at Henri-Chapelle American Military Cemetery.

Charles Alex Brown was awarded the Purple Heart. He was survived by his wife, the former Nell Acker of Anderson, his parents, five sisters, and two brothers, one of whom was fighting in Patton’s Third Army and the other who was recovering from wounds in England.

For more information about Sergeant Charles Alex Brown see:                                                   

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/charles-alex-brown/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

To Them We Owe Everything

Written by: Kelly Durham

Ralph Buel Bradshaw came to Clemson in the late summer of 1938 from his hometown of Cartersville, Georgia. Like many of the other boys in the Class of 1942, Bradshaw was an agriculture major.  He remained at Clemson only for his freshman year and then returned to Cartersville and took a job processing dairy products.

In August 1941, Bradshaw left Cartersville with his friend Arthur Rhodes.  The two men enlisted in the Army, reporting first to Fort McPherson south of Atlanta and then being ordered to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri for basic training.  From Missouri the pair next headed to Las Vegas.  Rhodes would remain there, training to become a mess sergeant.  Bradshaw volunteered for the Army Air Forces and was posted as an air cadet to Gardner Field at Taft, California.  Bradshaw married Sara Frances Moss of Los Angeles on July 1, 1942.  He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on July 28, 1943.  He would subsequently train at Luke Field in Phoenix, Arizona and at Santa Clara, California before returning to Georgia and completing his Stateside training at Waycross.

In July 1944, Second Lieutenant Bradshaw was assigned to the 65^th Fighter Squadron which was part of the 12^th Air Force operating from airfields on Corsica, the large island west of Italy’s Tyrrhenian Sea coast.  Flying P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, the 65^th carried out a variety of missions including interdiction of railroads, communications targets, and motor convoys behind enemy lines. The P-47 was a rugged and versatile aircraft which was employed in both dive bombing and strafing missions. The squadron also supported the Allied invasion of Southern France in August 1944.

In September, the squadron relocated its base of operations to the Italian mainland, flying missions from Grosseto, about one hundred miles northwest of Rome.  In a letter home, Bradshaw recounted a mission on which his aircraft had malfunctioned.  From a high altitude, he glided to a forced landing in a forest and was able to rejoin his outfit later that same day.  Letters went in both directions, of course, and Bradshaw was anticipating the one from the States that would announce the arrival of the baby Sara was carrying.

Even though Rome had been liberated in June and the Allies were advancing on practically every front, German resistance in northern Italy remained determined.  The 65^th’s aircraft continued to attack enemy targets in an effort to disrupt resupply and reinforcements.

On November 22, Bradshaw was assigned to fly an eight-aircraft mission to attack railroad facilities in northern Italy’s Po River Valley.  At about 1300 hours, Bradshaw pushed the stick of his P-47 forward, launching the aircraft into a steep dive.  Second Lieutenant Sylvester Hendricks was flying as Bradshaw’s wingman.

As we peeled off into our dive-bombing run, I followed Lt. Bradshaw down and saw him make about a 45 degree dive.  He went very low and got a direct hit on the track.  I saw him pull out in a very shallow pull-out straight ahead.  As his bombs exploded, I saw parts fly off his airplane.  It looked like about four or five feet of his left wing blew off.  His aircraft did two sort of rolling tumbles to the right and started to burn badly before it hit the ground.  His aircraft hit the ground about one quarter of a mile past his bomb hit.  The ship did not explode but it was almost completely in flames.  I did not see the pilot get out and I believe it was impossible for him to do so.

Although Bradshaw was officially listed as Missing In Action, Hendricks’ judgment proved correct.  In a letter written three days after the crash, squadron commander Gilbert Wymond attempted to console Bradshaw’s father. “I know that Brad never even knew what happened as a concussion great enough to tear off a wing would positively knock the pilot out.”

Brad participated in thirty-eight missions and he inflicted heavy damage on the enemy. He was developing into a superb leader. I have seen many pilots come and go through the squadron, but none that I had more confidence in or showed more promise than Brad. … We know the anguish that is in your hearts and each and every one of us extend our deepest sympathy. Guys like Brad are saving our heritage for us; to them we owe everything.

Although “special efforts” had been made to inform Bradshaw of his daughter’s birth on November 7, a letter written by him to Sara on the night before his final mission advised that he had not yet heard the news he was so anxiously awaiting.

First Lieutenant Bradshaw was survived by his wife Sara and their fifteen-day-old daughter, Rita Sue.  He was also survived by his parents, a sister and brother.  Bradshaw was awarded the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.  His body was recovered and initially buried in a civilian cemetery in Villa Poma, Italy.  In 1949, Bradshaw’s remains were returned the United States and buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

For more information on Ralph Buel Bradshaw see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/ralph-buel-bradshaw/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

P-47 photo courtesy the Imperial War Museum, http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/21479.

Pandemic

Written by: Kelly Durham

COVID-19 is not the first pandemic to make an appearance on the Clemson campus.  Just over a hundred years ago, the Spanish Flu spread to the small college in the South Carolina Foothills with a far more deadly effect.

Robert Lee Atkinson of Chester was a member of the Clemson College Class of 1919.  As a cadet, he participated in the Columbian Literary Society, Clemson Agricultural Society, and the Agricultural Journal.  Atkinson had arrived on campus in 1916, while war was raging in faraway Europe.  With America’s declaration of war in April 1917, many Clemson cadets turned their attentions to participating in what would come to be known as the Great War.  In 1918, the autumn of his senior year, Atkinson volunteered for the new Student Army Training Corps, a War Department program created to encourage young men to pursue a college education while simultaneously training for military service.

Clemson was one of the many land grant colleges to participate in the Student Army Training Corps which brought young men to campus who were not necessarily Clemson students.  Regardless of whether the participants were Clemson cadets or came from other backgrounds, all SATC participants were enlisted as Army privates.

The SATC offered two sections.  The A, or Collegiate section, was an accelerated officer preparation program which trained and commissioned candidates over a three-month period.  The B, or Vocational section, focused on training mechanics, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, radio operators, topographical draftsmen, and other critical skills needed in the support troops.

Just as the Great War hastened the establishment of the SATC, it also facilitated the spread of the Spanish Flu.  Merchant mariners, soldiers, and support personnel sailing back and forth to Europe, helped the disease proliferate.  Eventually, it would infect 500 million people, a third of the world’s population at the time.  In 1918, it reached Clemson.

Young men living in the close confines of barracks life precipitated the spread of the influenza.  School officials considered closing the college, but feared that sending the boys home to all parts of the state would simply extend the reach of the disease.  Instead, they responded by turning Barracks One into a sick ward and isolating the most serious cases in the Main Building’s college chapel and the upper floors of the Textiles Building.

Atkinson was one of the boys among the severely afflicted.  After several days, his influenza developed into pneumonia and his mother was called to his bedside.  According to the full-page eulogy in the 1919 edition of Taps, Atkinson fought a brave fight for more than a week, facing “Death with a smile always on his face.”  He passed away on Sunday, October 20, 1918.  The war ended the following month with the November 11 Armistice and the SATC was disbanded before the end of the year.

Atkinson was buried in the Armenia United Methodist Church Cemetery in Chester.

For more information about Robert Lee Atkinson see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/robert-lee-atkinson/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Squadron Commander

Written by: Kelly Durham

It was the largest airborne operation of World War II, in fact the largest in history.  Operation Market-Garden’s objective was to drop American, British, and Polish paratroopers into Holland to seize key bridges leading up to the Rhine River bridge in the Dutch city of Arnhem.  Ground forces under the command of Field Marshall Montgomery were to cross the bridges and drive into Germany.  It was September 1944 and Major Henry Kent Segars, accustomed to autumn action, was a squadron commander helping resupply the paratroopers until ground forces could link up with them.

Segars, a member of Clemson’s Class of 1937 from Hartsville, played many fall football games for head coach Jess Neely’s Tiger teams. His senior season, the Tigers recorded five wins and five losses, including a 19-0 Big Thursday win over South Carolina.  Segars, playing at 180 pounds, was a lineman nicknamed “Sac.”  Segars also ran track for the Tigers and was a member of the Block C Club.  An animal husbandry major, Segars served as the commander of Company B, 1^st Battalion, 1^st Regiment in the Clemson ROTC Brigade.

Segars entered the Army as a second lieutenant at Fort Benning, Georgia but transferred into the Army Air Force.  He earned his pilot’s wings at Kelly Field, near San Antonio, Texas in 1942.  He was assigned to the 330^th Bomb Squadron of the 93^rd Bomb Group.

The 330^th flew antisubmarine patrols above the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea until its deployment to the European Theater of Operations in late 1942.  It was one of the initial heavy bomber squadrons assigned to the Eighth Air Force and began flying missions that autumn.  In support of the Allies’ November invasion of North Africa, the squadron was transferred to IX Bomber Command and operated from airfields in Libya and Tunisia, attacking enemy targets in Italy and the southern Balkans.  It also flew tactical missions against Afrika Korps defensive positions in support of the British Eighth Army’s 1943 offensive.  The squadron then returned to England and resumed flying strategic bombardment missions over occupied Europe and Germany.

By September 1944, Segars had advanced to the rank of major and was the commander of the 330^th.   Operation Market-Garden kicked off on September 17, but the operation was so massive that there was not sufficient airlift available to carry all of the airborne units to their drop zones in one day.  On September 18, the airdrops resumed, and not just the dropping of paratroopers, but aerial resupply to airborne units dropped into action the previous day.  The 330^th, normally accustomed to dropping high explosive and incendiary bombs on its targets, was now pressed into service to deliver ammunition, rations, and other supplies to the lightly equipped paratroopers of the 101^st Airborne Division already engaged in difficult fighting in the vicinity of Eindhoven.

Fog over east England delayed the September 18 resupply mission for several hours.  Two hundred forty-eight B-24s, including aircraft from the 330^th, finally launched to deliver supplies to the Allied paratroopers.  Major Segars, as squadron commander, flew from the copilot’s seat of a B-24J nicknamed Sweet Chariot, piloted by Captain John Geer.  Segars’s job was to lead the squadron’s mission while Geer flew the airplane.  By this point in the war, the German Luftwaffe had largely been suppressed and enemy fighters were not much in evidence over Holland.  But alert German ground forces were battling fiercely and anti-aircraft fire was intense.  The bombers approached their resupply drop zones flying low and slow, making them easier targets for enemy gunners.  Seven B-24s were shot down and six more damaged beyond repair.  One hundred fifty-four out of 248 B-24s sustained damage.

Sweet Chariot was hit by enemy ground fire and set ablaze.  It was able to clear the Dutch coast, but went down in the North Sea.  Eight crew members were declared missing in action, including Segars.  Three others were rescued.

Segars, who had been overseas for nineteen months, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Purple Heart.  He was survived by his parents and brother.

For more information about Henry Kent Segars see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/henry-kent-segars/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

The photograph of Sweet Chariot above is courtesy of the Imperial War Museum,  https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205360859

The Global War on Terror

Written by: Kelly Durham

Most current Clemson students hadn’t been born, but those of a certain age will never forget September 11, 2001.  It was one of those days, like December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963, that marked a generation and changed the way we look at our world.  As the twentieth anniversary of that horrible day approaches, it is fitting that we remember Daniel Gardner McCollum, the first Clemson alumnus to fall in the Global War on Terror.

McCollum came to Clemson from Irmo and majored in mechanical engineering.  He joined the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Course in 1993 while he was still a student.  According to friends, Dan McCollum dreamed from an early age of learning to fly.  While at Clemson, he joined the Dixie Skydivers and could frequently be found at Oconee County Airport which sits on a plateau across the Seneca River from campus.  Acquaintances, from friends to professors, described him as a nice guy, someone who was easy to get along with.  Following his 1996 graduation and commissioning as a Marine Corps Second Lieutenant, McCollum attended flight school.

By the summer of 2001, Captain McCollum was assigned to Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352 based at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California.  Following the September 11 attacks, McCollum’s squadron was deployed in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the United States’ official name for the War on Terror.  ENDURING FREEDOM included airstrikes targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

On January 9, 2002, Captain McCollum was copiloting a resupply flight originating in Jacobabad a small city just above sea level some three hundred miles north of Karachi, Pakistan.  The flight was bound for Shamsi Airfield, a desert runway not quite two hundred miles to the east.  Stretching between Jacobabad and Shamsi was a mountain range rising up more than four thousand feet.  To add to the challenge of this winter night’s flight, Shamsi airfield sits in a barren desert, nestled between two rocky ridges.

As McCollum’s KC-130R aerial refueling tanker approached Shamsi from the west, its crew requested clearance to land on a runway normally used for departing flights.  Air traffic control denied the request in order to reduce aircraft noise over the nearby town.  McCollum’s aircraft had to circle to reposition itself for an approach to the inbound runway.  It was now dark on a no moon night.  The airfield was not equipped with radar or navigational aids and only expeditionary lights were in place to illuminate the runway.

Compounding the relatively primitive facilities at this airfield, just over a hundred miles south of the Afghan border, was the absence of any night vision equipment onboard the airplane.  None of the Marine Corps KC-130s in the theater was equipped with night vision capabilities, flight planning software, or global positioning systems.  As the flight crew attempted to line up their aircraft for its approach, they were flying in combat conditions utilizing their onboard flight instruments.

Due to the airfield’s precarious position between the two ridges, aircraft on approach to Shamsi must maintain an altitude of seven thousand feet for maneuvering and five thousand, six hundred feet from which to commence final landing approach.  Witnesses said McCollum’s plane circled twice in attempting to land.  The aircraft then crashed into the side of a ridge and exploded. McCollum and the six other members of the tanker’s crew were killed in the crash.

Post-crash investigations revealed that the KC-130 hit the ridge at three thousand, eight hundred feet, well below the minimum safe altitude.  Investigators opined that just two hundred more feet of altitude would have enabled the plane to clear the mountain and continue its approach. In response to the tragedy, the Marines began retrofitting KC-130s with night vision landing equipment.

The reputations of the crew members, “all seven of them,” said squadron commander Lieutenant Colonel Carl Parker, “were stellar.” “All of our service members have made great sacrifices to take the fight to the enemy a long way from America’s shores.”  Parker’s comments are a reminder that the freedoms and security we take for granted are purchased only by sacrifice, not just by service members, but by their families.

McCollum’s wife, Clemson alumna Jennifer Harkey McCollum, was then six months pregnant.  Their son, Daniel Gardner McCollum, Jr. was born in the summer of 2002.

McCollum’s remains were interred at Arlington National Cemetery along with those of his crewmates.  There is also a memorial marker to him at Bush River Memorial Gardens in Columbia.

For additional information about Daniel Gardner McCollum see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/daniel-gardner-dan-mccollum/

For more information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Recapturing Guam

Written by: Kelly Durham

Perhaps James Tinsley Whitney knew about Guam from his classes at Union High School.  Maybe he had read about the island’s seaplane base serving the famous clippers of Pan-American World Airways. Even if he had, it is unlikely that Whitney would have linked his future to that far away island in the western Pacific.

Whitney, a member of Clemson’s Class of 1939, was an industrial education major from Union.  He played football as a freshman and was a member of the Block C Club.  He served on the YMCA Council, was an officer in the Union-Clemson Club, and marched with the Sophomore, Junior and Senior Platoons as one of the best-drilled cadets in his class.

Following graduation, Whitney took a job as the shop instructor at Walterboro High School, where he soon noticed the school’s music teacher, Dorothy Mae Graham.  Whitney, who had completed ROTC training at Clemson, entered the Army on March 5, 1942.  In June, he and Dorothy were married.

Lieutenant Whitney was assigned to the 307^th Infantry Regiment of the 77^th Infantry Division.  The division trained in the States for nearly two years before shipping out for Hawaii in February 1944.  In Hawaii, the division trained for amphibious operations and jungle warfare until early July when it departed for Guam.

Guam, the largest of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, had been a territory of the United States since its brief war with Spain in 1898.  The Navy exercised administrative control over the island, which included a refueling station for merchant and warships traveling to and from the Philippines, a Navy yard, and a Marine Corps barracks.  In addition, a trans-Pacific cable communications station was established on Guam along with Pan-American’s seaplane facility.  On December 10, 1941, following the daring attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces stormed ashore and captured Guam, making it part of Japan’s Pacific defense perimeter.  Now, the United States intended to take it back.

American military leaders recognized the value of Guam, as well as nearby Tinian and Saipan, as a location for airbases from which the Army Air Force’s new B-29 Superfortress bomber could fly missions against the Japanese home islands.  The invasion of Guam and its recapture would allow devastating air raids to be conducted against Japan’s major war industries and cities.

The 77^th Infantry Division assaulted Guam on July 21.  Landing craft carried the soldiers only as far as the reef. From there, the troops had to wade ashore through the surf.  Despite this soggy beginning, Whitney’s division secured the beachhead and on July 28^th linked up with the 3^rd Marine Division.  By July 30, the Japanese airfield at Orote and the harbor at Apra had been captured.

On August 3, while battling Japanese defenders at Mount Barrigada, Whitney was killed in action.  He was awarded the Bronze Star for gallantry and the Purple Heart.  In January 1945, the airfields that Whitney had helped capture were expanded to accommodate B-29s and their strategic bombing campaign against Japan.

First Lieutenant James Tinsley Whitney was survived by his wife then serving as executive secretary of the Colleton chapter of the American Red Cross, his parents, a brother serving in the Merchant Marine, and a sister.  Whitney is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.

For more information about First Lieutenant James Tinsley Whitney see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/james-tinsley-whitney/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

First to Fall

Written by: Kelly Durhan

Dibble Manly Rickenbaker of Summerton followed his older brother to Clemson in the fall of 1940.  Tourie was a year ahead of the younger Rickenbaker and would graduate in 1943. Dibble would major in agriculture but would remain at Clemson for only his freshman year. By 1943, Sergeant Dibble Rickenbaker was all the way on the other side of the United States, training at Lemoore Army Airfield in California.

World War II was the first conflict in which control of the air determined ultimate victory.  As such, the United States military committed unprecedented resources to the training of pilots, navigators, bombardiers, aerial gunners, and other airmen.  Army and Navy airfields sprang up all over the country, especially in areas with good year-round flying weather.  Lemoore, about eighty miles north-northwest of Bakersfield, was home to an Army Air Forces grass field used for phase two of the Army’s flight training program.

Army aviation training was divided into phases.  Primary training taught aviation cadets the fundamentals of flight with flying time in simple, low-powered airplanes. In phase two, pilots advanced to more complicated aircraft with larger, more powerful engines, adjustable flaps, radios, and navigation equipment. Pilot trainees at the 528^th School Squadron at Lemoore flew the Vultee BT-13, a two-seat aircraft with a 450 horsepower engine and a two-position propeller.  Unlike the primary training aircraft, the BT-13 was capable of high speeds of up to 180 miles per hour.  The higher-powered, more complex aircraft prepared flyers for the front-line combat aircraft they would master in the later phases of training.

On July 9, 1943, Sergeant Rickenbaker boarded a BT-13 for a routine proficiency flight with pilot Second Lieutenant Ralph R. Ellis at the controls.  The aircraft was probably flying in a formation with other BT-13s because witnesses stated that the plane was flying straight and going “fairly slow” when it stalled and fell into a spin.  Ellis was unable to recover from the spin and the airplane made “9 or 10 more turns before crashing into the ground.”  Both Ellis and Rickenbaker were killed.

Dibble Rickenbaker was survived by his parents and his older brother, Tourie.  He was Summerton’s first casualty of the war. Sadly, he would not be the last.  Tourie would be killed in action in February 1945 while fighting in Germany.

For more information about Sergeant Dibble Manly Rickenbaker see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/dibble-manly-rickenbaker/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

During this year’s Clemson Corps Senior Recognition Dinner, retired Brigadier General Hap Carr recognized three outstanding individuals for their efforts in promoting the awareness and education of Clemson’s long and rich military heritage and legacy.

The individuals were selected based on their efforts, outstanding leadership, dedication, and contributions to promoting, advancing and educating Clemson’s long and rich military history. Each recipient will receive a $1,000 check and a military challenge coin depicting the award. Their names will also be placed on a plaque that resides in the ROTC Departments and the Student Veterans Center.

From the Army ROTC department, Cadet. P. J. Campbell from Asheville, N.C., was recognized and awarded with the Keeping Traditions Alive award. Campbell has served as Commander of
Scabbard and Blade where he led efforts in five community service projects as well as provided education on Clemson Military Heritage to Clemson leadership including deans, the provost, and President Clements.  He is also a member of Pershing Rifles, in which he has participated in over forty hours of events. He has also served as the Cadet Recruiting Officer. Campbell will be attending The Army Transportation Basic Officer Leadership Course in June.

From the Air Force ROTC department, Cadet John Brandenburg from Charleston, S.C., was recognized.  Brandenburg has served as Director of Operations for the Arnold Air Society, coordinating service events. He has served as the third President of the Student Military Council.  He is currently the Executive Officer for Scabbard and Blade and serves as a Senator-at-large in the Clemson Undergraduate Student Senate. Cadet Brandenburg is headed for the New US Space Force, the Commander of which is General John Raymond, a Clemson AF ROTC alumnus. While he is waiting for results of the US Space Force Board, he will be serving an internship at the Pentagon this summer.

Veteran Tianna Jones from Wasilla, Alaska, was the third awardee.  She was a US Air Force Senior Airman, serving as a Broadcast Journalist at Dyess AF Base, Texas, and Kaiserslautern Germany. Jones is a senior at Clemson, majoring in accounting. She has served as an executive member of the Student Veterans Association as well as Treasurer. As a Student Assistant for Military and Veteran Engagement, she has demonstrated a commitment to educating the Clemson community in developing the Clemson Veteran Living Library where Clemson student veterans, alumni and family members can share their unique stories and experiences.  Jones is also a mentor to new student veterans as they navigate their transition into civilian life and the world of Clemson education. She has also hosted “Green Zone” training, which has allowed her to share her military and Clemson experience with students, some of which had never interacted with the military.

The “Keeping the Tradition Alive” Award was established in 2017 under the Clemson Corps umbrella of ROTC awards and scholarships. Together, these awards and scholarships have provided over $2 million in support to Clemson cadets and veterans throughout the years. This particular award was created to recognize cadets and veterans from each ROTC department for their contributions to the tenets of the Clemson Corps’ mission and motto of “Keeping the Tradition Alive.” The Student Military Council established the nomination process and then the award recipients are selected by the Award Committee and administered by the Financial Aid office

Lost to the Pacific

Written by: Kelly Durham

The 507^th Fighter Group deployed to the Pacific theater of operations in March 1945.  Its planned mission was to provide fighter escort for the Army Air Force’s new B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers, the most expensive weapons system ever developed up to that time.  Among the group’s pilots was Captain John Thomas Lyles, Jr., Clemson College Class of 1939.

Lyles was a  Newberry native and general science major.  At Clemson, he was a member of Sigma Epsilon, a social fraternal organization.  As a senior, he attained the rank of cadet second lieutenant.

A year after graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree, Lyles volunteered for Army service.  He initially served as an instructor with the 29^th Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia.  In January 1942, just after the Pearl Harbor attack landed the United States in the middle of the world war, Lyles volunteered for the Army Air Force.  He received his wings on August 5, 1942 at Fort Moultrie, Georgia and was designated to fly fighter aircraft.

Lyles was assigned to the 463^rd Fighter Squadron of the 507^th Fighter Group, flying the rugged P-47 Thunderbolt fighter.  In March 1945, the group headed for the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean, where Allied forces, led by the United States, were slowly pushing the Japanese back from their island-based defensive perimeter toward Japan’s home islands.

With the capture of the Mariana Islands the previous summer, Army Air Force leaders moved quickly to establish operating bases from which B-29 bombers could launch air strikes against Japan’s major cities and production centers.  Previous attempts to conduct raids from airbases in China had been hampered by the difficulty of supplying operations by airborne logistics.  Since Allied forces did not at the time control the Chinese coast, all fuel, spare parts, rations, ordnance, and personnel had to be flown in from the west, over the Himalaya Mountains.  The logistics proved impractical and so General Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Force, looked for island bases in the Pacific that were close enough to Japan to accommodate the B-29’s 1,600 mile operating radius.  The first of these were established on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, but Arnold intended to expand the use of his B-29s moving their bases ever closer as Allied forces tightened the noose around Japan.

Unlike the smaller, slower B-17s and B-24s flown in the European theater, the Superfortress featured a pressurized cabin, automated fire control systems, heavier bomb loads, and longer range.  Even with these advantages, the bombers still needed protection against Japanese fighters.  The 507^th would be tasked with flying these escort missions once Army and Marine forces captured Okinawa and new bases for the B-29s were established there.

Even before the conquest of Okinawa was complete, the 507^th was conducting training and test flights from airfields in the Marshall Islands.  On an altitude test flight on May 20, 1945, Captain Lyles and his wingman climbed to 30,000 feet above Eniwetok Atoll.  At that point, the wingman lost contact with Lyles.  Neither Lyles’s aircraft nor his body were recovered.  He was listed as missing and a year later, on May 21, 1945, was declared dead by the War Department.

Lyles was survived by his wife, the former Kathryn Crawford of Columbia, his parents, and one brother.

For more information about Captain John Thomas Lyles, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/john-thomas-lyles-jr/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Career Cut Short

Written by: Kelly Durham

William Mathew Able, an agriculture/animal husbandry major from Saluda, arrived on campus with the other boys in the Class of 1945, the last cohort of cadets to enroll at Clemson College before America went to war. Able and his class would have their days on campus curtailed by America’s expanding need for men to fight the global war.

At the end of the 1942-43 academic year, the War Department decreed that cadets who had completed their junior years of college would go directly into the military. Those who performed well in basic training were afforded the opportunity to advance to Officer Candidate Schools. Freshman and sophomore cadets, like Able, were drafted and sent to basic training.

Able entered military service on June 30, 1943. US forces were fighting in the Pacific and in the Mediterranean and the American military was growing at a fantastic rate as the nation grappled with the manpower and equipment demands of a world-wide conflict. Able went to Fort McClellan, Alabama, a post familiar to hundreds of Clemson cadets who, in more peaceful days, had completed ROTC summer training there.

Able trained to become a machine gunner. In January 1944, Able shipped overseas and was assigned to M Company, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division then training in the United Kingdom for the eventual invasion of Europe.

On June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day, Able and his comrades crossed the English Channel and landed on Omaha Beach. Quickly, the division was committed to the attack, crossing the Aure River on June 10 and liberating Trévières. The division then assaulted Hill 192, a key enemy strong point on the route to the vital road junction of Saint Lo. Following a stint in defensive positions, the division was again committed to the attack in order to exploit the breakout of American forces around Saint Lo. The division attacked in the vicinity of Vire on August 4. During this action, Able was wounded in the leg and evacuated to an Army hospital in England. For exceptional meritorious service against the enemy from July 6 to August 6, 1944, Able was awarded the Bronze Star. He was also awarded the Purple Heart.

For five months, Sergeant Able rested and recuperated in the hospital. By the time he returned to his unit in January 1945, the Germans had exhausted themselves in their final offensive, the Battle of the Bulge. But, the work of the 2nd Infantry Division was not complete. In February, the division resumed the offensive, recapturing ground lost during the Battle of the Bulge. Able’s division reached the Rhine River on March 9 and from the 12th to the 20th helped guard the key bridge over the Rhine at Remagen. The division crossed the Rhine on March 21 and relieved the 9th Armored Division at Limburg an der Lahn, Germany. From there, in the face of collapsing German resistance, the division swept to the east, capturing Göttingen on April 8 and

establishing a bridgehead over the Saale River on the 14th. Two days later, as the division battled to capture Merseburg, Able was killed in action. The Germans would surrender just three weeks afterwards.

Able was survived by his wife, the former Mildred Barnes, his parents, two sisters, and one brother. After the war, his remains were returned to Saluda and buried at the Butler Methodist Church cemetery.

For more information about William Mathew Able, see: https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/william-mathew-able/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor, visit: https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

The Bridge At Remagen

Written by: Kelly Durham

The Ludendorff Bridge showing the catwalk damaged by German demolitions. US Army photo.

The Associated Press called it a “military triumph rivaling in importance the Normandy landings.”  “It” was the capture of a crossing over the Rhine River, the great natural barrier behind which Hitler’s Third Reich awaited as the western Allies bore down in the winter of 1945.  Arthur Brown, Jr. was among the thousands of American troops exploiting the opportunistic bridgehead during those early days of March.

Brown was an agriculture major from Walhalla, a member of Clemson College’s Class of 1945.  In June 1942, at the completion of his sophomore year, Brown enlisted in the Army.  His unit, the 276^th Engineer Combat Battalion, shipped overseas in November 1944.  Brown’s battalion was destined to participate in one of the United States Army’s key operations of the European War, an operation that came largely as a surprise to American forces—and to the Germans.

On the afternoon of March 7, 1945, a task force from General Courtney Hodges’ First Army was sent toward the village of Remagen, on the west bank of the Rhine River.  The task force’s mission was to secure the town and then turn south to link up with elements from General George Patton’s Third Army.  When the task force commander reached the ridge overlooking Remagen, he was stunned to see the great railroad double-track Ludendorff Bridge, still standing.  At that point, only three Rhine bridges remained intact, as retreating German forces were demolishing bridges once they reached the east bank of the river.  Realizing the opportunity to establish a bridgehead over the Rhine—which had not been crossed in battle since the days of Napoleon—US commanders moved boldly to exploit their opportunity.

American artillery fired white phosphorous rounds across the river to create a smokescreen while tanks fired on German bridge defenders.  A small squad of Americans raced onto the western end of the bridge, attempting to cross even as the Germans were preparing to set off pre-positioned explosives to drop the span into the river below.  The Germans’ first attempt to blow the bridge failed, probably because the wires connecting the electric detonator to the explosives had been severed by shell fire.  A German corporal raced forward under intense fire to light a primer cord in order to set off a secondary set of demolitions.  This effort resulted in a large explosion, but when the smoke cleared, both the Americans and the Germans were surprised to see that, despite damage to the bridge’s planking, support girders, and truss, the structure was still standing.

Combat engineers at work on the bridge on March 17, 1945, just hours before its collapse. US Army photo.

As darkness fell, Americans held the bridge with only a small force.  Throughout the night of March 7-8, US commanders rushed additional units up to and over the bridge, including technicians and engineers from Brown’s 276^th Engineer Combat Battalion.  Over the next ten days, Army engineers worked ceaselessly to repair damage inflicted on the bridge from American bombs and artillery prior to its capture and to repair damage caused by the Germans who now mounted a furious air campaign against the span.  In addition, at Hitler’s order, the new V-2 rockets were redirected toward the destruction of the bridge.  Eleven of these new wonder weapons were fired at the structure, the closest landing some 600 meters away.  Every shell blast, bomb strike, and rocket impact, along with the constant stream of vehicles and soldiers passing over the bridge, created vibrations that slowly, invisibly weakened the span.

At about 3 p.m. on March 17, Lieutenant Colonel Clayton Rust, commander of the 276^th, was standing in the center of the bridge inspecting repair efforts when he heard a “sharp rifle-like report” followed immediately by another.  The bridge began to tremble and the soldiers working on it dropped their tools and raced toward the ends.  It was too late.  The Ludendorff Bridge collapsed into the swirling, frigid water of the Rhine.  “The bridge was rotten throughout,” Rust later recalled. “Many members not cut had internal fractures from our own bombing, German artillery, and from the German demolitions… as the vibration continued, the condition of the previously buckled top chord was aggravated to such an extent that it buckled completely under a load it was not designed to carry.”  Although Rust survived his plunge into the Rhine, thirty-two other engineers were killed when the bridge collapsed. Arthur Brown, Jr. died the following day from his wounds.

The bold capture of the bridge and the work of the intrepid engineers who, though under repeated enemy fire, repaired it and kept it open long enough to expand the bridgehead, materially hastened the end of the war.  Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith, said the Remagen Bridge was “worth its weight in gold.”

Arthur Brown Jr. was survived by his parents, three sisters, and three brothers.  Following the war, his remains came home to Walhalla where they were laid to rest in Westview Cemetery.

For more information on Arthur Brown, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/arthur-brown-jr/

For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

See also The Bridge at Remagen, by Ken Hechler, Ballatine Books, 1957.

A Young Man of the Highest Caliber

Written by: Kelly Durham

Robert Bankston Williams of Charlotte, North Carolina attended Clemson College for only his freshman year, enrolling in the general sciences curriculum in 1942.  By that fall, the cadets’ eyes were already focused on far-away places that many had never heard of just a few months earlier; places like Guadalcanal and New Guinea.  As the school year progressed, Williams and his classmates would have learned of additional exotic locales, places with unpronounceable names like Kasserine and El Guettar. American troops by the spring of 1943 were battling the enemy from sweltering Pacific jungles to the arid deserts of North Africa.

On campus, Clemson president Robert F. Poole encouraged the cadets to remain in school, reminding them that the country would need well-educated young men to lead its armed forces through the long struggle ahead.  Many cadets, impatient as only young men can be, rather than waiting on their country’s call volunteered for service when the school year ended.

By that winter, the Allies had chased the Germans from North Africa, conquered Sicily and invaded Italy.  Robert Williams was by then a medical corps sergeant assigned to the 30^th Infantry Regiment of the 3^rd Infantry Division. The division was engaged in bitter fighting, slogging northward along Italy’s mountainous terrain until it reached the vicinity of Monte Cassino.  It was then withdrawn from the line and sent to a rest area.  Allied commanders had big plans for the division.

Facing a well-entrenched enemy, Fifth Army commander Mark Clark attempted an end-run by launching an amphibious landing at Anzio and Nettuno, on the west coast of Italy on January 22 and 23, 1944.  The invasion threw 36,000 Allied soldiers ashore to the rear of the German lines.  The plan was for Allied troops in the south to link up with the Anzio invaders and open the way for the liberation of Rome.  The landings achieved tactical surprise and the Allies quickly built up a beachhead some fifteen miles deep.  But Clark’s subordinates failed to exploit their early successes and the Germans counterattacked swiftly and effectively.

What had begun as a daring stroke quickly bogged down into a series of bloody offensives and counter-offensives.  From high ground to the east of Anzio, German artillery could range the entire beachhead.  Allied soldiers waited out the shellings in trenches and dugouts reminiscent of the First World War.  For medics like Sergeant Williams, the battles were especially perilous as the medics often were forced to treat wounded men still exposed to enemy observation and fire.  The 30^th Infantry Regiment would lose seven hundred men killed in the fighting.  No doubt Sergeant Williams and his fellow medics kept that number from being even more costly.  Unfortunately, the medics’ Red Cross brassards were no protection from the dangers of the battlefield.  Williams was wounded on February 29, 1944 and died a few days later in Naples.

In its obituary, the Herald Journal called Williams “a young man of the highest caliber.”  Sergeant Robert Bankston Williams was awarded the Purple Heart and buried among his comrades at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.

For additional information about Robert Bankston Williams see:

https://cualumni.clemson.edu/page.aspx?pid=1864

For more information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit:

https://cualumni.clemson.edu/scrollofhonor