The Deadlier Opponent

Written by: Kelly Durham

Claude Rothell, Jr. came to Clemson College from Saluda County as a member of the Class of 1943.  His class was the last cohort to complete its academic career until after the war.  Following commencement, Claude and his classmates headed directly to active duty, many of them funneling into officers’ candidate schools.  Most of the other boys on campus were sent to basic training, their school days suspended for the duration.

Claude made the most of his four years as a cadet, engaging in academic, social, and athletic pursuits.  An animal husbandry major, Claude served as executive officer of  Company G, 1^st Battalion, 1^st Regiment of Clemson’s Cadet Brigade.  He was a member of Alpha Chi Psi, a social organization, and the Saluda-Lexington Club.  He served as the vice president of the Animal Husbandry Club and was a member of the Block “C” Club.

Claude was a four-year member of the Tiger football team, spanning the transition from head coach Jess Neely to head coach Frank Howard.  Claude’s senior campaign achieved mixed results as the Tigers finished with a 3-6-1 record.  Claude, at 176 pounds, played in the backfield on both offense and defense.  The Tigers’ first contest of the 1942 season inaugurated the campus’s new Memorial Stadium with a 6-4 win over Presbyterian College.  The Tigers triumphed against South Carolina, 18-6, in the annual Big Thursday game, which was the Tigers’ 200^th all-time victory.  The Tigers closed their home season with a 12-7 win over Furman.  In a sign of the times, Clemson also took the field against a team from Jacksonville Naval Air Station, losing 24-6.  At the end of the season, Rothell and his teammates must have turned their thoughts toward the deadlier opponents that awaited overseas.

After graduation, Rothell was ordered to Fort Benning, Georgia to attend officer candidate school.  He completed his training in December and was soon assigned to the 48^th Infantry Battalion of the 7^th Armored Division.  In April 1944, Rothell shipped overseas.

On August 13-14, the 7^th Armored Division landed in Normandy and was assigned to General George Patton’s Third Army.  The division battled its way into France, attacking German forces defending the city of Chartres and then proceeding to liberate Dreux.  On August 24, the division liberated Melun, south of Paris, where it crossed the Seine River.  With the German resistance weakening, the division raced ahead liberating the storied Great War battlefields of  Château-Thierry and then Verdun on August 31.

The 7^th Armored halted for rest, maintenance, and refueling at the beginning of September, but was soon back on the offensive.  In France, one river led to another and on September 6, the division crossed the Moselle near Metz. Enemy fortifications and unfavorable terrain made the crossing untenable.  In mid-September, the 7^th Armored joined with the 5^th Infantry Division to expand a new bridgehead over the Moselle farther to the south near Arnaville.

Second Lieutenant Rothell was killed in action in France on September 14, 1944.  Ironically, he fell on the same day as his Clemson classmate Henry Hahn, who was assigned to one of the 7^th Armored Division’s tank battalions.

Claude Rothell, Jr. was survived by his parents, his wife Margaret, and two brothers, one of whom was in the Navy’s V-12 officer training program.  He was awarded the Purple Heart and buried at the Lorraine American Military Cemetery.

For more information about Claude Rothell, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/claude-rothell-jr/

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavy Fighting, “Light” Casualties

Written by: Kelly Durham

Newspaper headlines in August of 1968 told of more than six thousand enemy casualties over an eight day span of heavy fighting in Vietnam.  The heaviest combat occurred in the I Corps area of operations.  The 1^st Marine Regiment was one of the American units engaged in this action.  Since recapturing Hue after the surprise Tet Offensive, the 1^st Marines had been involved in a number of combat operations large and small.  Marine casualties were reported as “light,” but they weren’t light enough.

Stephen Randolph Hilton of Winnsboro was an economics major, a member of Kappa Sigma Nu fraternity and the Canterbury Club, the Episcopal student organization on campus. Steve Hilton was a good athlete who enjoyed baseball, football, golf and swimming.  He was also a musician, playing the piano and saxophone. While at Clemson, Hilton met Evelyn Elkin and they were married on December 27, 1966 following Steve’s graduation. His sister, Lois, remembered Steve as someone who was easy to be around and who was a lot of fun.

He was also loyal and patriotic, traits that no doubt helped steer him toward the Marine Corps.  Hilton graduated as a second lieutenant from Officer Basic Training School at Quantico, Virginia on November 1, 1967.  His cohort, Class 6-67, would send more lieutenants to battle and suffer more officers killed or wounded than any Marine basic school class since the Korean War.  One of Hilton’s classmates at Quantico was Clemson classmate Richard Kapp, Jr., who, like Steve, was bound for the 1^st Marines and Vietnam.

Before shipping out to Vietnam, Steve spent Thanksgiving 1967 at home. By this time, Evelyn was pregnant and Steve was “on cloud nine,” according to his sister.  “I had a feeling it would be the last time I saw him,” Lois recalled, “but I prayed I would be wrong.”

Hilton and the 1^st Marines were in the thick of the fighting during the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in the winter of 1968.  They helped wrest control of the ancient city of Hue from the enemy.

On August 25, First Lieutenant Hilton was leading his platoon to the aid of a surrounded reconnaissance team near Gio Linh when he was struck by enemy small arms fire and killed.  His daughter, Elizabeth Anne, whom he never had a chance to hold, was two-and-a-half months old.

Hilton was awarded the Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, National Order of Vietnam, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation with Palm, and Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Hilton was survived by his parents, his sister Lois and a brother.  He is buried in Winnsboro’s Episcopal Cemetery.

For more information about Stephen Randolph Hilton see:
https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/stephen-randolph-hilton/

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

 

 

 

 

 

Radar Training

Written by: Kelly Durham

The Allies shifted from defeat and defense to offense and victory in 1942.  Midway and North Africa had put the Japanese, Germans, and Italians on the defensive and operations in Guadalcanal and New Guinea would continue the trend into 1943.  With the American military expanding at an explosive pace, young men from all over the country were scattered at training bases all over the country.  Charles Henderson Franks, Class of 1942, was in Florida.

Franks was a general sciences major from Laurens.  He attended Clemson for only his freshman year and then continued his studies at Presbyterian College.  Franks enlisted in the Army Air Force in March 1942 and reported for training to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama that September.  Subsequent training assignments carried him to Bennettsville and then south to Florida.

In July 1943, Franks was undergoing exacting and top secret training in the use of airborne radar at Boca Raton Army Airfield.  Franks was assigned to the 319^th Air Base Squadron, a training outfit whose main mission was training Air Force personnel in the use of new radar technology.  Access to this critical system was tightly restricted and those being trained had to be both highly qualified and rigorously investigated.  In addition to classroom training, personnel had to learn to maintain and utilize radar equipment in flight.  With the growing demand for radar operators for all types of heavy and medium aircraft, Boca Raton’s field was in round-the-clock use.

Training was, in fact, heavy at large and small airfields all over the United States.  Thousands of pilots, copilots, navigators, radio operators, bombardiers, flight engineers, and gunners were learning to work together on dozens of different kinds of aircraft, from heavy bombers to single seat fighters.  The combination of aggressive, young men, sophisticated aircraft, and the hurried pace of training inevitably led to accidents.

On Wednesday, July 21, 1943, Franks was assigned to a radar operator training mission flown by Second Lieutenant Francis Van Cleave.  At 1708 hours, Van Cleave lifted off in a radar-equipped A-20 Havoc medium bomber.  He circled the field once and then landed in order to secure a loose gasoline tank cap.  At 1729, the aircraft took off again, climbing only fifteen to twenty feet before it “mushed into the ground.  In a nose up attitude, the aircraft’s tail dragged along the ground for about fifty feet, carving a groove in the sod and damaging the plane.  The airplane then climbed steeply to an altitude of two hundred to five hundred feet before rolling over and diving into the ground.  Franks, Van Cleave, and the two other crew members were killed in the crash.

Army Air Force officials recognized the hazards of flight training and though constantly striving to improve training safety, continued to accept a high accident rate.  On that single day, July 21, 1943, eighty-two aircraft training accidents were recorded at stateside military fields.  “Only” seven of these included fatalities.  Remarkably, that Wednesday’s record was an improvement over the previous day’s when eighty-three accidents had been reported.  The cost of winning the war was steep, even outside the battle zones.

Corporal Charles Henderson Franks was survived by his parents, a brother, and two sisters.  He is buried in the Laurens City Cemetery.

For more information about Charles Henderson Franks see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/charles-henderson-franks/

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

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

 

 

 

Thunderbolt Pilot

Written by: Kelly Durham

 

Ralph Alexander Kelley of Charlotte, North Carolina enrolled at Clemson College as a member of the Class of 1946 and attended school during the 1942-43 academic year.  When the term came to a close in the spring of 1943, Clemson’s campus transitioned into Army training facilities under the direction of the War Department.  Underclassmen like Kelley were scattered across the country, ordered to attend basic training.  Those who demonstrated aptitude could apply for officer candidate schools.  This is likely the path that Kelley took on his way to becoming an Army Air Force fighter pilot.

Following flight training, Kelley shipped overseas and was assigned to the 522^nd Fighter Squadron of the 27^th Fighter Group.  In June 1944, the group transitioned from the older, slower P-40 Warhawk fighter to the faster and more heavily armed P-47 Thunderbolt.

The P-47 had gotten off to a rocky start.  Fighter pilots used to the sleek design of their streamlined aircraft initially balked at this huge, new fighter. Its wingspan was five feet wider and it possessed nearly four times the fuselage volume of the vaunted Spitfire. It was the heaviest single-engine, one-man aircraft of the World War II, weighing as much as eight tons when fully loaded with fuel and armaments.  The fighter’s conventional landing gear meant that visibility on the ground was difficult as the pilot had to maneuver the airplane from side-to-side in order to see around the big radial engine encased in its massive nose.  As first fielded, the Thunderbolt’s climb performance was disappointing, but in actual combat, its pilots soon came to trust its speed in a dive and its rugged durability.  By mid-1944, the P-47 was well-established as both a capable escort for heavy bomber formations and an effective ground attack aircraft. From airfields in Corsica, Kelley’s squadron flew P-47 missions to attack German communications and supply routes in northern Italy.

After a long, costly campaign through the winter and spring, Rome was finally liberated on June 5, 1944.  On July 1, Kelley was killed at the beginning of a mission when his aircraft likely collided with another P-47 on the ground at some point during his take off acceleration.

Kelley was awarded the Purple Heart and the Air Medal.  He is buried at Hamor Creek Baptist Church Cemetery in Mount Gilead, North Carolina.

For more information on Second Lieutenant Ralph Alexander Kelley see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/ralph-alexander-kelley/

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

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

 

 

 

 

Carrier Pilot

Written by: Kelly Durham

When we think of the Navy’s role in World War II, we typically envision Pacific Ocean carrier battles like Coral Sea, Midway and the Philippine Sea.  But Thomas Franklin Kendrick of Laurens, Class of 1942, participated in the Navy’s little remembered carrier operations in the Mediterranean Sea in August 1944.

Kendrick, an  English major, attended Clemson as a freshman during the 1938-1939 academic year before transferring to Georgia Tech.  At Tech, Kendrick switched his major to industrial management.  He was a member of the Industrial Management Society, the golf team, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon.  Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Kendrick volunteered for military service and upon graduation, he reported for duty with the Navy.

Kendrick earned his pilot’s wings and was assigned to a fighter squadron aboard the USS Kasaan Bay, one of the Navy’s smaller escort or “jeep” carriers.  These baby flattops had been developed in part to provide aerial support for trans-Atlantic convoys in an ultimately successful effort to counter the German’s U-boat threat.

In January 1944, Kasaan Bay was tasked with ferrying new aircraft and personnel to Pearl Harbor.  Following this mission, she returned to Norfolk, Virginia for overhaul and then embarked on a voyage to Casablanca in North Africa on another ferry mission.  Following her return to the States, Kasaan Bay again headed east, this time bound for Oran for anti-submarine warfare operations in the western Mediterranean before practicing for the Allied invasion of southern France.  Kasaan Bay arrived on station for the invasion on August 15, 1944.  Kasaan Bay’s aircraft flew missions in support of the Allied landings.

On August 25, Lieutenant (jg) Kendrick flew a mission near Montpellier, west of Marseille.  Dipping below a 600-foot cloud ceiling, Kendrick’s flight discovered an enemy convoy and began a strafing run.  Kendrick fired on a string of four ammunition wagons, descending to just fifty feet above the ground.  One of the wagons exploded, throwing debris into the air and damaging Kendrick’s aircraft.  On subsequent strafing runs, Kendrick felt that the aircraft was not responding crisply and radioed one of his squadron mates to close on his airplane for a visual inspection.  Lieutenant Thomas, the flight leader, observed extensive damage to Kendrick’s starboard stabilizer, the small tail wing on the right side of the aircraft.  Thomas ordered Kendrick to return to the ship.  After an uneventful landing, inspection of the damage revealed that Kendrick’s control cables had been nearly severed.  For his “heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flights as pilot of a carrier-based naval fighter bomber during the Allied invasion of Southern France in August 1944,” Kendrick was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  But Kendrick’s war was not yet over.

Following Kasaan Bay’s return to the States in September, Kendrick’s squadron was decommissioned and he was assigned to the recently organized fighter-bomber squadron VBF-89 aboard the new USS Antietam, an Essex class fleet carrier.  From mid-1943 until the end of the war, Essex class carriers (such as the Yorktown now at Patriot’s Point in Charleston) formed the heart of the Navy’s combat power in the Pacific.  Antietam was commissioned in January 1945 and completed her shakedown cruise at the end of April.  Post cruise repairs were completed on May 19 and Antietam sailed from Philadelphia that same day, bound for the Pacific via the Panama Canal.

Flight operations aboard Antietam continued while the ship was in transit.  On May 31, as the carrier approached Cristobal, on the Caribbean side of the Canal, Kendrick was killed in the crash of his F-4U Corsair while on a training flight.

Kendrick was survived by his wife, the former Frieda Dekker of Boston, Massachusetts, his parents, and his sister.  Following the war, Kendrick’s remains were returned to Laurens where he was buried in the city cemetery.    

For more information about Lieutenant (jg) Thomas Franklin Kendrick see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/thomas-franklin-kendrick/

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

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

 

Ferry Flight

Written by: Kelly Durham

It was said to be the largest factory under one roof anywhere in the world.  Its main structure enclosed three and a half million square feet.  Its assembly line was more than a mile long.  By 1944, at the peak of its production, Ford Motor Company’s Willow Run assembly plant was turning out one B-24 J Liberator heavy bomber every sixty-three seconds—and they all had to go somewhere.  The 5^th Ferry Group of the Air Transport Command was tasked with dispatching aircraft from manufacturing plants to domestic and international airbases.  One of its pilots was Captain William Shepard Nicholson, Jr. of Union.

Billy Nicholson already had one degree when he enrolled at Clemson College.  He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Davidson College in 1938 and added a Clemson degree in textile science in 1940.

Following graduation, Nicholson was employed by Deering Miliken, the South Carolina-based operator of textile mills.  Nicholson was called to active duty in 1942 and  was sent to Fort McClellan, Alabama.  From there, he trained at Camp Forrest, Tennessee and then Kelley Field, Texas where he earned his pilot’s wings in January 1943.

Nicholson was assigned to the 5^th Ferry Group operating out of Love Field in Dallas, Texas.  Its primary mission was to pick up new aircraft from the many factories scattered all over the country and deliver them  to domestic stations and fighting fronts.  To accomplish this mission, the group’s pilots and crews had to qualify to fly “anything, anywhere, anytime.”  Likely their most common aircraft ferry mission was the B-24 bomber.  With nearly 18,500 aircraft built, the B-24 was the most produced heavy bomber in history.  Ford manufactured nearly seven thousand of the big bombers at Willow Run.

On April 27, 1944, then serving as the director of training for the 5^th Ferry Group, Captain Nicholson picked up a B-24 J Liberator at Romulus, Michigan, site of one of the airports serving the Willow Run plant.  His intended delivery destination was Charleston, South Carolina.  Flying with a civilian copilot and an Army Air Force flight engineer, the Liberator encountered poor weather en route.  In heavy rain and low clouds, the aircraft crashed into a wooded hillside and exploded near Lillington, North Carolina, just north of Fort Bragg.  All three aboard were killed.

Captain Nicholson was survived by his wife, the former Sara Johnson of Asheville, North Carolina, their daughter, his parents and two sisters.  He was buried in the Grove Hill Cemetery in Darlington.

For more information on William Shepard Nicholson, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/william-shepard-nicholson-jr/

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

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

Extraordinary Heroism

Written by: Kelly Durham

Robert Murrah Bailey of Anderson attended Clemson for just one year, 1903-04.  He took the standard freshman course load and had not declared an academic major by the time he left campus.

According to his sister, Cleo, Bailey enlisted in the Army on June 6, 1916, at age 32,  in order to serve along the Mexican border.  In March of that year, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa had led a raid against Columbus, New Mexico on the US-Mexican border.  The United States responded by dispatching an expeditionary force commanded by General John J. Pershing to capture Villa and bring him to justice.  Although more than 140,000 National Guardsmen were called up, only two regiments were actually deployed to the border—and Villa was never captured.

Nonetheless, Bailey remained in the Army, serving with the 118^th Infantry Regiment of the 30^th Division, composed of National Guard units from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee.  When the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, Bailey was promoted to sergeant and shipped overseas with his division.  The 30^th division took part in the Battle of Lys and the Somme offensive and was one of only two US divisions to break through the Hindenburg Line during the Battle of St. Quentin Canal.

Bailey’s leadership ability was recognized and he was sent to officers’ candidate school in France.  His promotion to Second Lieutenant on September 30, 1918 was accompanied by a transfer to the 114^th Infantry Regiment of the 29^th Division.  The 29^th was another National Guard division. It was composed of units from New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, states that had fought on opposite sides during  the Civil War,  earning it the nickname the “Blue and Gray” division.  The 29^th, as part of the US First Army, participated in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.  With outstanding battlefield leadership, it advanced seven kilometers in twenty-one days of combat.

While leading his platoon against an enemy position of October 12, 1918, Lieutenant Bailey was wounded.  Even so, he refused to retire from the field until his platoon reorganized and repulsed a German counterattack.  Bailey’s wound proved fatal, but his “extraordinary heroism” enabled his men to hold their position.  Bailey was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest award for valor.

Robert Murrah Bailey was survived by his mother and his sister.  He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Meuse-Argonne American Military Cemetery in France and in the Westview Section of Old Silver Brook Cemetery in Anderson.

For more information on Robert Murrah Bailey see:

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

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

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/robert-murrah-bailey/

 

 

 

High Level

Jake Stone Colvin, Jr. achieved at a high level in so many different walks of life: academics, athletics, leadership, and service to his country during time of war.

Colvin, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jake S. Colvin, Sr. of Chester, was a member of the Clemson College Class of 1942.  An industrial education major, Jake was an honor student.  He marched with the Pershing Rifles and as a senior, served as commanding officer of L Company, 3^rd Battalion, 2^nd Regiment with the rank of cadet captain.  He attended ROTC summer training at Clemson in 1941, qualifying as a marksman.  His military prowess earned him an invitation into Scabbard and Blade, the military honor society.  He was also a member of Blue Key and the Central Dance Association, which he served as president.  A boxer, Colvin punched in the 155 pound weight class and served as the team’s alternate captain, earning membership in the Block “C” Club.

With his impressive collegiate record, it’s not surprising that Colvin was accepted into Army Air Force flight training following his graduation and commissioning. Flight training carried Colvin to Maxwell Field, Alabama; Douglas, Georgia; Greenwood, South Carolina; Lawrenceville, Illinois; and Columbus, Ohio.  As he progressed through the stages of flight training, he qualified as a pilot on the Army Air Force’s workhorse heavy bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress.

By February 1944, First Lieutenant Colvin was flying the big bombers with the 730^th Bomb Squadron of the 452^nd Bomb Group based at Deopham Green airfield in England. On Leap Day, February 29, Colvin and his crew were alerted to fly a mission with a twist.  Instead of flying one of the bombers from their own group, their orders were to report to the 388^th Bomb Group at nearby Knettishall air base to fly Cock O’ the Walk, one of that group’s aircraft.

Despite this change of station, the mission started off routinely with more than two hundred 8^th Air Force bombers sliding into formation in the skies over East Anglia before heading east across the North Sea.  A good beginning was essential, because this day’s mission was no “milk run.”  The target was aircraft production factories in Brunswick, Germany.

By the time the formation reached Brunswick shortly after 1100 hours, cloud cover was solid.  That may have accounted for the absence of enemy fighters.  Still, the bombers had to be concerned with German anti-aircraft fire, or flak, which with radar guidance could “see” through the clouds.  Likewise, the bomber formation was relying on its own radar to identify its target.  Lead aircraft, equipped with targeting radar, signaled the rest of the formation to release bombs by firing flares.  Bombs away occurred at 1116 hours from an altitude of 21,000 feet.

Immediately after releasing its bomb load, while its bomb bay doors were still open, Colvin’s aircraft was struck in the bomb bay by German flak, creating a great explosion.  According to the plane’s navigator, Second Lieutenant Allan Johnson, the blast killed Jake Colvin and mortally wounded the copilot.  The ball turret gunner and one of the waist gunners were also killed.  With the plane on fire and falling earthward, Johnson and five other crew members were able to bail out.  They would be taken prisoner.  The plane crashed just outside of Brunswick.  Although fifty-four bombers were damaged during the mission, Colvin’s was the only one lost.

First Lieutenant Jake Colvin was survived by his parents, two sisters and a brother.  After the war, his body was buried at the Ardennes American Military Cemetery, Belgium.  He is also memorialized by a marker in Chester’s Evergreen Cemetery.

For more information about Jake Stone Colvin, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/jake-stone-colvin-jr/

 

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

Cock O’ the Walk photo courtesy Imperial War Museum, http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/4833

Reconnaissance Patrol

The November 1942 Allied invasion of French North Africa placed its German and Italian occupiers in a bind.  General Montgomery’s British Eighth Army was ascendant in the east, and now Eisenhower’s expeditionary force was strengthening in the west.  Axis forces , though caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, were not yet defeated however, as they were led by the legendary Desert Fox, General Erwin Rommel.

Clayton Lawrence Herrington, an architecture major in Clemson’s Class of 1941, was a lieutenant in the 34^th Infantry Division, then attached to the First British Army under Supreme Commander Eisenhower.  Herrington had come to Clemson’s campus from Waynesboro, Georgia in 1937.  Upon graduation in June 1941, Herrington was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army.

Herrington was ordered overseas in April 1942 to join the 34^th Infantry Division, the first American division deployed to the European Theater of Operations.  The division, nicknamed the Red Bulls, was formed from Iowa and Minnesota National Guard units that had been federalized in February 1941.  Under War Department supervision, the division expanded, reequipped, and saw a large percentage of its officers replaced with more energetic leaders.  Herrington was one of these.

The quick shipment of the 34^th Infantry Division to Northern Ireland after the attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to demonstrate American commitment to the “Germany First” strategy agreed upon by British and American leaders.  While the move was symbolic to an extent, it had the side effect of excluding the 34^th from the large scale maneuvers in Louisiana and the Carolinas that provided its sister divisions with valuable large formation exercises and training.  As a result, the division’s own history noted that it “was not prepared for combat service.”

Nonetheless, when Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt agreed to assault North Africa, the 34^th’s positioning in Northern Ireland meant that it was immediately available for commitment.  The division, with Herrington assigned to F Company, 2^nd Battalion, 168^th Infantry Regiment, landed in Algiers as part of Operation TORCH’s Eastern Task Force on November 8, 1942.

Over the following months, the Allies gradually expanded their presence in North Africa and by February 1943 occupied a winter defense line running north to south through central Tunisia.  The southern portion of this line was manned by the US II Corps, to include Herrington’s 34^th Infantry Division.  Highway 13 ran from the southeast—Axis territory—toward the northwest and Allied lines.  To control this highway and the critical Faid Pass through Tunisia’s Eastern Dorsal range, II Corps commander Lloyd Fredendall directed that elements of his 1^st Armored Division occupy and strengthen two key hill tops: Djebel Lessouda and Djebel Ksaira.  Herrington’s 2^nd Battalion/168^th Infantry Regiment was detached from the 34^th and attached to Lieutenant Colonel John Waters task force on Lessouda.  Despite occupying defensive positions, Fredendall ordered that the enemy should be harassed at every opportunity, including at night.  He also charged his subordinate commanders to conduct frequent reconnaissance patrols to ascertain enemy strength and intentions.

Fredendall’s subordinate commanders, notably Waters’s division commander Orlando Ward, voiced concerns over the disposition of forces at Lassouda and Ksaira.  The units were too far forward to be defended in the event of a major German attack and were also too far apart to offer each other mutual support.  Aggravating the tactical issue was the quality of replacement soldiers received by Herrington’s 2^nd Battalion.  One hundred twenty-five new men had recently joined the unit, most of them without even rudimentary marksmanship training.

On the night of February 11-12, First Lieutenant Herrington was ordered to lead a reconnaissance patrol.  Under cover of darkness, Herrington’s patrol passed through friendly lines on the east slope of Djebel Lassouda and proceeded into no-man’s land and beyond.  During the night, Herrington’s patrol was attacked by German forces somewhere along Highway 13 and he was mortally wounded. The aggressive response to American patrols led some officers to believe that the Germans were hiding something.

On February 13, General Eisenhower toured Allied positions in II Corps’ sector.  Apprised of misgivings about the disposition of American forces, the Supreme Commander committed to looking into the matter the following day upon return to his own headquarters.

Before Eisnehower could make good on his pledge,  Rommel attacked.  At 0630 on February 14, more than one hundred tanks were unleashed along with supporting infantry and artillery, smashing through Faid Pass, isolating and destroying the Allied positions at Djebel Lassouda and Djebel Ksaira.  The Germans would drive all the way to the distant Kasserine Pass, far to the west, bloodying the green American troops and embarrassing their commanders.  It was Rommel’s first engagement against the US Army—and his last battlefield victory of the war.

First Lieutenant Herrington was survived by his wife, Mary and his foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. O. Butts.  He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

For more information about Clayton Lawrence Herrington see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/clayton-lawrence-herrington/

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

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

Kamikazi Victim

Written by: Kelly Durham

Relatively few enrolled in college during the 1930s.  Of those who did, fewer still graduated.  The academics were rigorous and the economic status of many families prohibited the luxury of a college education.

Nonetheless, Harry Burton Goodson, Jr. of Florence matriculated at Clemson College as a member of the Class of 1943.  Goodson, an agriculture major, remained in school only his freshman year, 1939-40, before taking employment with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.  In December 1941, Goodson volunteered for the Navy.

World War II, as dramatically demonstrated at Pearl Harbor, ushered in the age of the aircraft carrier as any Navy’s primary offensive weapon.  The United States Navy included a handful of carriers at the outset of hostilities, but by the end of the war, one hundred forty-three carriers had been built in American shipyards.  Famous fleet carriers, like Yorktown now a memorial in Charleston Harbor, carried the fight in the Pacific ever closer to the Japanese home islands. Naval architects soon designed smaller escort carriers to handle varied other missions.  These smaller, lightly-armored carriers provided air cover for transoceanic convoys and served as ferries to move aircraft from the United States into combat theaters.  As the war progressed, escort carriers helped provide combat air patrol for the massive Allied fleets operating in the Pacific.  The most numerous class of escort carriers was the Casablanca class, which included CVE-61, the USS Manila Bay.

Among this ship’s crew was Harry Goodson, an aviation metalsmith.  By the beginning of 1945, Goodson was already a veteran of two years of Pacific duty, years that had seen the fortunes of war turn in favor of the United States.  America’s ability to mass produce airplanes and ships, like the Manila Bay, was one of the key factors in this turn of events.  The airplanes launching daily from the Pacific Fleet’s carriers required extensive maintenance in order to keep them flying in the demanding environment of combat at sea.  Goodson’s job was to maintain and repair aircraft, airframes, and components.

On New Year’s Day 1945, Manila Bay left Manu, north of New Guinea, and sailed north for the Philippines as part of Vice Admiral Jesse Oldendorf’s Bombardment and Fire Support Group.  Japanese air forces had grown continually weaker as the Allies, led by the United States, committed ever increasing resources to the battle.  But in October, during the initial stages of General MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese had initiated organized suicide attacks.  These attackers, which became known as kamikazes, generated controversy among Japanese military leaders, according to Pacific War historian Ian Toll.  Many Japanese argued that such tactics misconstrued traditional samurai ideals.  Nonetheless, by late 1944, kamikaze attacks were increasingly employed as Japanese military and naval strength diminished under the relentless Allied onslaught.

Japanese attacks against Oldendorf’s task group commenced on January 4 in the vicinity of the Mindoro Strait.  Carriers were primary targets for kamikaze pilots.  American airpower was decimating Japan’s war making capability and carriers were, with their distinctive flight decks, easy targets to identify from the air.  Despite combat air patrols protecting the fleet from above, a kamikaze crashed into the flight deck of USS Ommaney Bay, an escort carrier similar to Manila Bay, causing her to sink.

Enemy air attacks intensified on January 5, with repeated waves of attackers sweeping in during the morning and afternoon.  Just before 1750 hours, two kamikazes dove on Manila Bay.  The first plane plunged into the ship just behind the bridge, igniting fires on the flight deck and just below on the hangar deck where airplanes were maintained and repaired between operations.  The second plane, mercifully, missed, crashing into the sea just off the starboard fantail.  Firefighting parties quickly brought the blaze under control, but fourteen men had been killed, including Harry Goodson.

Goodson was survived by his wife Belva and their son Harry B. Goodson, III.  He was also survived by his father and sister.  Although no remains were recovered, Goodson is memorialized on the Manila American Military Cemetery’s Tablets of the Missing and on a marker in Florence’s Mount Hope Cemetery.

For additional information about Harry B. Goodson, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/harry-burton-goodson-jr/

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

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

 

 

The Most Hazardous Service

Written by: Kelly Durham

It wasn’t simply the valor of soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen that won the Second World War.  Each combatant had to be supplied with equipment, weapons, spare parts, ammunition, uniforms, rations, medicines and all of the other various items required to keep armies in the field, aircraft in the skies, and ships on the seas.  The massive logistical challenges overcome to supply American and Allied forces in a war reaching to the corners of the earth are rarely remembered today, but served as the basis for victory.  The critical—and most hazardous—link in this logistical supply chain was the Merchant Marine.  Baylis Whitner Harrison, Jr., was a member of Clemson’s Class of 1943 and a merchant seaman sailing on the SS John Harvey.

Harrison came to Clemson from his hometown of Marion, North Carolina as a freshman in 1939.  He majored in civil engineering, but left campus after his first year.  By 1943, when the remaining cadets in his class graduated, Harrison was serving in the Merchant Marine.  His vessel, the Liberty ship John Harvey, was completed in mid-January of that year after six weeks of construction at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington.

The war had put a severe strain on American shipping.  Not only were massive amounts of food, weapons, ammunition and equipment needed in combat theaters, but German U-boats were sinking large numbers of US merchant vessels off America’s east coast in what the U-boat captains called “the Second Happy Time.”  To meet Allied shipping needs, and fulfill its role as “the arsenal of democracy,” the United States committed to an unprecedented shipbuilding program.  At its peak in 1943, American shipyards were completing more than one hundred Liberty ships per month.  These ships were easy to build, reliable, and versatile.  Their strength lay not in cutting edge technology, but in sheer numbers.  More than twenty-seven hundred Liberty ships would be completed during the war, including the John Harvey.

The Geneva Protocol signed in 1925, had banned the use, but not the stockpiling, of chemical weapons which had been employed with devastating effect in World War I.  While the United States had no intentions of offensive use of such weapons, President Roosevelt in August 1943 approved the secret shipment of mustard gas munitions to the Mediterranean theater.  The mustard gas was to be positioned for retaliatory use should the Germans employ similar weapons in their defense of Italy.  The SS John Harvey was selected for this classified and hazardous mission.

The ship, with Harrison aboard, sailed from Oran, Algeria on November 18, 1943. It arrived off of Bari, on Italy’s east coast, but the harbor was packed with Allied vessels unloading all manner of cargo needed to support the British and American forces then engaged against the Germans.

A harbor full of Allied ships proved to be a tempting target for the German Luftwaffe.  The Germans were aware of the port’s inadequate anti-aircraft defenses and believed that crippling the harbor might slow the Allied advance.  At 1925 hours, well after dark on December 2, one hundred fifty German Ju 88 medium bombers attacked from the east, flying over Bari from the Adriatic Sea.  To facilitate unloading, the harbor was well illuminated and the German bombers had no trouble hitting their targets.  Two ammunition ships exploded and a bulk petroleum pipeline was ruptured spreading a black sheet of flaming fuel over much of the harbor and engulfing previously undamaged ships.  John Harvey was also hit and destroyed in an enormous blast which released liquid sulphur mustard into the harbor and into the roiling clouds of smoke generated by burning ships, dock facilities, and warehouses.

Twenty-eight merchant ships containing 31,000 tons of cargo were sunk.  Another twelve were damaged. Medical authorities at Bari concentrated their treatment on those suffering from blast and fire injuries unaware that a more insidious killer was attacking sailors covered with oil from the harbor and those who had breathed in the toxic fumes mixed in with smoke from the explosions and fires.  Within a day, six hundred twenty-eight patients were exhibiting symptoms of mustard gas poisoning, but medical staff members were unaware of the presence of the gas due to the highly classified nature of John Harvey’s cargo.  By the end of the month, eighty-three military patients had died from mustard gas poisoning.  The toll would have been higher without the efforts of Colonel Stewart Alexander, an expert in chemical warfare.  Dispatched to Bari to investigate, Alexander traced the gas to John Harvey and confirmed mustard gas as the responsible agent when he located a fragment of a US mustard gas bomb.  Alexander’s sleuthing alerted doctors in Bari to change their treatment to address mustard gas poisoning.

The Allied High Command attempted to conceal the disaster to avoid provoking the Germans into pre-emptive use of chemical weapons.  Given the multitude of witnesses to the catastrophe, the US Chiefs of Staff finally admitted the accident in a February 1944 statement.  The statement emphasized that the US had no intention of using chemical weapons except in retaliation.

Baylis Whitner Harrison, Jr.’s remains were never recovered.  He was awarded the Mariner’s Medal and Combat Bar with Star.

Whether in coastal waters, on the high seas, or in the relative safety of a friendly port, merchant mariners in World War II experienced the highest casualty rate of any service. One in twenty-six merchant mariners died during the war, one reason why Congress extended veterans status to the 215,000 merchant mariners who comprised the most hazardous link in America’s wartime logistics network.

For more information about Baylis Whitner Harrison, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/bayliss-whitner-harrison-jr/

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

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

 

 

 

Operation RESERVIST

Written by: Kelly Durham

The first American ground forces to go into battle in the European Theater during World War II fought not the Germans, not the Italians, but America’s oldest ally.  Clemson alumnus Horace Hagood Young, Jr. Class of 1942, was a member of the 6^th Armored Infantry Regiment that stormed the North African port of Oran in the early morning hours of November 8, 1942.

Young grew up in Fairfax, graduating from high school there before enrolling at Clemson for the 1938-39 academic year.  He was a cadet private in Company E majoring in general science.  He did not return to campus for his sophomore year.  Instead, he took a position with Thomas and Howard Company, a grocery supply business in Allendale.

It is unclear when Young began his military service, whether he volunteered or was drafted.  By September 1942, he had completed his basic training and was a member of the 6^th Armored Infantry Regiment, a storied unit that traced its lineage all the way back to 1789.  The regiment was now part of the new 1^st Armored Division.  That September, the division left Fort Knox, Kentucky on its way overseas to Northern Ireland.  Young and his comrades conducted additional training in the United Kingdom, but they didn’t remain there long. They were destined to take part in the first major Anglo-American invasion of the war, Operation TORCH, to seize French North Africa.

RESERVIST was the code name given the Allies’ attempt to seize intact the port of Oran on the Mediterranean coast of French Algeria.  It was timed to coincide with supporting Allied landings at Algiers to the east and on the Atlantic coast of French Morocco to the west.  RESERVIST was a British plan and was commanded by Royal Navy Captain Frederick Thornton Peters.  The French regard for their erstwhile British allies had been shattered by the Royal Navy’s attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria shortly after the French signed the armistice with Nazi Germany in  June 1940.  The British, fearful that the powerful fleet of their former ally would be turned over to the Germans, had attacked and sunk the French ships at the moorings.  For that reason, American troops were designated to lead the assault on Oran.  It was hoped that the French would give a friendlier welcome to Americans, that they might even refuse to fire.  To increase the chances of  such a reception, the American soldiers would be transported aboard two Great Lakes Coast Guard cutters which had been transferred to the Royal Navy under the Lend Lease program.  The two cutters, now under British command, had been renamed HMS Walney and HMS Hartland, but for this mission would fly large American flags.  The problem was that the invasion was scheduled to commence in the dark of night.  As British prime minister Winston Churchill warned, “In the night, all cats are grey.”

The other problem was that the British had already proven the folly of a frontal assault on a defended harbor.  The August raid on the French port of Dieppe had cost more than 3,500 Allied casualties, most of them Canadian.  Objections to the plan came from American flag officers in both the Army and Navy, led by Rear Admiral Andrew Bennett, the senior American officer in the Oran task force.  Bennett protested to General Eisenhower, Allied commander, that the plan was “suicidal and absolutely unsound.”  Despite these objections, Eisenhower supported the British scheme to seize Oran’s harbor before the French could sabotage it and render it unusable.

Walney and Hartland steamed out of Gibraltar on the night of November 7, so overloaded by the contingent of American soldiers that the ships wobbled badly across the sea.  At 0300 on November 8, the ships attempted to enter Oran’s harbor while broadcasting “Ne tirez pas.  Nous sommes vos amis”—“Do not shoot.  We are your friends.”  It didn’t work.

As Hartland attempted to ram its way through the double boom protecting the harbor, French shore batteries opened fire.  They were soon joined by French warships inside the port.  By 0400, both Hartland and Walney were sinking.  Casualties aboard the two ships topped ninety percent, a grisly score even more hideous than Dieppe’s.  The first major American casualties of the war in the European Theater came not at the hands of the hated Germans or the ridiculed Italians, but from the French, the first country to come to the aid of the newly independent United States in 1777.

Horace Hagood Young died on November 8, 1942.  He was awarded the Purple Heart and was survived by his mother.  He is memorialized at the North Africa American Military Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia.

By November 10, through diplomatic negotiations, the Allies induced the French to cease all resistance.  Eisenhower, in a private meeting with the British and American chiefs of staff, took responsibility for the disaster at Oran.  As historian Rick Atkinson writes, “No consequence attended the gesture.”

For more information about Private Horace Hagood Young, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/horace-h-young/

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

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

 

 

 

 

For a history of Operation RESERVIST see An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, by Rick Atkinson, Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

A Life of Service and Promise

Written by: Kelly Durham

Dewitt Javan Ross was arguably the outstanding member of an outstanding class, the Class of 1941.  Its ranks included not only campus leaders, but also men who would rise to high military rank in the coming World War and those who would go on to great success in business once peace returned.

“De” Ross came to Clemson from West Columbia and majored in textile engineering.  An outstanding student, he was selected as a member of the textile engineering honor society Phi Psi, as well as Phi Kappa Phi, the national scholarship honor society.  De was awarded the National Textile Association’s bronze medal as a senior.  He was recognized by his classmates as a leader, someone who, according to the 1941 Taps, could be counted on to handle problems arising from student activities.

Ross served across campus in a variety of leadership roles, from the Baptist Student Union, where he was elected vice president, to the Senior Council, and the YMCA Council.  He was a member of Blue Key and Tiger Brotherhood and served as a Commencement Marshal.

On a campus dominated by military routines, Ross may have shown most brightly in his performance as a cadet.

As a senior, he was named the commander of Clemson’s Cadet Brigade, with the rank of cadet colonel.  He was a member of the Senior Platoon, as one of the best-drilled cadets in his class.  He marched with the Pershing Rifles and was tapped for membership in Scabbard and Blade, the military honor society.

Following his graduation, Ross reported for active duty as a second lieutenant in the Army of the United States in September 1941.  The war in Europe was threatening to spread into the Western Hemisphere with US Navy destroyers now escorting merchant convoys into the North Atlantic—and facing off against German U-boats.

Ross was assigned to the 8^th Infantry Regiment of the 4^th Infantry Division.  In the fall of 1941, the Army, mindful that war with Germany seemed likely, was engaged in an unprecedented expansion.  The 4^th Infantry Division participated in the Carolina Maneuvers, large-scale exercises in October.  Training continued after the United States was attacked and formally entered the war in December.  The division moved to Camp Gordon, Georgia that same month.  The summer of 1942 found it back in the Carolinas for another round of maneuvers before relocating to Fort Dix, New Jersey in April 1943.  In September, the division was transported to Florida’s Camp Gordon Johnston for amphibious training.

By this time, Captain Ross was serving as the adjutant to Colonel James Van Fleet, commanding officer of the 8^th Infantry Regiment.  As adjutant, Ross assisted Van Fleet with the regiment’s administrative matters, to include personnel.

On Monday, November 8, 1943, Van Fleet and his staff, including Captain Ross, took a break from their arduous training.  The men relaxed at a swimming party at a river near Apalachicola on the coast of the Florida panhandle.  During the party, Dewitt Ross drowned, cutting short a life of service and promise.

Dewitt Ross was survived by his parents, sister, and brother, a member of the Naval Reserve then attending the Medical College of South Carolina.  He was buried at the West Columbia Baptist Church.  The honorary pall bearers included Dr. Robert Franklin Poole, president of Clemson College.

For more information about Dewitt Javan Ross see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/dewitt-javan-ross/

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

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

A New Kind of War

Written by: Kelly Durham

It was a new kind of war, one in which men soared above the battle lines in machines that few had ever seen and in which fewer still had ridden.  Heavier-than-air airplanes, which had not existed at all at the turn of the century, were now helping generals see beyond the horizon and were increasingly being used as aerial weapons to deliver death from above.  The United States had been slow to enter the Great War, joining Great Britain and France only in 1917.  It had also been slow to develop its own air power. When Congress declared war that April, the Army’s air power consisted of a small section within the Signal Corps composed of only twenty-six pilots.  Within months of America’s entrance into the war, Congress authorized $640 million, the largest appropriation in its history, for the construction of an air force.  Of course, all of these new  airplanes would need pilots.  That’s where Frank Salter would come in.

Frank Pierce Salter came to Clemson Agricultural College from the tiny crossroads of Trenton in Edgefield County.  Salter was a Chemistry major and was a member of the Dancing Club, Tennis Club, and Chemical Club.  He graduated in 1914.

Salter took a job as chief chemist for Buckeye Cotton Oil Company.  When America entered the war, Salter left his job and enlisted in the Army. By September 1918 he was training to be an Army pilot at Rich Field in Waco, Texas.  In a sign of the times, Salter, though only a private first class in rank, was a cadet pilot learning his new craft in a Curtiss JN-4 biplane.  Salter had already completed ten hours of solo flying when he took off for a training flight on September 12, 1918.  One of his objectives on this flight was to practice spin recovery.  Unfortunately, on this warm and pleasant evening, Salter’s wasn’t the only airplane in the sky over Rich Field.  Cadet Frank Oliver was also in the air, also flying a Curtiss biplane and, like Salter, also practicing spins.

At approximately 6:10 p.m., both cadets put their aircraft into spins, Salter spinning to the left and Oliver to the right—apparently contrary to instructions given him on the ground.  Neither pilot saw the other as the angles of their wings obstructed their vision.  The two airplanes collided in mid-air and plummeted to the ground.  Oliver was killed and Salter seriously injured. He died a short time later.

The board of officers investigating the accident judged it to have been avoidable and noted that Oliver’s spin to the right was “in disobedience to instructions.” But the board stopped short of pinning the blame for the tragedy on Oliver, saying “that it was impossible to determine if disobedience was willful or due to some necessity.”

Salter’s body was returned to Trenton and buried with full honors.  He was survived by his parents, three sisters, and two brothers, one fighting in France, the other a midshipman at Annapolis.

For more information on Frank Pierce Salter see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/frank-pierce-salter/

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

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

Engine Failure

Written by: Kelly Durham

Stuart Star Abell, Jr. came to Clemson in 1936 from the Chester County crossroads of Lowrys.  A member of the Class of 1940, Abell attended Clemson for two years and majored in agriculture.

By the summer of 1943, with the world at war, Abell had entered military service, volunteered for the Army Air Force, and earned both his pilot’s wings and a second lieutenant’s commission.

In this era of a small, all-volunteer military, it is challenging to imagine the size and scale of the United States military that in mid-1943 was still growing at a rapid pace.  New Army and Marine divisions were being activated, manned, and trained in preparation for the invasions still to come in both the Pacific and European theaters.  Factories and shipyards were turning out tanks, ships, and aircraft at a previously unimagined rate.  Training commands were tasked with preparing the young warriors who would ride these conveyances into battle.

Abell in that summer of 1943 was assigned to the 6^th Squadron, 2^nd Air Force based at Gowen Field near Boise, Idaho.  Army Air Force training was gradually shifting.  The activation of new bombardment groups and squadrons was slowing down, as more groups were being deployed to combat theaters.  The need now was to train replacement pilots and aircrew members to replace combat losses.  Airmen trained at Gowen would be shipped into existing bombardment groups in Europe or the Pacific after they completed their training on the types of aircraft they would crew in combat operations.

On the afternoon of August 16, 1943, Abell was assigned as the copilot on a B-24E Liberator heavy bomber piloted by Second Lieutenant John W. Erb.  The afternoon mission was a routine gunnery training flight.  Five members of the ten-man crew of the big bomber manned fifty-caliber machine guns with which to protect their ship from enemy fighters.  This would be another opportunity for these aerial gunners to hone their skills.

The B-24 took off from runway 28E at 1639 hours in what at first appeared to be a normal takeoff.  The landing gear was retracted and at about 600 feet above the ground the airplane began to slowly bank to the left.  The bank quickly developed into a tight spiral as the airplane lost altitude and struck the ground nose-first.

The post-crash investigation revealed the pilot or copilot may have let the RPM on engines “#1 and #2 get too low when decreasing power after takeoff. As a result, it is possible that engine failure was encountered or that the pilot became confused and feathered #2 engine.  In any event, the loss of power in #1 and #2 engines appears to have caused the ship to crash.”  All ten aboard the aircraft were killed.

Abell was survived by his parents, a sister, and a brother.  His remains were returned to Lowrys where he was buried at Zion Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

For more information on Second Lieutenant Stuart Star Abell, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/stuart-star-abell-jr/

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

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

Ball Turret Gunner

Written by: Kelly Durham

Dock Graham Thomas, Jr. attended Clemson as a freshman during the 1940-1941 academic year.  An English major from Greenville, Thomas was a member of the Class of 1944.  We know little about his Clemson career.

After leaving campus, Thomas volunteered for the Army Air Force and was trained as an aerial gunner.  By mid-1943, he was part of the 8^th Air Force and on the frontlines of America’s fight against Germany in the skies over Europe.

Thomas was assigned to the 432^nd Bomb Squadron of the 306^th Bomb Group (Heavy), flying B-17 Flying Fortresses from Thurleigh, about sixty-five miles north-northwest of London.  The 306^th was one of the first bomb groups to deploy to England, arriving in the autumn of 1942 and flying its first combat mission in October.  In January 1943, the 306^th participated in the first penetration into Germany by 8^th Air Force heavy bombers.  This was a period of evolving doctrine for the 8^th Air Force. It was committed to the concept of massed, self-defending formations of heavily armed bombers flying daylight missions in order to deliver bomb loads with precision against specific military targets.

Staff Sergeant Thomas was the ball turret gunner on a B-17 piloted by 2^nd Lieutenant Easley Courson.  Thomas’s turret hung from the belly of the aircraft and was often the domain of the smallest man on the crew due to the tight confines of the forty-two inch diameter turret.  The gunner lay with his eye to his gunsight and his hands on the turret’s hydraulic controls.  His job was to protect the bomber from enemy aircraft attacking from below.

On July 26, 1943, Courson’s crew took off from Thurleigh for a bombardment mission to strike the Limmer synthetic rubber factory at Hanover, Germany.  One hundred nineteen B-17s took off, but by the time they reached the target, more than twenty of the bombers had turned back due to mechanical issues or combat damage.  Ninety-six bombers dropped their bombs on the target beginning at about noon.  Shortly after releasing its bomb load, Thomas’s aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire, damaging the tail. Courson turned the aircraft west, back toward England.

Over the Netherlands, Thomas’s injured ship was attacked by a German fighter, a Messerschmidt Bf-109 piloted by Luftwaffe Major Anton Mader.  Mader’s attack finished off the aircraft, setting it on fire.  The crew, even Thomas from his constricted turret, was able to bail out and witnesses counted ten parachutes.  Seven of the crew landed safely and were taken prisoner by the Germans, but Thomas and two other crew members died, perhaps from wounds suffered during the anti-aircraft or fighter attacks.

Staff Sergeant Thomas was awarded the Purple Heart.  He is buried in the American Military Cemetery, Margraten, Netherlands.

For more information about Dock Graham Thomas, Jr. see:
https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/dock-graham-thomas-jr/

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

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

A Time of Transition

Written by: Kelly Durham

The end of World War II was a time of transition on the Clemson College campus. The fall semester of 1945 brought a 40 percent increase in the student body as many young men returned from war armed with the educational benefits of the GI Bill.  The mix of returning veterans and traditional students caused college administrators to reconsider the school’s requirements for participation in military training: veterans were exempted.  The war years had interrupted the traditional flow of students to Clemson and fifty-six percent of the students on campus during the spring semester were freshmen, members of the Class of 1949.  One of these was James Henry Pressley, Jr. from Americus, Georgia.

Pressley spent two years on campus before leaving Clemson and joining the Navy.  Like the rest of the country, the Navy was also transitioning from war to peace and, like Clemson, it was involved in a significant restructuring.  The National Security Act of 1947 merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into what became the Department of Defense.  The new law also created a separate Air Force, the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency.  Unification of the national military establishment was deemed critical to help the United States face emerging threats as the Cold War continued to escalate.

Cold War tensions were heightened over the fate of eastern European countries now firmly under the control of the Soviet Union.  The United States had helped rebuild western Europe—including former foes Germany and Italy—and continued to promote collective defense of the continent through the 1949 establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO.  France was one of the key participants in NATO.

By June 1954, Pressley had attained the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) and was serving as a flight instructor at the Navy’s aviation training command at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.  Pressley conducted advanced flight training in the single-engine SNJ-4 aircraft manufactured by North American Aviation.

On June 29, 1945, Pressley was instructing a French aviation cadet in the SNJ-4.  Approximately one-quarter mile from Kings Field, Florida, the aircraft went out of control and crashed.  Pressley was killed instantly.  The French cadet was seriously injured and died a short time later.

Pressley was survived by his wife, Margaret, his parents, and sister. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. For more information about James Henry Pressley, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/james-henry-pressley-jr/

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

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

 

 

 

 

A Special Memorial Day

Written by: Kelly Durham

Next Monday is Memorial Day, a day on which we honor those who died while serving our country in its armed forces.  This year, Memorial Day weekend on the Clemson campus will include a special ceremony at the Scroll of Honor Memorial as we add Philip Aaron Porter to the names engraved around the Memorial’s barrow.  The service, to which the public is invited, will begin at 4 p.m. this Sunday.

Porter’s story is unusual in several aspects:  his passing is the most recent among all the heroes listed on Clemson’s Scroll of Honor; his military service predated his enrollment at and graduation from Clemson; and his sacrifice was not the result of a sudden catastrophe on the field of battle, but rather the consequence  of an insidious affliction incurred while serving in a Third World combat zone.

Porter was born in Easley and grew up in Pickens.  Following high school, he enlisted in the Army in August 1991.  After completing basic training at Fort Jackson, Porter trained to become a radio operator.  He also earned his parachutist jump wings.  With this training behind him, Porter was assigned to the elite 75^th Ranger Regiment.

In December 1992, President George H. W. Bush ordered the US military to join United Nations Operation Restore Hope to stabilize order in Somalia.  That country had been racked by famine and civil war and was being ruled by competing warlords.  When President Bill Clinton took office the following month, he maintained the American commitment.

In May 1993, the parties involved in the civil war agreed to a disarmament conference proposed by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who had declared himself Somalia’s president.  But on June 5, UN forces were ambushed in Aidid-controlled Mogadishu and twenty-four Pakistani soldiers were killed.  The next day, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 837 calling for the arrest and trial of those responsible for the ambush.  Despite attacks on his stronghold by UN troops and US warplanes, Aidid remained defiant.

Following two more ambushes targeting American troops, President Clinton authorized the deployment of Task Force Ranger, consisting of four hundred Army Rangers and Delta Force operators.  Specialist Porter served with Task Force Ranger from August to October 1993 during what came to be known as the Battle of Mogadishu.  The fighting, in what was considered the most difficult close combat US troops had participated in since the Vietnam War, resulted in the apprehension of key Aidid allies but also the deaths of eighteen US, one Malaysian, and one Pakistani soldier.

During the course of the battle, Porter, on October 3 and 4, was engaged in the fighting.  According to the citation for his Joint Services Commendation Medal,

Porter helped his element fight through two ambushes and a roadblock, then met another Task Force Ranger element coming back from the objective with casualties… He quickly helped transfer them into the 5-ton he was traveling in, secured the area… all while under sporadic enemy fire.

Yet Porter’s heroic actions exacted a price.  During his active duty, Porter suffered a back injury that manifested as a protruding disc.  This injury was diagnosed by the Army prior to Porter’s honorable discharge from the service in May 1995.  Medications used to treat these issues brought on further health problems.

Despite these issues, Porter enrolled at Clemson in 1997, pursuing a degree in horticulture with a minor in urban forestry.  While attending Clemson, Porter worked to help restore the Schoenike Arboretum at the SC Botanical Garden.  He later served as Arboretum Manager. Professor Mary Taylor Haque remembers Porter as “strong, robust, and active.  What an addition he was to the Clemson University Department of Horticulture, the South Carolina Botanical Garden, and the surrounding community… He was always kind, caring, well-mannered, and supportive of his colleagues.”  Karl Pokorny, a friend who worked with Porter at Clemson, recalled Porter as “an honest, loyal friend; the kind of guy who would throw himself on a hand grenade to save you.  He was brave, a true gentleman, and patriot.  He applied himself to and studied everything he took an interest in and worked hard.  Doing tree jobs with him was more fun than work.”

Continued treatment of Porter’s service-related conditions eventually led to the diagnosis of an even more serious infection, like the others connected to his time on active duty.  Veterans Administration doctors determined that conditions in Somalia, including the lack of clean drinking water and exposure to environmental toxins released into the air by the burning of tires—a tactic used by Somali militias to block roads—aggravated Porter’s afflictions.

Despite his bravery and toughness, Porter was unable to overcome these hidden enemies.  He died on April 21, 2020.  He was survived by his wife, Tiffany, and sons Eli and Grayson.  He is memorialized at the Dolly Cooper Veterans Cemetery in Anderson.

With his passing, Pokorny says, “The world lost one of the good guys – in fact, one of the best of the good guys.“

For more information about Philip Aaron Porter see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/philip-aaron-porter/

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fatal Formation

Written by: Kelly Durham

There was a threat of war in Europe in the fall of 1938 as Lewis Bryson Lawter and the Class of 1942 enrolled on the Clemson College campus.  Hitler was pressing for control of the Sudetenland, the eastern portion of Czechoslovakia inhabited largely by ethnic Germans.  When British and French leaders appeased the German dictator by giving in to his demands—without the consent of their Czech ally—war was avoided.  The danger must have seemed remote to Lawter and his classmates, but it would soon ensnare most of them in ways they could hardly imagine.

Lawter, an English major from Spartanburg, remained at Clemson for only his freshman year.  Instead of returning to school, he took a job with a sheet metal business.  The war that had only threatened in 1938 erupted in 1939 and by the end of 1941 had embroiled most of the globe. Lawter enlisted in the Army Air Force one month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Lawter showed aptitude and was accepted into navigator training.  He was commissioned and awarded his navigator’s wings at Turner Field in Albany, Georgia on September 2, 1942.  Two days later, back in Spartanburg, Lawter married Sarah Frances Kinsland.

Lawter and his crew were assigned to the 489^th Bomb Squadron of the 340^th Bomb Group, since March 1943 operating from Sfax, Tunisia.  The 489^th flew B-25 Mitchell medium bombers on missions in support of Allied forces squeezing the remaining German and Italian defenders of North Africa between Montgomery’s Eighth Army in the east and Eisenhower’s Anglo-American forces closing in from the west.

Lawter, flying as the navigator on Major Cyrus Whittington’s crew, had completed three combat missions when, on Easter Sunday, April 25, 1943, the crew was alerted for its next mission.  Flying in “Little Joe,” Whittington led his tight formation of bombers off the runway and into the sky.  Suddenly, the next aircraft in the formation flew upward and into the tail of “Little Joe,” wrecking it and sending both aircraft plummeting to the ground where the impact caused their bomb loads to explode.  All eleven crew members on the two airplanes were killed in the disaster, the 489^th Squadron’s first combat deaths.

Lawter’s remains were recovered and buried with full military honors in a British cemetery in the Tunisian desert.  After the war, Lawter’s body was returned to Spartanburg and interred in Greenlawn Memorial Gardens.  Lawter was survived by his wife, his parents, and a sister.

For more information on Lieutenant Lewis Bryson Lawter, see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/lewis-bryson-lawter/

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

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu

 

 

 

 

Recalled to Duty

Written by: Kelly Durham

William Clyde Preacher of Ridgeland was older than most of his classmates, but there was a reason for that. Billy, as he was known to his friends, entered Clemson College as an animal husbandry major after serving from 1948 to 1949 as a paratrooper in the 11^th Airborne Division based in occupied Japan. A veteran, Billy was exempt from military training, yet he enrolled in advanced ROTC as an upperclassman.

At six feet, one inch in height and weighing 195 pounds, Preacher was an end on coach Frank Howard’s football team, earning a letter his senior season.  Teammate Richard Sublette remembered Billy as “a great player.”  The Tigers’ 7-3 record in 1951 included a 34-0 shellacking of Auburn and a trip to the Gator Bowl.

After graduating from Clemson in February 1952, Billy was ordered to active duty.  He was assigned to Baker Company of the  32^nd Infantry Regiment, 7^th Infantry Division then fighting in the stalemate that had settled over the Korean peninsula.

The war started when North Korean troops flooded across the 38^th Parallel dividing North from South Korea in June 1950.  United Nations forces held on to the Pusan Perimeter until the bold Inchon landings in September turned the tide of battle.  For two years, Communist forces including North Korean, Chinese and Soviet troops battled United Nations troops back and forth across the peninsula, capturing and retreating over the same ground on repeated occasions.  Old Baldy, a key terrain feature in west-central Korea, was the site of five major engagements, the last of which raged from March 23 to 26, 1953.

The 7^th Infantry Division was augmented by a Colombian infantry battalion, the only South American ground unit to fight in Korea.  Placed on the front line within the 31^st Infantry Regiment, the Colombians endured repeated heavy Chinese attacks, holding the line and preventing penetration of the division’s front.  On March 24, at the height of the battle, Billy Preacher led his platoon in an attack on enemy positions on Old Baldy.  Preacher “received a severe blast injury” from enemy artillery and was twice knocked unconscious.  Despite his injuries, Preacher rallied his men, refusing medical evacuation. Preacher “was valiantly leading his men in the attack, encouraging and rallying them to put forth their utmost efforts.”  Billy Preacher was twenty-five years old when he was killed in action.  For his gallant leadership under fire, Preacher was awarded the Silver Star.

Billy Preacher’s body was returned to the United States and buried at Ridgeland Cemetery.  He was survived by his mother, sister, and brother, then an Army lieutenant at Fort Jackson.

For more information on William Clyde Preacher see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/william-clyde-preacher/

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

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