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

Chemist in Battle

Written by: Kelly Durham

After his 1935 graduation from Greenville High School, Henry Ayer Raysor II headed to Clemson College. Over the next four years, as Raysor worked toward his degree in Chemistry, the world inched ever closer to war.

Harry Raysor marched with the Freshman Platoon and served as a member of the staff of The Tiger, the college’s student newspaper.  He was a member of the Greenville County Club and Alpha Chi Sigma, the national professional chemistry fraternity.  Harry was awarded a degree in Chemistry in 1939.  That degree set his life on a course that would end in war.

Harry married Melba Burgess in June 1940 and in November was called to military service.  Second Lieutenant Raysor reported to the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service.  Following the United States’ entry into the war, Harry was assigned to the 3^rd Chemical Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia.  The battalion was equipped with 4.2 inch mortars for firing chemicals, smoke, and high explosive rounds in support of infantry operations.  Following stateside training, the battalion shipped to North Africa in April 1943, joining the 3^rd Infantry Division in time for its participation in the July invasion of Sicily.  According to Harry’s classmate James Sweeney, the 3^rd Chemical Battalion was released to the II Corps reserve within a few days of the Sicily landings.  The battalion’s soldiers were put to work guarding POW camps and supply depots, but their time in combat was not over: the invasion of Italy loomed just ahead.

The 3^rd Infantry Division landed at Salerno, Italy in September 1943 with Raysor’s 3^rd Chemical Battalion once more in support.  By January 1944, General Mark Clark’s Italian campaign had bogged down into a costly slugfest as the Americans battled entrenched German defenders and harsh winter weather.  Harry Raysor, now a captain, was the commanding officer of the 3^rd Chemical Battalion’s C Company.  On the morning of January 12, Raysor was sheltered in a building near the village of Cerasuolo when a German air raid commenced.  Raysor’s building was hit by a German bomb and he was killed.  On January 17, Raysor’s body was interred in a temporary military cemetery in Marzenello, Italy.

After the war, Raysor’s remains were returned to Greenville and buried in the Woodlawn Memorial Park.  Captain Raysor was survived by his widow and son, his parents, and a sister. For more information on Captain Henry Ayer Raysor II see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/henry-ayer-raysor-ii/

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

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

Just before Thanksgiving of this year an anonymous donor left a box of World War II era medals at the Hospice Store in Greenwood, SC.  No one at the store knows who brought in the medals but when they noticed a name, Lt. Comdr. John E. Muldrow USN (class of 1937), engraved on one of the medals, one of the employees decided to “google” the name on the internet.  Her search quickly found the name on the Clemson University Scroll of Honor Memorial (SOHM) website.  She reached out to Clemson Alumni through a contact email listed on the website.  Commander Dave Lyle, USN Retired, a member of The Clemson Corps alumni group has been researching the heroes on the SOHM for 10 years.  He contacted Ms. Kim Mays, the manager at the Hospice Store, to determine what they wanted to do with the medals.  The medals included the Navy Cross (second in precedence only to the Medal of Honor), two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Air Medals, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.  It was later discovered LCDR Muldrow was actually awarded 5 Air Medals.

Ms. Mays said they wanted to find a home for the medals, preferably descendants or family members who are still living.  CDR Lyle contacted a colleague, Brigadier General Charles King, USAF Retired, who had done a lot of research for the Clemson Scroll of Honor alumni profile of LCDR Muldrow since they were both from Bishopville, SC.  He had been in touch with several members of the Muldrow family in 2013 as he was researching both LCDR John E. Muldrow, Jr. and his first cousin SGT Henry G. Muldrow, Jr. (class of 1938), US Army Air Force.  Most of BGen King’s Muldrow family contacts have passed away, but he was able to find family members in New Mexico, Texas and South Carolina.  One of the surviving family members is John Ellison Muldrow, whose father, a cousin of LCDR Muldrow, named his son after the fallen Commander.  BGen King plans to give the medals to the LCDR’s namesake in New Mexico, with the request that Mr. Muldrow will lend them temporarily to the Lee County Veterans Museum in Bishopville for special events.

LCDR John Muldrow was killed in action on May 9, 1945 near the end of his second combat tour in the Pacific when his PB4Y-2 Privateer four-engine patrol bomber was shot down during an attack on Japanese held Marcus Island.  LCDR Muldrow’s first cousin, SGT Henry G. Muldrow, Jr., was killed during a bombing raid over Germany in February 1945 and is buried at the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Belgium.

We want to thank Ms. Mays and everyone else at the Hospice Store for their initiative in finding out more about the hero who earned these medals and in doing so preserving a little part of history.

You can learn more about LCDR Muldrow on the Clemson Scroll of Honor Memorial website at

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/john-ellison-muldrow-jr/.  You can also learn about other Clemson heroes at https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/. 

Winter War

Written by: Kelly Durham

Carl Long, Jr. of Saluda attended Clemson College from 1936 to 1938, majoring in agronomy.  Following his stint on campus, Long was employed by Saluda Hosiery Mill, one of the dozens of textile plants which employed the majority of manufacturing workers in the state.  A newspaper article described Long as “a promising young businessman from a prominent family.”

Long entered military service in January 1941. America’s first peace-time draft had been implemented and thousands of young men from all over the country were being called to active duty for training.

Long didn’t have far to travel. He reported for basic training at Fort Jackson, then home of the 118^th Infantry Regiment of the 30^th Infantry Division.  Long’s next assignment was farther afield.  Iceland, where he was deployed for fourteen months, must have seemed a world removed from Fort Jackson and nearby Columbia.  While in Iceland, Long earned “high esteem and praise” from his commanding officer, traits which were likely factors in his being ordered to Fort Benning, Georgia for Officer Candidate School.

By this time, the war was in full swing and the Army had great need for capable young officers.  Long received his second lieutenant’s commission and was next assigned to Camp Blanding in Florida and then Camp Rucker, Alabama.

He was ordered overseas and assigned to the 13^th Infantry Regiment of the 8^th Infantry Division which had crossed Utah Beach in early July 1944 and was then attacking the French coastal city of Brest.  Long was wounded, awarded a Purple Heart, and promoted to first lieutenant for “meritorious service” in battle.

After liberating Brest, the 8^th Infantry Division turned east and began a steady advance across France and into Luxembourg.  By the end of November, the division had been committed to the ongoing battle in the Hürtgen Forest, inside Germany itself.  In cold, wet, often snowy weather, the 8^th continued to push eastward into the teeth of fierce German resistance.  Poor weather minimized the American advantage in airpower while the rugged terrain favored the well-fortified defenders.

On December 26, 1944, Long died of wounds suffered in Germany. He was survived by his parents, who were notified of their son’s death three weeks later.  Long was also survived by his brother, grandfather, and three uncles.

For more information about First Lieutenant Carl Long, Jr. see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/carl-long-jr/

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

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

Over Over There

Written by Kelly Durham

One hundred two years ago today, the Great War ended.  As the clock ticked its way to 11 am on the 11^th day of the 11^th month, the World War stumbled to its deadly conclusion.  The fighting was over—but not the dying.

Among those celebrating the end of the War-to-End-All-Wars were the men of the 85^th Aero Squadron.  Only the previous day, the 85^th had flown its first mission over enemy lines reconnoitering the railway yards at Conflans-en-Jarnisy.  One of the 85^th’s pilots was First Lieutenant Henry Lee Suggs, Clemson College Class of 1916.

Suggs had enjoyed a distinguished collegiate career after arriving on the tiny campus in northwestern South Carolina in the fall of 1912.  An electrical and mechanical engineering major from York, “Hawkshaw,” as he was nicknamed by his fellow cadets, served as president of the Wade Hampton Literary Society, president of the Junior Science Club, and president of the York County Club.  He was a member of the Tiger staff, the Thalian Dancing Club, and the Senior Banquet Committee.  He also found time to play football.  As a guard, said to be the strongest man on the team, he helped anchor the line of a Clemson squad that never yielded more than fourteen points in a single contest all season.  In 1915, Suggs’s senior season, the Tigers battled Davidson to a six-all tie in the very first game played on Riggs Field.

Upon Suggs’s graduation, Taps, the cadet yearbook wrote that “Since he is a man of such great ability, we can but predict for him boundless success…” Suggs enlisted in the Army in May 1917 and earned his commission after completing officer training.

Following the armistice, the 85^th Aero Squadron remained in France, undertaking aerial photography of the Hindenburg Line of defensive positions along the border between Germany and France.  On December 18, forty-five minutes into an observation mission near Toul, Suggs’s plane went into a spin and crashed.  Suggs was picked up alive and taken to a field hospital where he died that same day.

Suggs’s remains were returned to the United States in June 1919 and he was buried at Bethel Presbyterian Cemetery in Clover.  He was survived by his mother and two brothers.

For additional information on First Lieutenant Henry Lee Suggs, see:

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/henry-lee-suggs/

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

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

From Blue to Gold

Written by: Kelly Durham

Mrs. Broadus Connell must have felt both pride and anxiety.  Four of her five sons were serving in the armed forces.  That gave her the right to display Blue Stars in the window of her home in Camden.

One of the stars represented the Connell’s son Ivey, a twenty-three-year-old first lieutenant assigned to the 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment.  Ivey, a member of the Class of 1943, had attended Clemson from 1939 to 1940 and had studied vocational agricultural education.  He entered military service with the National Guard and by September 1943 was a mortar platoon leader in the Army’s first paratrooper division, the famous “All American” 82^nd Airborne.

The 82^nd had been activated in March 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana under the command of Major General Omar Bradley.  In August, the division, now commanded by Matthew Ridgway, was designated “airborne.”  In the spring of 1943, the 82^nd was sent overseas, landing in North Africa.  The division’s first combat jump was into Sicily as part of the invasion force on July 9, 1943.  Once Sicily was secured, American forces under the command of General Mark Clark prepared for the invasion of Italy.

Clark’s Fifth Army landed at Salerno on September 9 and began a desperate battle to secure a beachhead against determined German defenders.  On September 13, clinging tenaciously to a shortened perimeter, Clark called on the 82^nd for a night drop.  One of the division’s regiments jumped that night.  Ivey Connell’s 505^th followed the next night.  By the end of the day, the beachhead was declared secure.

Connell’s regiment was involved in reconnaissance actions from early morning on October 5 as the various companies sent out patrols to ascertain enemy strength and positions.  By afternoon, companies from the Second Battalion were in contact with the enemy.  Connell’s 81 mm mortar platoon was providing fire support.

Connell shifted his platoon to a position from which to provide more effective covering fire for a parachute infantry company attempting to withdraw.  He established an observation post from which he could direct fire.  He was killed when an enemy mortar shell landed on his position. According to the citation for his Silver Star decoration, Connell’s “courageous action contributed to the successful withdrawal of our forces and is a credit to the services.”

Connell was survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Broadus Connell; his brother Norman, then also a first lieutenant with the paratroopers in Italy; brother Stephen, a corporal with the paratroop forces in England; brother Roddy, a sergeant with a tank destroyer unit in Alabama; one other brother and two sisters.  With Ivey’s death, one of the family’s Blue Stars was replaced with a Gold one.  In addition to the Silver Star, Ivey was awarded the Purple Heart.  After the war, his body was returned to Camden where it was buried in the Wateree Baptist Church Cemetery.

For more information about First Lieutenant Ivey Kiben Connell, see:

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/ivey-kiben-connell/

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

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Special thanks to Rafael Alvarez, Museum Technician, 82d Airborne Division Museum.

“Brown-Water” Soldier

Written by: Kelly Durham

The Vietnam War recalls images of soldiers and Marines trudging through thick jungles and wading through rice paddies.  But, for a small number of soldiers, this war was fought from a boat.

William Raymond Yongue, a member of the Class of 1964 from Chester, was a member of the “brown-water navy,” the “Riverines.”  Composed of Army and Navy units, the Riverines were formed based on the experiences of the French in their Indochina War.  The Riverines engaged in both transport and combat missions along the waterways of the Mekong River Delta.  Yongue’s assignment to the 1097^th Transportation Boat Company seems strangely appropriate—he had been born in February 1941 in Honolulu where his father was serving in the Navy.

Yongue attended Clemson for three years before joining the National Guard.  He earned his second lieutenant’s commission from the Palmetto Military Academy at Fort Jackson and volunteered for active duty.  He was ordered to active duty in January 1967 and by that summer had arrived in Vietnam.

The 1097^th Medium Boat Company had arrived in Vietnam at the end of May 1965.  In June of 1967, it moved to Dong Tam where it was assigned to support the operations of the Army’s 9^th Infantry Division.  The 1097^th was the only tactical boat company in the Army’s Transportation Corps.  Its mission was to tow artillery barges supporting the division’s artillery operations.

Yongue’s company utilized LCM-8 flat bottom boats designed for use in rough or exposed waters.  Its four-foot, six-inch draft made it ideal for use in the delta’s maze of waterways. LCM-8s were propelled by four Detroit Diesel boat engines.  Its propellers were protected by a skeg assembly.  Even so, trouble on the river was never far away.

On Tuesday, September 26, 1967, Yongue’s boat was patrolling in the Mekong Delta.  One of the craft’s propeller became fouled by an underwater obstruction.  Yongue dived overboard in an attempt to diagnose the problem and free the propeller.  He never resurfaced.  Initially declared “Missing In Action,” Yongue’s body was later recovered.

Yongue was survived by his parents and two brothers, one of whom was then a captain serving at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  Yongue was the recipient of the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation with Palm, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.  He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

For more information about First Lieutenant William Raymond Yongue see:

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/william-raymond-yongue/

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

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

Cut Short

Written by: Kelly Durham

The headlines in The Tiger campus newspaper in August 1941 included nothing about the war that had been raging in Europe for nearly two years, nothing about the war in China which had been going on even longer.  Lawrence Aldine Bearden and the other new “rats” arriving at Clemson College as members of the Class of 1945 were treated to the exciting news that $110,000 in bonds had been sold to fund “Clemson’s long-cherished project—the construction of a 20,000 seat capacity modern stadium.”

Bearden, a native of Westminster, came to Clemson from Greensboro, North Carolina to major in Textiles.  While he and his classmates would in fact see the dedication of the new stadium during the 1942 season, by the following spring, they would be trading cadet gray for the khaki of the armed forces.

The end of the 1942-43 academic year brought great changes to campus.  In order to keep pace with the manpower demands of the rapidly expanding US military, graduating seniors who had completed ROTC training were assigned to Officers’ Candidate Schools (OCS).   The academic careers of underclassmen, like Bearden, were cut short as cadets were ordered to active duty.  Those who performed well in basic training were given the opportunity to advance to OCS.

Bearden’s record earned him an officer’s commission in the Army Air Force.  By the summer of 1944, Bearden had qualified for the most coveted job in the military—fighter pilot!

By August, Bearden was assigned to the 369^th Fighter Squadron of the 359^th Fighter Group.  The 369^th was flying America’s newest and best fighter, the P-51 Mustang.  The Mustang had superb flying characteristics plus the range to accompany US 8^th Air Force heavy bombers all the way to their targets and back.  This greatly reduced the numbers of the bigger, slower bombers that fell victim to German fighters.

On August 10, 1944, Second Lieutenant Bearden took off with other aircraft on a local training flight from the 369^th’s home airfield at East Wretham in Norfolk County, England.  Bearden was flying Darlin’ Earline, the aircraft usually assigned to Lieutenant Ferris Suttle.  While flying in a string formation at approximately 8,000 feet, Bearden’s aircraft left the formation and then dove into the ground near the village of Garboldisham, less than eight miles from the base.  The Army Air Force accident report failed to determine the cause of the crash, but the result was obvious enough:  Bearden was killed and the Mustang destroyed.

Second Lieutenant Lawrence Aldine Bearden was buried at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England.

For more information about Lawrence Aldine Bearden visit:

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/lawrence-aldine-bearden/

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

http://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/

On His Way

Written by: Kelly Durham

John Dendy McBrearty was a young man on his way.  After graduating from high school in Pelzer in 1931, he enrolled at Clemson College as a general science/pre-medical major.  As a Clemson cadet he was promoted to corporal in H Company as a sophomore and served as a sergeant in I Company the following year.  He also served as a member of the Junior Council before transferring to the Medical College of South Carolina to continue his studies.

Following his June 1938 graduation from the Medical College, McBrearty interned at Greenville General Hospital where he endeared himself to the members of the staff by the faithful performance of his duties.  He joined the Medical Reserve Corps as soon as he was qualified.  McBrearty, a member of the Greenville County Medical Society, practiced medicine in Williamston for two-and-a-half years before being called to active duty.

McBrearty entered the Army and reported to Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas in preparation to becoming an Army Air Force flight surgeon.  McBrearty was soon transferred to Tulane University in New Orleans and then was attached to the Anti-Submarine Command in New York.

On July 22, 1943, Captain McBrearty was flying with pilot Second Lieutenant Neal T. Bish on a routine training flight in a UC-78 Bobcat.  The Bamboo Bomber, as it was also known, featured wooden wings and tail surfaces, a welded steel-tube fuselage covered with a wooden and fabric skin, a single low wing, and two engines.  The aircraft was primarily used for personnel transportation, liaison and communications flights.

Bish’s and McBrearty’s aircraft was about twelve miles from Albany, New York when it encountered difficulties in a summer storm.  It crashed near Earlton, killing all on board.  The aircraft was destroyed by fire.

John Dendy McBrearty was survived by his wife, the former Sarah Hepburn of Florence, his mother, and a sister.  He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

For more information about Captain John Dendy McBrearty see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/john-dendy-mcbrearty/

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

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/ 

Non-Battle Death

There were surely many ways to die in World War II.  The National World War II Museum estimates that sixty million died world-wide during the conflict, a staggering figure that includes forty-five million civilians.  The United States military recorded 416,800 deaths and while most of these were attributable to enemy action, a startling 83,400 fell into the category of  “nonbattle deaths.”

Thomas Albert McTeer of McClellanville was a member of Clemson’s Class of 1942—the first class to graduate following America’s entrance into the war.  McTeer was an honor student in civil engineering who served as vice president of the campus chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.  He was a member of the Episcopal Student Association and marched with the Sophomore, Junior and Senior Platoons.  He completed ROTC summer training and qualified as an expert on the firing range.

The son of a Great War veteran, McTeer’s parents must have felt a mixture of pride and trepidation when their older son entered the Army following graduation.  Lieutenant McTeer trained at Camp Blanding, Florida and participated in maneuvers at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts before shipping overseas to North Africa in May 1943.

McTeer was assigned to the 111^th Engineers Combat Battalion, a unit of the 36^th Infantry Division.  The 36^th was a Texas National Guard outfit called to federal service.

On June 25, 1943, McTeer died in North Africa of gunshot wounds.  He was awarded a Purple Heart, but the cause of his wounds is not known and his death was listed as “nonbattle.”  Nonbattle deaths included those resulting from vehicle accidents, airplane crashes, illness, disease, and other causes not occurring from enemy action.

Thomas Albert McTeer was buried in the North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial, Carthage, Tunisia.  He was survived by his parents and his younger brother.

For additional information on Lieutenant McTeer see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/thomas-albert-mcteer/

For more information on Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor see:

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

Target Tokyo

The night was filled with the roar of more than two thousand powerful Wright-Cyclone 2,200 horsepower engines as the bombers lined up along the miles of Tinian’s taxiways.  Five hundred sixty-two B-29 Super Fortresses assigned to the mission would begin taking off at 2100 hours, turn north, and fly fourteen hundred miles above the trackless Pacific Ocean to strike the target: Tokyo.  Staff Sergeant John Walker Stalnaker of Ninety Six, a member of Clemson College’s interrupted Class of 1946, was the flight engineer on the B-29 nicknamed The Gamecock.

Stalnaker had enrolled at Clemson as an architecture major in the late summer of 1942.  The United States was already at war and rumors about the cadets’ futures ricocheted all around campus.  In the middle of the spring semester of 1943, the rumors were swept away by fact.  All underclassmen would be ordered to active duty at the end of the academic year.

Stalnaker found himself in the Army Air Force.  He trained on the most complex and expensive weapons system of World War II, the B-29 bomber, the development of which, at $3 billion, exceeded even the cost of the top-secret Manhattan Project with which it would soon be linked.  The B-29 had been engineered by Boeing to meet Army Air Force needs for a longer range bomber to cover the vast distances encountered in the Pacific Theater.  The aircraft was bigger, faster, could carry more bombs, and fly greater distances than the B-17s and B-24s used in Europe.  It combined a pressurized cabin with state-of-the art weapons systems, including a centrally-controlled gunnery system that allowed two men to operate four machine gun turrets.

The May 23, 1945 raid would feature the largest number of B-29s to take part in a single mission in the entire Pacific war.  Stalnaker’s B-29 was manned by a crew of eleven and was piloted by Second Lieutenant Robert T. Boggan.  Stalnaker’s position was directly behind the copilot in the aircraft’s forward compartment.  His job included the in-flight monitoring of the four sophisticated engines as well as all the other mechanical, hydraulic, and electrical systems on the aircraft.

The objective for the mission was Tokyo harbor.  The bombers would drop incendiary bombs from altitudes of eight to eleven thousand feet.  Arriving over the target from the west in the early hours of May 24, the bombers were greeted by an estimated one hundred fifty searchlights, a few enemy fighters, and intense anti-aircraft artillery fire.  In clear weather, with good visibility, many of the aircraft were struck and damaged by enemy fire.  Stalnaker’s bomber was one of these.

The Gamecock took a direct hit in its number four engine.  Boggan was unable to control the aircraft.  Three members of the crew—all gunners with duty positions farther to the rear of the aircraft—were able to bail out of the stricken bomber.  They were captured by the Japanese and spent the remaining three months of the war as POWs.  The other members of the crew, including Stalnaker, were killed.

After the war, Stalnaker’s remains were returned to the United States and reinterred at Elmwood Cemetery in Ninety Six.

For more information about John Walker Stalnaker see:

https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/john-walker-stalnaker/

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

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