Special Edition: Memorial Scroll of Honor - Each Hero has His Own Story - Part 3

Each hero has his own story.  These are a few from the Memorial Scroll of Honor.

WORLD WAR II

When the US declared war on Germany, the entire senior class of 1917 volunteered en masse to President Woodrow Wilson to serve in the military.  The Trustees in turn honored their commitment to duty to their country by authorizing the faculty to "graduate ahead of time all members of the class that might be called into service and had a satisfactory student record." 

Read the story of the Class of 1917.
http://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=history_pubs

Of the twenty-seven on the Scroll of Honor, twelve died of the Spanish influenza or pneumonia during the world wide epidemic of that period.  Private Robert Atkinson, a member of the Student Training Corps, died in Clemson.  Two died from poison gas.

Atkinson

Three infantrymen received the Distinguished Service Cross, this nation's second highest award, and two received Silver Stars.  Several served in the US Army Air Service, and one was in the Royal Air Force.  (Two alumni, who served but were not killed in WWI, received the Medal of Honor.)

Second Lieutenant Robert Bailey from Anderson attended Clemson in 1904 and dropped out after one or two semesters.  At age 32, he enlisted in the 118th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division, South Carolina National Guard.  He was promoted to Sergeant and assigned to border patrol along the Mexican border.  When the US became committed to WWI, he deployed with the Division to France and was in all of its engagements.  He received a Battle Field commission to Second Lieutenant and was killed 12 days later.  He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism.



McHugh

NICARAGUAN CAMPAIGN:

Lieutenant James McHugh, USMC, Class of 1923 from Clemson, was killed in a plane crash while he was piloting a recon mission.  He once flew escort for Charles Lindbergh down the Potomac.  Lindbergh later visited McHugh and his family in Nicaragua.

WORLD WAR II:

At least eight alumni were in the Bataan Death March.  Five of these are on the Scroll of Honor.  Four were killed aboard Japanese Hell Ships that were sunk by the US Navy.  These men were Martin Crook '39 of Spartanburg, Francis Scarborough '39 of Wisacky, Otis Morgan '37 of Wellford, and William English '37 of Columbia.  Henry Leitner '37 of Greenwood died of pneumonia imprisoned in Japan.  The following alumni survived the Death March: Ben Skardon (whose story was shared in my last blog post), Manny Lawton, and Albert George.

Two alumni were killed July 11, 1943 when the C-47 transports they were in were shot down.  They were a part of a 144 plane formation that lost 23 that were downed that day by friendly fire from US Navy units.  Captain Walter S. Nelson, Class of 1939 from Savannah, was a pilot and Major Tracy Jackson, Class of 1934 from Greenwood, was an observer in separate C-47s.  The returning aircraft had carried elements of the 82nd Airborne Division that had made their combat jump as a part of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.



Sloan

Captain Raymond Sloan, Class of 1939 from Marion, was the first Clemson alumni to die in WWII.  He ring was removed by a Japanese soldier and eventually pawned.  Years later, a Clemson graduate discovered the ring and redeemed the pawn.  It was returned to Clemson.



Crawford

PFC David Crawford, Jr., Class of 1945 from Winnsboro, enlisted during his sophomore year at Clemson and was assigned to 29th Infantry Division.  He was killed in action June 7, 1944 the day after his unit landed on Omaha Beach.  My grandmother told me of the time my grandparents invited all of the Winnsboro boys where my grandfather was stationed training recruits to a home cooked meal the night before they were deployed for what would become D-Day.  The next day, as the boys boarded the train, David told Grandmama that he couldn't wait to get back for more of her home cooked meals and her fried chicken.  Even though she didn't know the details of the mission, she knew in her heart that this would be the last time she would see him.  With her heart breaking, she mustered a huge smile and told him that she looked forward to that.  She gave him a big hug.  The train pulled off making that day the last time she saw him alive.

Of approximately 540 freshmen that enrolled in 1938, fifty-seven members of the Class of 1941 were killed in the war.  A remarkable incident occurred on le Shima island three miles west of Okinawa on April 19, 1945.  Two 1941 class members, Walter Bennett from Orangeburg and Marion Jenkins  from Yonges Island, were killed by the same Japanese mortar shell.  Bennett was the commander of H Company, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, and Jenkins was H Company's executive officer.  Jenkins was killed instantly.  Bennett died the following day.

With respect to athletics, Aubrey Rion, Class of 1941 from Richland Country, quarterbacked the Tigers in the 1939 Cotton Bowl game against Boston College.  He was a lieutenant assigned to the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.  He was killed defending Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge on December 20, 1944.

Lieutenant Colonel Aquilla Dyess, USMC, Class of1932 from Augusta, received the Medal of Honor for action in the Battle of Kwajalein on the Marshall Islands.  He is also the only American to receive both the Medal of Honor and the Carnegie Medal which he received for saving two swimmers off the coast of South Carolina the previous year.

Dyess

Five sets of brothers are on the Scroll of Honor.  David and Rufus Henry, Classes of '36 and '41, were from Clemson.  John and Benjamin McKnight, Classes of '40 and '41 from Kannapolis, North Carolina, were members of Clemson's Southern Conference Championship Swim Team.  Tourie and Dibble Rickenbaker, Classes of '43 and '44, were from Summerton.  Claude and Bob Lawson, Classes of '44 and '45, were from Birmingham, Alabama.  Edward and James Norton, Class of 1942, were twin brothers from Conway.  They were pilot and navigator in the same bomber shot down returning from a mission over Germany.

KOREAN WAR:

Seven of the seventeen serving in the Korean War on the Scroll received Silver Stars.



Moses

Herbert and Vivian Moses, Class of '44 from Sumter, were identical twins.  Their junior year they joined the Marine Corps and received commissioning training.  Both requested flight training.  After the war in 1947, Herb decided to leave the service to continue his education.  Viv wanted to make the Marine Corps a career.  On August 10, 1950, Captain Vivian Moses's Corsair fighter was shot down by ground fire, but he was rescued by helicopter.  The following day, while on a combat mission of strafing enemy positions, his aircraft received a direct hit by anti-aircraft fire and crash landed.  He was the first Marine pilot and first Clemson man killed in the Korean War.

Major Malcomb Edens, Class of 1947 from Miami, an Air Force pilot, was a POW of the North Koreans.  Bill Fuchess, '48, reported that a fellow POW told him that he had been with Malcomb Edens when he died.  He removed Edens's Clemson ring in hopes that he could return it to his family, but a communist soldier confiscated the ring.  It was probably lost forever.

Platt

Colonel Wesley Platt, USMC, Class of 1935 from Summerville, was killed in action in Korea.  During WWII, he was decorated for his part in the defense of Wake Island and was a POW of the Japanese for the duration of the war.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:



Anderson

Major Rudolph "Rudy" Anderson, US Air Force, Class of 1949 from Greenville, was the only casualty of the crisis.  His U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba during a photo recon mission.

VIETNAM:

First Lieutenant Douglas MacArthur McCrary, 1st Division, from Greenville, received the Distinguished Service Cross (posthumously) for action on February 16, 1967.  His platoon came under intensive enemy fire.  An extract from the award citation reads: "Seeing one stricken man lying exposed across a dike, he tossed a smoke grenade to provide cover and then charged forward through a hail of insurgent bullets.  But as he started to pull the man to safety, the smoke dissipated and Lieutenant McCrary was mortally wounded."




Coats

Major William "Monkey" Coats, US Army, Class of 1957 from Chappells, was killed in a helicopter crash June 1, 1967.  He carried the nickname "Monkey" because he was such a cut up and was always having fun.  Colonel H. Lamar Hunt, Chaplain Retired wrote, "I lived across the street from Monkey when he was in advanced course of his branch at Fort Benning, Georgia.  It was my first assignment as a chaplain.  I wrote a song about him that I called 'The Ballad of Monkey Jones.'"

Colonel Albert Smarr, Class of 1950 from Hickory Grove, is the only honoree that served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  He enlisted in the Army Air Force in World War II, a B-17 gunner and radio operator, and was shot down over Berlin and taken prisoner.  He was freed when the Russian Army liberated Berlin.  Following graduation and commissioning at Clemson, he served with the 89th Tank Batallion in Korea.  During his second tour to Vietnam, he was killed in February 1972 in a helicopter crash.  In December 1972, a building a Fort Monmouth, New Jersey where he had served as a Signal School instructor was named in his honor.



Pace

Lieutenant Jesse Rutledge Baker, USMC, Class of 1965 from Whitmire, was assigned to the 7th Engineer Battalion, 1st Marines, near Da Nang.  He wore a white shirt all the time to indicate he was an officer and to draw fire so his Battalion machine gunners could spot the muzzle flashes.  His men claim he had some close calls but was never hit.  He was killed in August 1967 when his jeep hit a mine. 

First Lieutenant Gary Pace, Army Engineer Corps, Class of 1969 from Easley, was killed in ground action in Vietnam in March 1971.  He received the Silver Star for his action in attempting to repel an assault by enemy sappers at a Fire Support Base near the Cambodian border.  After his death, a new Fire Support Based was named FSB Pace in his honor.

IRAQ:

Zabierek

Lance Corporal Andrew  
Zabierek, USMC, from Chelmsford, Massachusetts, graduated from Clemson in 2000 with a degree in Business.  The September 11 attack on the Word Trade Center troubled him greatly, and he wanted to serve his country.  He could have been an officer but volunteered to be an enlisted man.  He died May 21, 2004 due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

I want to personally thank The Clemson Corps for never letting these fallen heroes down because two of the 489 names on the Memorial Scroll of Honor are from my family.  One is my great-uncle, the brother of my maternal grandfather who was also a Clemson graduate and Major during WWII.  The second name which had a profound effect on my life was that of my father, Harold McGill "Mac" Renwick, Jr.