Published: June 15, 2009 02:13 pm      

Larue Barnes: Memories of World War II

Clyde Turner is quick to praise every U.S. Army officer who trained him or supervised him during World War II.

“I was brought up to do what I was told and not complain about it,” the 90-year-old veteran said with a smile.

That attitude may have saved his life because he survived intense battles in the Philippines.

He was the youngest of 10 children of Samuel L. and Polly Ann Turner, born north of Covington on Oct. 4, 1918. His mother died when he was five.

“We moved near Wingate, Texas, near Winters, so my father could farm one of my aunt and uncle’s farms there. It was hard for me when I started school. I missed my mother. I didn’t know anybody.”

He was relieved when his family decided soon to return to this area.

“Daddy wanted to farm near Rio Vista. We traveled in a wagon pulled by two horses. Oh, we had fun during those six days. We moved to the Henry Tack farm.”

When Clyde was 17, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, designed for unmarried young men who couldn’t find a job during the Great Depression.

“Many of us fudged on our age. At first I was at Hillsboro, then at Sherman to landscape farms. We’d go into Sherman and spend a dime to go to the movie. We made $30 a month and sent $25 home to our families. We got to spend the other $5.

“We lived in army barracks everywhere we went. At McGregor’s Mother Neff State Park they gave me a hammer, two chisels and a square and told me to start facing rock to build a pavilion. We finished that in about eight months and then built a rock fence around the entrance to the park.”

On New Year’s Day 1939, they moved to Cleburne State Park.

“They gave me a shovel and a wheel barrow. We moved dirt from the bed to the banks of the lake that was to be built. It was a good experience, working in the CCC camps, as the army officers who trained us were not as strict as they would’ve been if we had been in the Army. There was no saluting, for example.”

Turner and his nephew, Milton Pruitt, decided to enlist in the Army, instead.

“The recruiting sergeant was in the old post office building in Cleburne. On Oct. 7, 1940, at 9 a.m., we went to talk to him. After we completed enlistment papers he told us to meet in front of the Palace Theater at 8 p.m. We went home and told our parents.”

That night the recruits were taken by car to the Baker Hotel in Fort Worth, where they spent the night. After a walk to the old federal building the next morning, they were examined and sworn into the Army.

After 8th Cavalry basic training at Fort Bliss, Turner drove a truck, hauling eight horses at a time.

“We also had pack mules. They were mean and tough. We hauled other things, too, but after Pearl Harbor, everything changed. The Army got rid of the horses, and the border patrol took over the Texas border.”

A new lieutenant at Fort Bliss was one of the most interesting people Turner met.

“He was neat and nice looking and drove a red Buick convertible. He was quiet and shy. One afternoon I was working in the supply room, and the lieutenant was standing behind the counter. We talked about the 45-caliber sidearms there for a long time. The other soldiers didn’t think the lieutenant wanted to have anything to do with them, but they were wrong.

“The fact that he was Stanley Marcus from Dallas didn’t matter. I figured out he was lonesome.

“I went to bakers’ school. Things started changing fast, and we began preparing to go overseas. Leaving by ship on June 4, 1943, for Australia, there were two meals served each day. Four of us served the morning meal, and four of us served the evening meal. It was really hot down in the galley. We fed 4,000 for 20 days down there.”

At Brisbane, Australia, Turner camped out in the country at Camp Strathpine under the command of Gen. Douglass McArthur. New Guinea and Los Negros Island came next.

“Los Negros was a flat island and Gen. McArthur wanted it for an air strip. We got the air strip but it had to be repaired for big bombers to land. B-24s would leave early every morning and come back around 6 p.m, sometimes shot full of holes.”

Turner said he knew something was about to happen.

“We were headed for the Philippines. There were all kinds of ships around us. They had told us not to take any prisoners, as we weren’t equipped to take care of them. The Japanese knew we were on our way to Leyte.

“The Navy was fighting the biggest naval battle in history. During the shelling and bombing of the beach, the Japanese tore up the airstrip. We didn’t have any support until the engineers got the airstrip repaired for the Army planes to land. The Japanese were taking advantage of us, with no air protection. They bombed us every two to three hours during the day. For two nights in a row they bombed us all night, since the Navy planes were fighting the battle of Leyte Gulf.

“I saw the Navy shoot down the first kamikaze, almost over my head. We got there in the rainy season. If we dug our foxholes three feet deep, there would be six inches to a foot of water in the bottom. We had a typhoon. We didn’t have to worry about the enemy during that because no one could get out in that weather. I think I got 24 hours of uninterrupted sleep during that. We had our tents staked down and they looked like parachutes.”

After moving to Luzon Island the troops were told the Japanese had a civilian prisoner of war camp at Manila at Santo Tomas University.

“There were about 3,500 prisoners there, including Americans and other allies. We heard that a Japanese guard who was an American sympathizer got word to Gen. McArthur that the Japanese were going to kill all the prisoners before the Americans got there. McArthur called one of his generals in and told him to get as many men as it would take and put them on trucks and head for Manila and not to stop for anything.

“I would have been driving one of those trucks, but I had developed jungle rot on my hands. There were about 50,000 Japanese in the area. We had to shell all the buildings to get the Japanese out. There was no other way. There were a lot of families killed and a lot of orphans left. That was the worst time for me. The Japanese would hold the Filipinos and wouldn’t let them leave. If anyone tried to leave they would shoot them — men, women and little children.”

But the prisoners at the camp were freed.

“One night we were set up just behind our artillery, and the Japanese were trying to knock our artillery out. They were shooting a little high, and the shots were going just over us.

“I kept coffee for the truck drivers. I had a stock pot of hot water and was just about to put a quart measure dipper of ground coffee in the pot when someone yelled, ‘Here it comes!’ Everyone started running for their fox holes, and I did, too. When I got to the edge of the hole, I realized I still had the coffee in my hand, so I ran back and set the coffee on the table and then ran back to the hole.”

He grinned.

“I don’t know why I did that.”

When Turner returned home, he felt the trauma from the war. His father had died, and he had not received word in time to return for his funeral. While working at Texas Battery he developed lead poisoning.

But he met Jean Durham where she worked, at Miller’s Café on East Henderson Street.

“I had rented a room at this lady’s home, and Clyde would come to eat near closing time and walk me home,” Jean said. “Neither of us had a car. Six months later we married, on Jan. 14, 1947, and rented an apartment on North Anglin Street.

Turner retired in 1983 after 32 years of service in the car department of the Santa Fe Shops.

She retired the same year from the J.N. Long Elementary School cafeteria.

They have four children: Don Turner and wife, Susan, of Cleburne; Linda Witkowski and husband, Stan, of Godley; Billy Jack Turner and wife, Susan, from Benbrook; and Jean Ann Day and husband, Allen, of Cleburne. They have nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. The Turners are members of Westhill Church of Christ in Cleburne.

When the war ended, U.S. Army T4 Clyde L. Turner of Troop A, 16th Quartermaster Squadron, received no medals.

Time was filled, instead, with sending troops home. But recently his children arranged for their father to receive the awards he justly earned.

“I’m so thankful I wasn’t wounded or killed. Before World War II, people would make remarks like, ‘Don’t get in war; let them come over here.’

“We lost a lot of Americans and a lot of innocent people by waiting so long. No one wants to go to war, but we had to because we were attacked. We almost waited too long.”



This story was suggested by Joy McHargue.



Larue Barnes may be reached at laruebarnes@yahoo.com.