OSU
History Minute - August 4, 2000
Number
7 of a 12 part series: Honoring Oregon Staters who
died in WWII
|
Clinton,
as pictured in
The Beaver, 1940
|
Every
loss suffered in battle is tragic, this we
know, but when the level of suffering is acute,
these stories take on a particular poignancy
in our feelings not easily washed away.
Such
is the case of Oregon Stater Leland “Jack”
Clinton who had the misfortune of losing
his life in one of the Pacific war’s
most horrific sinkings.
Attending
Oregon State College in the late ’30s,
Jack was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity,
graduating in 1941 with a degree in forestry.
Alumni records from the time show that by
September of that year he was working as a
log scaler in Coquille (his hometown), later
moving to Panama, where the records indicate
he worked until 1943 as a “government
employee.” By January 1944, Clinton was
in the Navy Reserve, serving as an ensign
with Motor Torpedo Squadron 18, shortly after
transferring to one of the Navy’s most
storied heavy cruisers, the USS Indianapolis.
|
The USS Indianapolis, photo from Imperial War
Museum.
Serving
as the flagship of the US Fifth Fleet for the later
Pacific War’s most dramatic battles (Tarawa,
Iwo Jima, Okinawa), the Indianapolis was at war’s
end chosen to deliver to a base in Guam the materials
technicians would shortly use to assemble the two
atom bombs the Allies hoped would end World War
II for good.
| On
completing the mission, the Indianapolis sailed
from Guam toward the Philippines, but never
touched land again. At midnight on July 30,
1945, Japanese submarine I-58 shot three torpedoes
at the Indianapolis, hitting her twice and sinking
the heavy cruiser in 12 minutes. Of the 1,196
sailors aboard the ship at the time of the attack,
more than 800 of the crew managed to make it
into the water, only to have to endure one of
the great nighmares of the entire war. |
Graphic
from ATLAS Editions
|
Due
to an administrative oversight, no one knew the
Indianapolis was at sea. For the men in the water,
it meant one thing: if no one knew they were gone,
no one would know to come and look for them ...
not until it was too late.
Three
days stretched into four as the men of the Indianapolis
frantically tried to hold on to one another to stay
afloat ... and alive. It was all about strength
in numbers. The more guys there were clustered together,
the less likely it would be that the sharks, now
constantly working on the weaker sailors, would
attack.
Then
a miracle happened. An American plane flying on
a test mission happened to spot “heads bobbing
in the water” and within a day most of the
316 survivors had been plucked from the water and
taken to safety.
It
is not known if Jack Clinton was killed instantly
or if he later died of exposure in the water.
The
captain of the Indianapolis survived the great ordeal,
was tried after the war for negligence and found
guilty. Capt. Hashimnoto of I-58 was called to the
United States to testify at the trial. The guilty
verdict was later overturned by Admiral Chester
Nimitz.
--
By George
Edmonston Jr.
|
