VMI Archives

John A. Adams 71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Cold War Oral History Project Interview with James Glen Cleckler by Col. Malcolm Muir, Jr., February 13, 2006 Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute About the interviewer: Malcolm Muir, Jr., a military historian who received his degrees from Emory, Florida State, and Ohio State Universities, is on the faculty of the Virginia Military Institute where he directs the John A. Adams 71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Having taught at Austin Peay State University from 1977 to 2003, he has also held the Secretary of the Navys Research Chair in Naval History and visiting positions at the U.S. Military Academy and the Air War College. Among his publications are 101 articles, encyclopedia entries, and essays; 44 book reviews; and several books, including Iowa-Class Battleships (Dorset, England, 1987) and Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the U.S. Navy, 1945-1975 (Washington, 1996). The latter won the John Lyman Award given by the North American Society for Oceanic History for the best book published in 1996 on U.S. naval history. Muir edited The Human Tradition in the World War II Era, published in 2001 by Scholarly Resources.

Muir: This interview is being conducted for the John A. Adams Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. The interviewee is Mr. Glen Cleckler. The interviewer is Col. Malcolm Muir, Jr. Todays date is February 13, 2006. The interview is being conducted by telephone. Col. Muir is in the Preston Library at VMI. Mr. Cleckler is at his home in Harlingen, Texas.

Cleckler: I was born in Roscoe, Texas, 20 miles west of Sweetwater, Texas. My parents came from Alabama because the boll weevil struck their cash crop which was cotton. They stayed up there one year and then moved to Weslaco, Texas when I was one year old. I lived in Weslaco until I left for the Marine Corps.

My parents were farmers. They raised vegetables, cotton, cattle and citrus. I lettered three years in football in high school and received a scholarship to Howard Payne College which is a college up at Brownwood, Texas. But I was never able to take advantage of that scholarship. Everything changed.

My high school senior year, some of our football players and I were out on the school ground waiting for the bell to ring after lunch. Harlon Block suggested we all go to a movie that afternoon. At first, I didnt want to go because I was working on perfect attendance, but I relented and decided to go. The three of us Carl Sims, Harlon, and I set off in Harlons pickup for the downtown show. But then we remembered the manager of the Weslaco theater, being a big football fan, would know us and that we should be in school that day. So we decided to go to the nearby town of Mercedes. We didnt like the show playing there, so we went to the next town. We didnt like that show either, so we ended up in Harlingen, which is 18 miles from Weslaco.

After attending the show in Harlingen, we started worrying about what would happen to us at school the next day. None of us had ever skipped school before. Our answer came to us when we saw the Uncle Sam Wants You sign in front of a Marine Recruiting Office that happened to be next door to the theater. When we went inside, the recruiting officer asked us if we had finished high school. When we said no, he told us to come back when we finished high school. We picked up paperwork and applications and went on our way, thinking these would save our skins the next day.

The next morning at school, our principal, Mr. A. C. Murphy, saw us waiting outside for the bell to ring. He motioned for us to come with him. As we entered his office, he said, I know where you boys were yesterday (the rest of the boys had finked on us), so lets get this over with. I have lots of things to do today.

As he reached for his paddle, I said, Dont you even want to know why we werent in school yesterday? I pulled out a folded and completely filled in application form from the Marine Corps and handed it to him.

He looked at the form, put his paddle down on the desk and said, Im sorry! Ive misjudged you boys. He handed me back the application and said, When do you boys plan to leave?

As soon as possible, I said, thinking that would not be until after graduation.

We reported to our classmates, who were eagerly waiting to hear the results of our visit with the principal, that nothing had happened to us.

About three days later, Mr. Murphy tapped me on the shoulder in the hallway. He said, Glen, I want to talk to you. I have good news. Ive talked to the superintendent, and he said you boys can take your tests early, graduate early, and go into the service after mid-term. I was shocked and stunned since I was not expecting to go into the service until school was out.

Five more Weslaco High School seniors and members of the football team decided they, also, wanted to graduate early. So we had a little graduation assembly. The superintendent, Mr. Barbee, presented eight of us with diplomas. I represented the group with a graduation talk which consisted of one sentence. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we will always remember you in this place today.

Five more seniors from neighboring communities heard about our leaving early and also left with us. These were the 13 boys in the famous picture shown in San Antonio being sworn in after we all left Weslaco together. All 13 had met at Weslaco to leave on the same bus that day. High school was let out and many in the community gathered to see us off. As our charter bus pulled out, the Weslaco High School band was playing our school song.

We went to San Antonio were sworn in on top of one of the buildings and they put us on a train. Ole Harlon Block and I were the only ones that had ever ridden on a train before. We decided one time to ride the train from Weslaco to Mercedes which was four miles away so we could see how it felt to ride a

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train. We did and hitchhiked back to our town of Weslaco. So we had to tell these other fellows how you did it when you rode a train.

Muir: Sir, was this 1943 or 1944?

Cleckler: 1943 January 1943 mid-term at high school.

Muir: Thank you.

Cleckler: So we went to California San Diego Marine Recruit Depot. Who were these fellows? Well, there were eight of us from our football team in Weslaco and three of them from Donna and one from another town called San Benito. The ones at Donna said they had heard that we had got out early. They went in and confronted their principal, and he said Well, if they went out early, you guys can go. So we stayed together in Boot Camp and after Boot Camp well, that was it. We went all different directions.

Muir: Sir, would say a few words about your Boot Camp experience? Was it as tough as you anticipated?

Cleckler: Well, no, wed all played football and its a team effort. I spent a sleepless night at the beginning. They let us out down by the chain link fence and they had about three platoons marching right inside the chain link fence. Of course the instructor flappers his mouth so we couldnt understand what he was saying and I said, Man, I dont believe I can ever learn to do that. I cant understand what that fellows saying. You know like, blow out blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. So we were in Platoon 154 and they gave us Marine Corps clothing and put us to work. It was an experience. I kind of spent a sleepless night a couple of nights later when the instructor said, Starting right now, any of you that say I is mine; from now on you will say we. And I thought, man, I dont believe I can say that. So several of us practiced talking and found you just cant hardly talk without saying I. Well, anyway, thats neither here nor there.

Another thing worried me at Boot Camp. I was an old country boy, but I didnt know whether I could shoot one of those Japanese fellows. This Marine was giving us a lecture. He had been to Guadalcanal and was a very stately young man and he said, Now some of you have been worrying about just what I said can you shoot somebody? He said, How many of you have played football. About half of us held up our hands, and he said, Well, what do you do in football? Your opponents come out there dressed differently and you knock the tar out of them and got the ball and block them and knock them around because you can tell who it is, you know.

So, with that adage, I relaxed and thought, Yes, thats the way its gonna be. I thought that was a good analogy.

We got out of Boot Camp and went our different ways. When I should have been graduating from high school, I was on the U.S.S. Taylor, a World War I troop transport, heading for Honolulu or Pearl Harbor or somewhere over there. I think it was Pearl Harbor they told us we were going to. And so seven days later that thing goes at top speed, with a tail wind, probably 10 miles an hour. We had one little destroyer escort go with us in case we ran out of gas, I guess. We went into Tent City in Pearl Harbor to wait for our assignment, which I guess they knew but we didnt. My assignment was down to Palmyra Atoll, which was 1,000 miles south of Pearl Harbor.

Muir: What was your unit, sir?

Cleckler: My unit was the 1st Defense Battalion of the 5th Amphibious Corps. We had 90mm guns that were supposed to be a dual purpose gun for airplanes and/or surface ships for that island. When we went into Pearl Harbor we went by several of the ships that had been sunk about a year and a month before and on the Arizona were three of the boys from Weslaco, my home town. One of his brothers was one that joined with us Robert Sooter. I felt kind of funny going by that ship. All you could see was parts of the mast sticking out. So we stayed down at this island for about nine months and got on this

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ship and went back to Pearl Harbor and then went to the Marshall Islands on a LST and I was still in the 5th Amphibious Corps. and our assignment there was to set up a radar over on one end of Majuro Atoll. Thats the atoll where they tested a lot of the atomic bombs later after the war was over.

After our assignment was over there, we went back to Pearl Harbor and I joined the 4th Marine Division. 1st Battalion, A Battery, the 4th Marines. It was a 75mm pack howitzer unit. After training for awhile we got on troop transports. We didnt know where we were going and we made a couple of landings in the Hawaiian Islands. I dont know which islands they were. And then we parked in Honolulu Harbor and they gave us liberty. We were there a few days and that was where I met Harlon Block.

Muir: You had not seen him since Boot Camp, is that right?

Cleckler: Thats so. In fact, his troop transport ship was anchored right in front of mine in Honolulu Harbor and a barge would come around and pick everybody up that had liberty. Harlon, when he got out of Boot Camp, went to the Paratroopers. Marines had Paratroopers at that time. They went to Bougainville and after that campaign was over they disbanded the paratroopers. Harlon was in the 28th Marines, 5th Division and we did not, at that time, know where we were going so we started using higher math and said, Lets see, Im in the 4th Division, youre in the 5th Division. Thats interesting. And lo and behold, we ran into another guy in Honolulu that joined with us ole Billy Jack Robinson who happened to be in the 3rd Division. Anyway, theres 3rd, 4th, and 5th Divisions represented there and we thought well, thats half the Marine Corps. Then we ran into a couple of sailors from our home town, which were in the Fifth Fleet which consisted of several aircraft carriers and battleships according to the sailors. We didnt know. So could we be going to Japan? We were only up to Guam at that time. I said, I dont know where were going. Anyway, we found out as soon as we got back on the ship. They told us where we were going. That little island north of Guam. Theyd been bombing it for several days, and there was no resistance coming up. Ships would go by that little island and practice bombarding and aircraft carriers would let some of their planes practice bombing, etc. They felt that there was no life to be reckoned with, hardly, since no resistance seemed to be coming up. So our assignment was going to be to practice

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landing on this island. If any resistance was there, take care of it, get back on the ships in three days and go to Formosa. Well, that seemed like a nice little deal. Wed just been on those troop transports. Like I said, we got on the 18th of December and I was on that ship until we landed at Iwo.

Muir: That was a month.

Cleckler: Couple of months.

Muir: Yes, two months. Excuse me.

Cleckler: I was about ready to get off that ship. Well, the night before we got to Iwo you know, ships, when theyre traveling like that, they zig and then they zag so submarines cant pop at you as you go by. One of the ships didnt zag and we didnt zig or whatever it was, and about 4:00 in the morning I was knocked plumb out of my bed. A ship ran into us. One of our troop transports ran into us on the side. So I didnt go onto the island until a day later. Thats when I went in. We were supposed to land on Blue Beach 1 and the ole boy on our Higgins boat was all kind of shook up, you know, and he was a little leery about taking us into that place. The beach was real smoky, and he just lingered around there until a couple more of the Higgins boats lined up and he went in with them to the wrong beach. I got seasick in that darn boat. In those Higgins boats, if you get seasick, youre supposed to take the outside shell of your helmet off and puke in it so you dont mess anybody else up. Of course, when you get close to shore you empty it and put it back on your head. Thats what I did. Well, they let us out and the Japanese were mortaring the beach pretty heavy. Thats what theyd do. They had all these spaces zeroed in and theyd wait until the target got in the area and theyd shoot mortarspop those mortars at you. The ones they used mostly on that beach seemed to be the 60mm, so they would spread that shrapnel all over. It took me about three hours to find the beach where I was supposed to be. Our gun was badly undermanned because part of our gun crew was on the other transport ship and we were still separated. They went in with the old what they called them tractors.

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Muir: Amtracs?

Cleckler: Yes. To unload them. Its kind of a coordinated deal. They had about half the crew of nine on the gun and then we came trickling in. Our guys were kind of unhappy with us. Where were you guys?

We were riding around out in the ocean.

Anyway, at one period of time my buddy and I were going up the beach, trying to find out, Is this Blue Beach 1?

No, we dont know what it is. It is a little confusing in those situations. The Japanese started popping those mortars at us and there was a big old shell hole. That old ash was difficult to maneuver and you just couldnt dig a hole or anything else. Youd just have to find a hole. Theres plenty of shell holes. They were shallow shell holes. There were three guys in this one big old crater where, evidently, a big bomb had hit and we jumped in there and they told us to get out of there. There were only three of them in there. The Japanese were aiming at big targets. So we got out of there and guess where the next one hit? I still remember that. I dont know why they told us to get out of there. They were kind of ugly about it and used persuasive words.

Muir: Lucky for you that they did.

Cleckler: Yes, but thats the name of that game and so we finally joined our crew and the first thing they had my buddy and I to do theyd collected the canteens around Take these canteens down there (where we came from) and find the lister bag. Theyve got some set up now. Lister bags are set up and theres water in them. So, of course, thats a problem. When you gather around some place thats, again, a target. The Japs had all the high ground. We were down in the low ground. They could throw rocks at us if they wanted to. Here we go. We get down there and get the water and bring it back. That was our initiation for that island.

Some of the things that I noticed on this island, being an old farm boy, you know what a dead animal smells like, you know what other things smell like, but I didnt know what a dead human smelled like. After about a week and a half our guys and their guys started smelling and it was the most awful aroma I have ever in my life smelled. But the reason Im mentioning that, they passed the word that a DC-3 was going to spray that island with DDT. It was going to make a couple of runs pretty low. Well, then comes the problem. Are those Japs going to think were poisoning the island? If so, will they kick theirs loose on us? I just really was concerned about that. In no time here comes the DC-3, just right on a wave and hed pop up and come over the island and spray that stuff. We were not prepared for gas anyway on this island because thats a long story but I was very anxious for awhile, hoping that those Japs would not unleash their poison gas. Most armies keep that stuff in case their opponents use it, then theyll use it. And our guns we carried some with us, but what good would it do us? In about two weeks burial details would start coming around, picking up the pieces, so to speak. So much for that.

We moved three times on that island moved our guns three times because it was shooting completely over the island. And our job, primarily, was to support the infantry. The infantry would go in and we were right in behind them. Wed set up and theyd have a radio man with them and hed call in the artillery whenever they needed it. There are four powder bags in each shell and we were pulling three of them out using one to lob those projectiles. At Guam, the Japs pulled some banzai attacks that went all the way back through the artillery and out to the sea the Japs did and so we had canister ammunition with about ten rounds, I think it was, which would go for about 50 yards and explode and there were a zillion little B-Bs in the thing that would stop the banzai attacks. We didnt have to use those, thank goodness.

Muir: Sir, when you were firing your regular rounds at the Japanese, could you see their dugouts, their emplacements?

Cleckler: You could not see anything, generally, because there would be just be if you looked in the side of a rocky hill, you know, theres a million, it looks like, crevices, holes, etc. Well, they had fixed that

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up to where theyd have one observer theyd have weapons that would shoot out of the side of the mountain or side of the hill and, like I say, they had all their artillery zeroed in on certain areas and were just waiting for people to get in the area. The observer would say, Now, and theyd pop one out. We had 16 inch shells, we had air planes, we had everything, but nobody really knew what was happening. If you saw that diagram of that set-up there, they didnt come out. Well, I guess I saw maybe five or six corpses of Japanese but thats about it.

Muir: Yes, I heard that many Marines that fought the whole battle never saw a single living Japanese.

Cleckler: Because they didnt need to be seen.

Muir: Didnt want to be seen.

Cleckler: No. They were inside of that mountainous area there, doing their job. We finally got where our side brought those tanks in with flame throwers on them, built into them. As soon as we got the tanks in there, they started tending to business. They said, Well, weve just got to go along and burn the side of that mountain. You normally dont burn the side of a mountain out, but a lot of times when they would just shoot raw flames on the side of a hill we couldnt see any caves or anything on it, all of a sudden there would be flame and smoke come out just like Swiss cheese, you know. We finally got to the point where youd say, Well, this is the kind of warfare we have to fight with these people. Weve got to do that. And the only way you could do that was to get up and go and find something to stick something into and explode it.

We kept this place lit up with star shells from the ships, primarily parachute flares would come down and the ship would shoot one right after another to keep the place lit up at night, because thats when those folks would come out and do their thing. When they would shoot at our guys, theyd try to hit them in the legs, knowing that four corpsman would have to carry one guy. They liked to wound one, so that they could get four instead of one. All kinds of plans they had that we had to adjust to.

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In many instances you could hear these old rockets that they had. I dont know what it was. Theyd just stick them into a trough, attach a rocket to the back of it, send it off into the sky. It was a psychological thing, because youd hear it go whoo-whoo-whoo way in the distance and see a smoke trail leave from the mountains side where they were shooting them off from. And you could look up and that thing would just be tumbling down and making a shuss-shuss-shuss sound and it looks like its gonna hit you every time. Well, if youve ever played baseball and you get out in center field and they hit a high fly to you, you know which way to go. On those rockets, you had to judge by sound, not by sight. It was a psychological thing so youd finally get to where you look at the ground and if you could hear it a certain way, youd run to a different location. You could see people and pretty soon youd look at the same group and theyre gone. They would just lay down.

About hygiene. Nobody took a bath the whole time we were there. Nobody shaved. And we did not smell bad at all. I learned something on this little trip. Certain groups of people have their own odors with them. We had our own odors. People say, well, how do you go to the bathroom? Wherever you are, you go to the bathroom doesnt matter whether its number one or number two. Thats just all there is to it. Im getting off-track here.

Muir: No, youre not getting off-track. This is important.

Cleckler: A lot of people wonder about it. If I ever wrote a book I would not write a book about how you jump up and shoot all these people, but I would write about how you do all these other things.

Muir: How about food, sir? How would you get food?

Cleckler: Theyd bring it in down to the beach and youd go down and say, Wheres the food? There were rations in little boxes. Ive forgotten they called them K-rations or C-rations or some kind of rations and they had a B on the box breakfast L for lunch and D for dinner or something. Youd go down

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there and get a poncho full of those things and throw them over your back and take them back to your guys. We had no problem getting food, etc. as long as we had these pack mules (men) go bring it up. When wed shoot the ammo, there were three of those shells packed in a crate. These guys would come from the ship and just dump them out. They wanted to get off that beach. And youd go down there and help yourself to what you needed. As the battle moved on, there was less and less of that stuff (ammo from the Japs) hitting that beach and so it became better organized. Theyd bring in some jeeps and make a few runs with those. As far as the ammunition was concerned, it didnt take long to shoot up all your ammunition, whether it be rifle ammunition or grenades or what. So, in many instances, people were reluctant to use it. I would get aggravated sometimes when our forward observers would call in, fire one for effect, etc. and mess around. What are they shooting at? If theyre going to move up, theyd pulverize the area. What were they pulverizing? They didnt realize that this means several trips down to the beach and youre going to take some casualties in replacing that ammunition. You know what Im talking about? Not a blame game, just the way it was.

Muir: Yes sir. Did you spend a lot of time going back and forth to the beach, or were you mostly with the gun?

Cleckler: We would take turns going to the beach. When I was on the gun I was on the Ive forgot what they call that position where you turn the gun right or left, etc.?

Muir: You train it.

Cleckler: Angle of train? Good grief, I cant even remember. Anyway, that was my job on the gun. Youd have loaders, etc. And then theres the old boy who gets to pull the extra powder bags out of the shells before he puts it back in there. We made a mistake by throwing all those powder bags over in a shell hole. Guess where one of those flares came down one night? Right in the middle of that shell hole and we really had a bonfire there for a little while. It didnt last very long but that really lit up the whole world. So, from then on, we would disperse our powder bags.

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We were there a little over two weeks, I think, when one of the B-29s came in and landed on that field closest to where we were. There were so many potholes in that field that the Seabees had already started working on filling up some of those holes so that our planes could land. But this old 29 came zooming in there and landed. A bunch of people supposedly we couldnt see went out there and did something to the plane and about two hours later the thing took off again, heading for Guam. Several of them crash-landed into the ocean while we were there. They were all shot up so bad over in Japan.

That was one of the reasons we were going to take the island and go on over to Okinawa for those 29s. When they were fully loaded at Guam theyd take off and fly about 1,000 feet in the air only because every time they tried to go higher they had to use extra gasoline so they waited until they got over Iwo Jima, which was about half-way to Japan from Guam and then theyd start getting their altitude and go to Japan. If they took any flak in their ship, punctured some of their gas tanks or whatever they did, they just had to hit the ocean. There wasnt any land all the way back except for Iwo. While we were there, about the last week, I guess eight or ten of those I dont know how many of them came in and landed on that air strip. I guess if I was on one of those planes, Id be glad to see that land also, but they said that the casualties that they took on that island were offset by the lives saved in the plane.

Muir: Over 2,000 of the planes landed on Iwo Jima, some for fuel and others because they were very badly damaged.

Cleckler: Yes. Anyway, we had to use all three of the divisions, etc. and it did not take just 72 hours to run over that island and get back on the ship. There were two Northers hit. Iwos on the same latitude, that we are right here (tip of Texas) where Im talking to you from and we have Northers that come in here cold, rainy Northers and it gets down to about 40 and itll just freeze you to death wet, damp, cold. Two of those buggers hit us there and all we had on was a little old poncho thats supposed to keep the rain off of you, and our dungaree jackets, which are nothing. Many of the fellows had not ever lived on a farm. They didnt see how an animals skin shakes when it gets cold. Man it was cold. You couldnt build

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a fire, you couldnt do this, you couldnt do that just shake. After that second Norther hit, I think some of the guys were just hoping that the next one would get them because that is a miserable feeling, just to be wet and cold. I dont guess the leaders thought about that just about the 72 hours. They were all hung up on the 72 hour bit of thinking the island would be secure in 72 hours, but that isnt mentioned very much.

Muir: Sir, what did you Marines think of the Japanese as enemies, as soldiers?

Cleckler: Well, they were specially trained, etc. and they had it made. There was no reason they should not have had it made here in this situation. You know what Im talking about? They were underground. You do this and thats all you have to do, etc. Like I say, in fact, those that we saw needed first aid, etc. and they were in a little circle and had surrendered or something. Another thing that wed do in artillery you send these pamphlets over in the enemy territory with instructions on how to surrender. Take off all their clothes and walk spraddle-legged, etc. and turn around every three steps, etc. so they cant have grenades in their crotch or under their arms and all that business. Most of them they wont surrender theyre afraid of the propaganda that the Japs put out about the Marines. If you surrender, this is what they will do to you. Just awful what they show them. String them up by your you-know-what, grinning, etc. They really had the propaganda out. These Japs that had surrendered were sitting in a circle down on the beach, waiting. They had been taken down to the beach and were waiting to be taken out to some ships. We were down for some supplies and we went by and said, Hey, how are you guys doing? Two of them spoke real good English. I would suspect one probably had been around our people somewhere or sometime during his life and all. Probably the reason he surrendered, he couldnt swallow all that propaganda they were putting to him.

Muir: Did he say anything when you asked him how he was doing?

Cleckler: No I cant remember what he said. One of them was talking to another one and as we walked by them, we could hear bits of the conversation they were carrying on with the guy. There was

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only one American standing there with them. All he had was his pistol in his hand. I guess that was enough. Now, most of them on this island were from northern Japan, which were a breed of people up in there that were larger than the normal Japanese. In many instances, when some of them would surrender, youd think they were Japanese soldiers, but theyd be Japanese workmen that they had captured. The Japanese had slaves, had people to do their work, etc. They could be non-Japanese just wearing the uniform that was the clothes they had.

Muir: When did you, personally, leave the island?

Cleckler: One day they told us,Do you see that LST that just drove in? We want you to stack your rifles on these guns right here pull them over here together and you guys go down there and get on that LST and they know where theyre taking you.

Muir: I suspect you werent sorry to do that?

Cleckler: Everybodys mouth hung open and said, All right, and on the way down I feel so bad about this two of our guys a mortar hit two of our guys. I just felt so bad. And when I got on that dad-gum LST I went back in the back. Id already ridden one one time to the Marshall Islands and I knew the setup, that they had two diesel motors on the back twins I went all the way back in the back where those motors were, because that was part underwater, and I got down and sat down in a place down in there and this sailor said, Hey, you cant come in here. So I pulled a Section-8 on him. I just started talking and acting weird, etc. and he went on and left me alone, because I thought man, if a shell hits the top of that thing Ive got two layers of this above me. After those two guys got it on the way down I guess its probably a half a mile down to the beach where this ship had pulled in and opened its front doors. It didnt have a welcome sign. It didnt need one. We knew what that meant. We knew it would be taking us away from Iwo. From this ship they took us out to a ship bound for Maui. That was where our home base was in the Hawaiian Islands. This guy that was on the ship said, You know what? You guys sure do stink.

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What do you mean, stink? We were getting ready to go up on the ship and I found out what he meant as we climbed up the gang plank onto that ship. Everybody on that ship that was helping get us on that ship off of that LST man, theyd just go stick their nose up-wind. Later they told us theyd never smelled anything like that in their lives. We didnt smell bad to each other.

Muir: I bet a bath felt good.

Cleckler: Yeah. And another thing that has helped me during my life to control my weight is remembering the role volume plays. They started running us through the chow line. First thing youd say, Give me some more of those potatoes. And theyre slapping them on that old metal tray: Give me some more of that, Give me some more of that and they were stacking it on there and youd take a few bites and all of a sudden you were completely filled because your stomach gets shrunk.

Muir: Isnt that something?

Cleckler: I try not to stretch mine too much and gain weight Im not supposed to have. But anyway, as far as coming back here to the States is concerned, I had my time in two campaigns, over two years and we came back to Pearl Harbor and they dumped us out there. Then we got on another little old ship that went over to Maui where our home base was. I stayed there a week and they said, Get your sea bags and come on and get in this truck youve got to go home.

I said, I believe I will, thank you. And they took us over to Pearl Harbor and took us to Tent City, waiting for transportation back to the States. They didnt have airplanes flying back and forth like they do now. About 10:00 the second night I was there we were already lights out lights on pack up your sea bags and come get in these trucks. Got you a ship heading for San Francisco. So we went and got on this ship. It left that night.

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We were out on the ship in the morning they had put 60 of us in this compartment all of a sudden there were SPs [Shore Patrols] and MPs [Military Police] all over. They said, Youre coming to breakfast now, and this is where you go. You follow this painted line on the deck. All the time youre here, youre on this line or youre in your compartment.

Whats going on here?

Well, this ship has been loaded up and they dumped off about 60 people here and theyve got room here its going on to the States. Its been all over the Pacific, picking up Section-8s thats somebody that has cracked up.

And so I said, WOW. They let the Section-8s come out and sit in the sun at certain times of the day, and theyd let us sit up in the sun. I smoked in those days. So Im sitting there, and one of these MPs is standing between our supposedly sane group and their group. Those guys would just sit there and look around and not talk or anything. It was the funniest thing. I thought a cracked-up guy would make a lot of noise or something. I was smoking and this guy kept looking at me and looking at me, and hed look at the SP guard keeping us apart, and hed hold his hand out. So I just handed him my cigarette. He put it in his mouth and sucked that thing all the way down to his mouth. That old SP grabbed it out of his mouth and stomped it out and said to me, Youre not to come up here. Id better not see you when Im on duty. Im going to throw you in the brig. Whats the matter with you? I apologized. I didnt know what you could and could not do to those guys. But when we came under the Golden Gate we were all the ones supposedly sane were just so enthralled about the bridge. Look at that. Were home. Were in the United States. Hooray for us. Those little guys were just sitting there. They got all of them up on the deck, that were possible, or what they called manageable and when we went under that bridge they didnt any more pay attention to that than anything. Every time I think about that God those guys didnt even know they were back in the States. Of course that bridge was symbolic of everything, you know.

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Muir: Very sad.

Cleckler: It was sad. They waited until the Section-8s all got off before theyd let us get off. That was sad for us. They made us get down in the hole and wait until all those got off.

Muir: So, did you take the train, then, back to Texas?

Cleckler: They shipped us down to the Marine Corps Depot where we started and they had an area there of Quonset Huts and processed us. I had an older brother who had gotten out of the Army and was working at the shipyards at Los Angeles. In fact, he worked on that ship but he told me later on that they worked on a ship that another ship ran into Number 157. I said, I know, thats the U.S.S. Grimes and I was on that ship. So many things happened in that war like running into people from a little old town like Weslaco that I just couldnt believe. But with the gas ration stamps and everything he came down there and wanted me to come up to Los Angeles and spend a couple of days with him. I said, Ill do it. Hed gotten married and gotten out of the service. I think he was injured some way not battle related but in training.

So, anyway, we got up there and one thing led to another. He had vacation time coming and he said, Ill just drive you to Weslaco. I already had tickets and everything. So we used naptha or cleaning fluid mixed with gasoline he knew all the tricks. He bought some gas stamps, ration stamps, from some of his buddies and he drove up to Weslaco, which is about 1,800 miles drove me to Weslaco he and his wife. He wanted to show his new wife off anyway.

My assignment, after the 30 days, was to go to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station and be an MP for three months and then Id be shipped back out again. Thats what I did. I was a plain old MP. I had received a notice up on the board this was on about a Wednesday next Monday, get your gear ready and youre going to shipped out. Guess what happened that weekend? They dropped the bomb and I didnt have to go back over there.

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Muir: I bet you were not sorry about that.

Cleckler: Not after having read what they had waiting for us. Its just been released. I wish you could get hold of that. In fact, I may just make you a copy and send it to you. You would really be surprised.

Muir: I would appreciate that, sir.

Cleckler: As far as how many of our guys survived that went with us? In the 8th that went from Weslaco, there are two of us left. Harlon Blocks statue is out here at the airport.

Muir: Yes sir. I know that.

Cleckler: And every time I go by there I have a talk with him and say Harlon, you have to take your truck and haul on down to Harlingen. Thats right here where you are. I guess it makes you happy since youre standing up there on that thing and I have all these problems. I just have a little chat with him.

One thing that being in the service will do for a lot of people, in my opinion, is to let them understand that you have a family that you came from and this is your family. These guys around you, etc. and they are constantly changing, etc. When one of them screws up you tell him to go jump in the lake you suffer with him, etc. People that dont have a chance to be in the service really ought to be in for about a year so they can understand what Im talking about. I have a lot of fond memories.

Now, one thing Id like to point out, before I forget it. We were on the Marshall Islands and a truck came by our tent any of you guys who are 21 years old, get your you-know-what in that truck youve got to go vote for president. Well, after they went through the tents of our platoon, there was only one guy in the truck and that was an old boy named Peebles Sergeant Peebles he was the only one who was 21.

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Muir: Thats amazing.

Cleckler: From then on, he had a good time. I called him several times before he died. He was one of my buddies. He really did get the mileage out of that, Im telling you. Well thats the way it was. I guess you saw some of the pictures of my family?

Muir: Yes sir.

Cleckler: My oldest brother went in the Army and I went in the Marines and the next one went in the Navy and my baby brother went in the Marines. Isnt that interesting?

Muir: Well, that is. And did they all come home?

Cleckler: Yes. But all of them are dead now except me. One of the guys, Sam McGee, from Donna (Donna is a city near Weslaco) he was here to see me the other day and he still laughs the same way. He is a little bitty guy. We called him the feather merchant because they line you up in Boot Camp according to height in the platoons with the little short guys on one end and the tall guys on the other. We called the little short guys feather merchants. I guess thats some old saying going way back.

Muir: I suspect so. This weekend Im going to the Iwo Jima Reunion in Washington, D.C.

Cleckler: Oh really?

Muir: Yes. In fact, Im going to talk about the United States Navys role in the Iwo Jima Campaign.

Cleckler: When I send you that data and you read about what they had in store for landing on Japan, they werent going to be concerned about battleships and aircraft carriers, they were going to concentrate on troop transports.

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Muir: Thats right. The Kamikazes were going to concentrate on killing as many people as they could.

Cleckler: Troop transport ships were the big target. I got to thinking, man, theyd have had a field day. Well, we were kind of expecting that too. This is the way it is. Did I not talk about anything that you might have wanted to?

Muir: Sir, I think you covered it admirably and I really want to thank you so much for your time and for sharing this information for history, really.

Cleckler: Well, I forgot to tell you what I did when I came back. I used the G.I. bill and my scholarship and I played football again in college, acting like a little high school kid. I didnt want that period of time in my life to escape. I married a gal seven years younger than I was at college, because all the old guys were older than the little ones that were enrolling here you know. I came back to Harlingen. For 37 years, I was involved with the education process. I was a coach, elementary principal, junior high principal, high school principal, principal of whatever and I really like kids.

Muir: Well it certainly comes through. What a career.

Cleckler: I have three children and every once in a while my kids come in and say, What war were you in? Was it the Civil War? Every once in a while theyll put something in the newspaper about these guys that joined up with me, etc. and some of these students will say, I didnt know you were there.

I say, What do you want me to do, put a sign on my back?

One area that probably ought to be mentioned I dont know. Every once in a while when they have a lightning storm, theres a certain type of thunder that eats my lunch. Its the kind that goes rhhhhhhhrhhhhhh-wham chatter--chatter-chatter-wham.

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Muir: It takes you back to 45?

Cleckler: I just dont understand it. Where did that go in your brain? I just think what a wonderful thing this brain is we have. Especially since Ive gone into this computer foolishness. I just am amazed at everything that has taken place.

Muir: Thank you so very much. If I could have your help when the interview is transcribed, I might have a few questions to ask about spelling and names and all. So, if I could get back to you, that would be helpful to me.

Cleckler: Ill be here if Im not in the cemetery.

Muir: O.K. Thank you so much sir.

Cleckler: Youre welcome. Good-bye.