PFC SPENCER NOW A SEASONED AND BLOODED COMBAT VETERAN

AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF SEVENTEEN!

3.

THIS POEM THAT I WROTE IN 1995 FOR OUR LOCAL RAMONA NEWSPAPER NOT ONLY REVEALS MY INNERMOST FEELINGS BUT IS TYPICAL OF MILLIONS OF YOUNG MEN, AND SOME WOMEN, WHO RUSHED TO DEFEND OUR FREEDOM DURING WWII! WHETHER IT WAS A YOUNGSTER BECOMING A TAIL GUNNER ON A B-17 BECAUSE HE WAS SMALL OF STATURE OR AUDIE MURPHY IN DESPERATE COMBAT, FIGHTING THE AXIS POWERS WAS PARAMOUNT BECAUSE WORLD FREEDOM WAS IN DANGER!! GERMANY, JAPAN, AND ITALY’S LEADERS WERE DEAD SET ON SNUFFING OUT INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OF ALL THE FREE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD!

4.

CAPTAIN JOHN BENNETT, NAVY CROSS RECIPIENT, STILL WITH US AT 89, DECRIBES MY LIFE WITH ELOQUENT SIMPLICITY.

HE WAS A LT. JG. ONBOARD THE SAN FRANCISCO DURING MY SMALL ADDITION TO THE WINNING OF

WWII!!

5.

THIS WINDOW HANGER, WHICH STILL EXISTS,

HUNG IN MY MOTHER’S FRONT WINDOW FROM

1942 TO 1944

World War Two was more than huge armies, navies, and airplanes battling each other in some far distant land, I will leave it to others to describe the bloody battles. I want to tell you of a nation of mothers and families that held their breath every time the telephone rang while murmuring a small prayer “Please God don’t let it be about my boy!” The dreaded Western Union Messenger at your door was a sure harbinger of bad news about the loss or wounding of a loved one!!!

Because their country needed them no one shirked their duty to leave the farm and work in defense factories while enduring rationing of food, clothing, and gasoline there was a bit of grousing, I understand, among the young women when ‘silk stockings went to war!’ They paid the price willingly knowing;

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

6.

BELOW IS A COUPLE OF EXCERPTS FROM MY BOOK “WAR YEARS” TO SHOW A BIT OF THE SCENE AND FEELING OF GOING INTO NIGHT SURFACE BATTLE, AND A BIT OF MY PERSONAL AFTER MATH!

Chapter 19: “The rain squalls let up and the moon shown intermittently, with stars close enough to pick them by hand covering the sky, and the Southern Cross hung in its prominent place in the Southern Hemisphere.

I could see the vague outline of the ATLANTA ahead, in the luminescence stirred up by her screws, as we slowly worked our way west by a bit north. Behind us the PORTLAND was just a darker patch of night, about five hundred yards dead astern.

We talked in hushed tones, while we made sure our gun was ready for the fifth time since dusk. We had donned flash proof clothing to protect our bodies from the searing heat caused when shells explode. Nothing was used back then for the face and hands. Nothing has changed for gun crews going into battle since Nelson at Trafalgar, except that we didn’t paint the deck red to camouflage the blood that would be spilled. We still had the cotton for our ears and buckets of sand to soak up blood or contain blobs of magnesium thermite, left over from antipersonnel shells. With no function except to fight, for us Marines, the minutes seemed like hours as we waited.”

AFTER THE FURIOUS BATTLE WITH MANY DEAD AND MORE WOUNDED THE PARAGRAPH BELOW DESCRIBES A MOMENT IN MY PERSONAL STRUGGLE TO LIVE. READ IT KNOWING THAT SUCH STRUGGLES WERE BEING REPEATED ALL OVER THE SURVIVING SHIPS AND FOR HUNDREDS OF YOUNG MEN IN THE WATER TRYING TO STAY AFLOAT AFTER THEIR SHIPS WERE SUNK BY THE JAPANESE BATTLE FORCE!

Chapter 19: “Going down was easy for me until I arrived at the last ladder going down to the quarterdeck. Only the top few rungs were there, the rest had been shot away, so I lowered myself down, hanging by my left hand and dropping the last foot or two. I collapsed from pain, lying there in a heap, I felt my legs and they were all wet! Soaked with blood from wounds I didn’t even know I had, it alarmed me, I knew I needed help soon or I would bleed out! I had to get to the sickbay or mess hall as soon as I could!

THIS CLOSES A BRIEF PEEK INTO THE LIFE OF ONE PROUD AMERICAN!!

WHO PROUDLY SERVED HIS COUNTRY IN A MODEST WAY

CLIFFORD C. SPENCER, MARINE

’07-‘07