Jake Beckstead

Hist 2710

Service Learning

Project Report

 

Oral History with Clayton Fike,

World War II Veteran

 

Student Participants

Jake Beckstead

 

Title of Project

Operation: Daybreak

 

Details of Project

            I got the idea for this project by looking at some of the Service Learning Projects posted on the Internet. My grandfather, Clayton Fike, was in World War II, though he never saw combat. He was stationed at various bases in the Philippines, Australia, and New Guinea, and gives in some detail information on his disparate assignments, whether in ammunitions or piloting. A colorful experience unfolds as he tells his story, with emphasis on specific highlights and specifications of machinery. A few amusing anecdotes come out as well, regarding soldiers he worked with, under, and over flesh out the telling, creating a lively read.

 

Project’s intended audience and beneficiaries

            This oral history will be available to anyone wishing to learn about individuals in World War II. It will be on record in hard copy format in the Special Collections area of the Sherratt Library at Southern Utah University. I also plan to submit it to Dr. Freeman of Brigham Young University for possible publication in his series of books containing stories of World War II veterans who were then or are now members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

Local contact persons

Janet Seegmiller, Special Collections Department, SUU

Dr. Freeman, BYU

 

Workload to complete the project

Set up interview session (10 min)

Drive north to conduct interview (4.5 hrs)

Conduct interview (1.5 hrs)

Transcribe interview (12 hrs)

 

Timetable for completing the project

Approved by Dr. Mulderink: 03/15/02

Interview: 03/23/02 12:00-14:30

Transcribing sessions: 1) 04/04/02 16:00-17:00

                                     2) 04/05/02 17:00-18:30

                                     3) 04/08/02 17:17-18:17

                                     4) 04/09/02 16:45-18:45

                                     5) 04/10/02 17:10-17:20

                                     6) 04/11/02 16:00-17:00

Misc. time spent researching/correcting

Sessions: 1) 04/23/02 15:00-18:20

 

Technology-related resources

Cassette tape and recorder (recording interview)

Computer and printer (transcribing and printing hard copies)

 

Final Product

            A typed copy of the interview, reading as a script, containing Mr. Fike’s storied of his experiences as a test pilot during World War II to be on reserve at Southern Utah University and Brigham Young University.

 

Personal addendum

            I was quite excited to complete this project. History is my major, and has been one of my loves for years, since my turn as a sophomore in high school, in Mr. Rockwell’s World History course. History was brought alive to me in a way that changed my life, and lit a spark of enthusiasm that has not been extinguished.

            My grandfather has had incredibly rich experiences in his life, World War II being the source of only a few. As a child, I would sit before him and eagerly listen to stories he told. At that age, I could not understand his love of engines or the mechanics of flying planes and firing the ammunitions, but I loved the stories I did understand: that of crashing a plane, his courtship and very short engagement, and stories of the crews he worked with.

            When I was assigned to complete a Service Learning Project early on this semester, I soon committed myself to collecting an oral history of those experiences and stories I had been told from my youth. The hard part was finding a time to drive up to my grandparents’ home in northern Utah. Also, my grandfather tired quickly, so I was worried that it may take several sessions to complete the interview. I was in luck. Soon enough, I was able to drive the distance and conduct the entire interview in one weekend.

My grandfather loves telling stories. “Just get him started, and he’ll talk for hours,” my mother told me. As anyone who reads the interview can attest, that is very much the case. During the interview, I merely asked a few leading questions, and my grandfather filled in the blanks from the time he joined the military the present day. He responded to my queries with lengthy, entertaining answers that covered a wealth of information no questions could ever hope to cover.

Clayton has vivid memories of his youth spent in training for and taking part in World War II. He was a young soldier who served in gun crews, led other men during his time as a test pilot for planes his men constructed, worked and played while the war went on. Colorful descriptions are given by this aged man concerning people he encountered, happenings that imprinted themselves on his memory, and lasting impressions that altered his life even to the present. It does not end with him, either. The legacy carries on through me, because I have listened to him bring back the days of his youth, and I have recorded them in the hope that others may see the importance of what he accomplished.

Clayton Fike begins the interview by saying that it was not even his idea to join the military, but one of his friends talked him into it. His memories include several details about people he knew from Ted Loveland, the aforementioned friend, his then-girlfriend, now wife Wanda, as well as an easily frightened soldier under my grandfather’s command, who was always asking, “What’s that, Cap’n?” Clayton recalls a large Mexican in his gun crew who was moved to tears when they were at the Bluebelt Café one Sunday morning and heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Personal experiences dot the flow of his narrative, reminding me as I listened, and the reader who will discover the oral history that the war was fought by many people, normal, everyday men and women who were not only on the front lines, but also on the sidelines, and never took part in the actual fighting.

Everyday, incidents took place that Clayton found memorable, such as the following:

we just went to regular drills… It was a Catholic building, an old one, and we drilled every Monday night. It was so old, and the wiring was so delinquent and antique that at night you could go up in the attic and there was so much dust that you could follow the electric wires around—they were red hot—and consequently, it burned the building down…. we’d play around with them (the cannons) during drill trying to get eight or ten of us and try to push a cannon up the ramp to take it outside and we never could do it by ourselves until the building caught fire. Then about six of us pushed it right out the door.

 

His time while in training and overseas reflects many such stories, adventurous, yet meaningful only to him and perhaps a handful of others who happened to be involved directly, but those tend to be the things remembered. Another time, he was traveling on board a ship bound for home, after the end of the war. “One of the guys was standing there—a second lieutenant—he was standing on the gunnels of our ship and he just had his fingers over the steel rail as the two ships passed each other, and it chopped those two middle fingers off right at the first knuckle. He never did that again.”

            It has been shown that sensory memory is one of the most lingering, and Clayton’s vivid descriptions consist mostly of those. One of his descriptions follows, about time spent traveling to another base on ship:

That was quite an experience, it took us about ten days on the mudscall I was on. There were no sleeping quarters available. It was an LCVM, I think is what they called it. It was steel-decked, and it rained all the time we were there. In the hold, the perspiration from the men’s bodies would condense on the overheads, and you’d be sleeping at night and it would drop on you like rain. Warm rain. It got pretty ripe in smell, too.

 

Also, he remembers playing the always-entertaining game of  “fishing, army-style.”

 

We were stationed at Milne Bay for quite a while. I don’t know what we were there for, but we were lying over. There was nothing to do, so we’d go fishing with hand grenades. It didn’t kill the fish, but it stunned them, and they’d float to the surface. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful angelfish in the world. All different colors, all different patterns. And big, they were about fourteen to sixteen inches from tip to tip on their fins.

 

The working of planes has also remained imprinted indelibly in Clayton’s mind. The planes have stayed with him because he loved them so much, and he has always flown the birds, as he calls them. “I didn’t realize that there was a job where I could get paid for having so much fun.” His knowledge has stayed in the fore of his memories, and he oftentimes explains flying to me in mechanical terms, even when it goes over my head. Speaking of the L-5 Birddog,  “It would do a beautiful big spiral, but you couldn’t spin it. Another feature I liked about it was that you could droop the ailerons fifteen degrees on landing. It had flaps on it, and it had 15, 30, and 45 degree flaps, depending on what you wanted, but you could also droop the ailerons fifteen degrees.” His joy in life is talking about and flying airplanes.

            Surprise attacks were not unheard of, and Clayton was close to combat situations a few times. Once, the Japanese sent out a large number of paratroopers where he was stationed, but the base was not prepared for it. They were not combat troops. The 101st Airborne had to be called in, and “cleaned them out.” Perhaps one of the most graphic descriptions to me was when Clayton would walk down the strip, and “there’d be dead Japs laying on both sides of the road. After the first day or so they had a little bit of dirt thrown over them, but mostly they were just lying there. The quartermaster hadn’t been by to bury them yet and their bodies started to swell and stink.” It was a reminder of the seriousness of the battle being fought out between soldiers of different countries.

            Though nearly sixty years have passed since the end of World War II, the relics and emotions felt then still remain, to an extent, and color the present. Clayton, I’m sure, still recalls the fear he felt when his base was attacked, and the shock of learning that Pearl Harbor was bombed. He remembers with fondness Clessie Thornberg, and his eternal questions of, “What’s that, Cap’n?” Hot temperatures and humidity will never disappear from the annals of his reminiscences, either.

It took us about two and a half weeks to come home. I guess we were out for maybe a day and a half, maybe two days, and the weather got bad. It was snow, and then snow pellets, and cold, and the wind was blowing, and we just went out on deck and stood there, because it felt so damn good. After living in that—well the humidity was about 85% and the temperature was 85 degrees, and there was no way that you could keep from stinking. You’d put on brand clean clothes, and they weren’t clean. My dictionary that I had with me, I brought it home and for years after I got home, it still stunk of must and mold. Your shoes would mold overnight. You’d set them by your bed when you went to bed, and they’d be moldy the next morning.

 

            However, he gives the military and government credit for helping him through his life, and is grateful for all they have done for him.

If it weren’t for the military, I don’t know what I’d do. Because of the military, I’ve got a house, I’ve been able to raise my family, and do a good job, I think…. I’ve always been able to pay my bills. It’s one reason that I was able to be an air traffic controller…. And right now, another advantage I have is that I can get all of my medical prescriptions filled for free, and I get all of my medical doctors and hospital expenses paid.

 

My grandfather is a walking testimony of how the military helps our country, and takes care of those who have served faithfully. In a time when the military’s reputation is suffering and being darkened, I know that on an individual basis, they have helped my grandparents, my parents, and myself.

            As I have stated before, the legacy of Clayton’s experiences in World War II did not end with the conclusion of the war, but have continued. In his life, Clayton has succeeded indirectly because of his service during the war, which has benefited his entire line. I would never have thought to do an oral history for my Service Learning Project if he had not indoctrinated me with his wondrous stories from an early age. One of my favorites is of when he crashed one of his planes, but you’ll have to read the history to get that one. His feelings have affected me personally. I am grateful that he was able to live through the war when so many died. I am also grateful that it has not affected him in a negative way, but he keeps in mind mostly fun, innocuous adventures among his companies. It makes life interesting for me, being able to see him as a young man who fought for the United States, but also had the streak of a rebel inside of him. Besides, in the Philippines, he had to do something to relieve the monotony.

            Even more than all this, I have a keen desire now to know even more about his past, and to record it so that future generations might learn about it also. I plan sometime soon to conduct another interview, this one’s focus being his days as a young child, growing up in the Great Depression era. He has lived a hard life, but it has not turned him into a bitter man. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to interview him.