Clinton Davis: Wounded soldier carried his weight

By Chris Rosenblum

There was an explosion. Struck from behind, Pfc. Clinton Davis fell -- a long way.

Shrapnel had plowed into his pack and blown him off a steep volcano in Alaska. One second he had been delivering mortar shells, and the next he was plunging out of control over rocky soil.

"I had a mortar pack on, and that kept my jaw up," said Davis, now 87 and a Pleasant Gap resident. "And I went down this slope and hit the bottom and did a perfect flip. It really took a toll on my back."

In fact, the fall injured two discs enough to eventually pull him from combat, require an operation and lead to a lifetime of discomfort. But for the rest of May 1943, Davis stayed on the front lines.

He was one of the luckier guys in the 32nd Regiment.

Part of the 7th Division, the regiment bore a heavy brunt of the fighting for Attu, a 40-mile-long, treeless chunk at the western edge of the vast Aleutians chain.

The Japanese Army occupied the desolate island, along with others in the archipelago, in 1942 to gain a North Pacific outpost. Dislodging them became the Aleutians Campaign, a 15-month struggle against tenacious defenders and harsh weather that remains one of the war's least-known chapters.

Taking Attu, defended by 2,600 troops, in less than a month cost the U.S. 549 lives. More than 3,000 GIs were wounded, many suffering from frostbite and exposure.

"Attu did not give the soldier much time in which to learn the rules of survival," wrote Brian Garfield, in "The Thousand-Mile War," his account of the campaign.

"Like a high-speed grindstone it polished men up, or ground them down, according to their toughness of body and spirit. Those who endured became hardened veterans almost overnight."

Davis had survived Minnesota winters on the family's dairy farm near Duluth. Before enlisting, he had hoboed on trains to California.

But when he landed on Attu with an F Company mortar section, Davis found out how tough he really was.

Chilling rain drenched the land, accompanied by fierce winds whipping off the Bering Sea. Spongy tundra hampered patrols and bogged down artillery. At higher altitudes, loose rock, ice and snow sometimes forced soldiers to crawl.

Some froze to death at night as the temperature dropped, but daytime wasn't much easier. Fog constantly blanketed the island, concealing friend and foe alike.

"You could never get a clear shot at anything," Davis said. "It would be like the darndest thing, just like a shade dropping down, coming in like that. You couldn't see right, you couldn't see left, you couldn't see ahead."

Back in the Mojave Desert, the 32nd Regiment had trained in anticipation of the North African campaign. Instead, the 7th Division was rushed to the Aleutians without adequate cold-weather gear. Olive drab uniforms stood out against the snow. Feet sweated and turned to ice in leather boots.

"We were poorly clothed," Davis said.

Only light jeeps could traverse the trackless tundra. Munitions and supplies had to be hauled up mountains by hand to soaked and cold soldiers. Lines were stretched so thin that GIs scavenged enemy rations.

Worse, they were sitting ducks.

Across open valleys and mountain passes they slogged, under the eyes of entrenched Japanese on hills and ridges often hidden in fog banks.

"You'd almost walk in on top of them," Davis said. "They were waiting for you."

One step could be disastrous for weary patrols.

"They used trip wires," Davis said. "It could be in the snow, they were pretty good at that. They were up there before we were and had things ready. You'd walk along and pull that trip wire and a whole string of grenades would go off."

Mile by mile, one brutal firefight after another, the Japanese garrison retreated. Few surrendered, preferring suicide. Davis was about a mile away when the last remnants charged through the U.S. lines, screaming, even bayoneting hospital patients, before being cut down at point blank range.

By June, Attu was in American hands.

Davis' back ached, but he walked onto the transport for training in California. Friends in icy graves were left behind.

In February 1944, he lost more friends amidst the snipers, bunkers and shattered palm trees of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.

And then, he said goodbye to all of them.

Doctors finally examined his back and ordered him off the island to a stateside assignment.

While he drove staff cars, the 32nd Regiment fought and died in the Philippine jungle. It bled on Okinawa. And the ranks of the Attu brethren grew smaller.

Davis went on to marry his wartime fiancée, Ethel Swenson, and wed again after her death. In 1952, he came to Penn State, where he retired as a maintenance supervisor after 25 years.

A metal support brace and surgery that stitched his back with scars didn't prevent him from building a house in Boalsburg and raising two sons.

"He was always one to carry his own weight," Mike Davis said of his father.

But long ago, as a young private lying in a heap beside a volcano, Clinton Davis needed help.

Buddies came to his aid. Twice later on, as they battled for their lives in distant lands and he chauffeured officers in safety, he asked to return the favor. Twice, he was denied.

On a ruined tropical atoll, he parted with comrades, men whose jokes eased the misery of a frozen wasteland. To this day, pain lingers not only in his back.

"You may not believe me, but I cried," Davis said. "They were my brothers."

Chris Rosenblum can be reached at 231-4620.