Jesse R. McClain

Jesse R. McClain

I was born in Dinuba, Tulare County, California on August 20, 1926. I entered the service on February II, 1944. I took Boots in Farragut, Idaho, stayed for signal school, after which they lost my records and kept me another month. I was shipped to OGU San Francisco, and shipped out on a USCG ship for the South Pacific. The ship stopped at Guadalcanal to load Army troops, about 3,000 of them. We unloaded them at Guam. Then on to what turned out to be the Admiralty Islands, arriving there in September 1944. That is when I first went aboard the Nassau as part of the signal gang.

My memories are when that TBM deep sixed with a full crew plus extras and gear. Again, when that plane came in for a landing and the tail hook missed all cables, and proceeded to drop into the flag bags, knocking off the 24 inch light just above us. Then there was that time we met the third fleet to trade planes — our good ones for their bad ones, and the Captain turned on the flood lights so the planes could land. Another memory was when someone came aboard drunk, upchucked all over the side of the cowling around the bridge. Guess who had the pleasure of hanging in a bosons chair and cleaning it off?

Well, so much for sea duty. I was on until the day she was decommissioned at Todd shipyard in Tacoma, Washington.

During all this time I did raise a family. My first wife passed on, but we had three children: two girls and a boy...making me a proud grandfather of three granddaughters, and two grandsons, plus three great-grandsons and three great-granddaughters. We were married 44 years.

I retired from the Burlington Northern on December 1, 1987 after 34 years as a telegrapher-clerk.