[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9202]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING JAMES McCLAMMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute an almost 80-year-old 
veteran from my southeast Texas district. A dedicated American, a 
charter member of the greatest generation, Private James McClammy this 
weekend finally received the honors due him after 60 years.
  A bit of history is in order, Mr. Speaker. Private McClammy was born 
in Canton, Mississippi, in the mid-1920s. James McClammy grew up during 
the Great Depression. Times were tight, tough and hard.
  Mr. Speaker, he was a depression baby, as he calls himself. His 
family moved to Poke County, Texas, just outside of Livingston. That is 
in the Piney Woods of deep east Texas. He was the son of a State 
highway worker. And although he lived in a peaceful country atmosphere, 
the world would soon be at war again.
  This teenager would be like thousands of other Americans; he, too, 
would go off to war. With the outbreak of World War II, Mr. McClammy 
was drafted right out of high school. A strapping 18-year-old, he has 
answered that call with abiding courage. He began his basic training in 
the Lone Star State at Fort Sam in San Antonio and then in Camp 
Walters, Texas.
  It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that my dad about the same 
time was going through basic training at Camp Walters, Texas, and he, 
too, served in the great World War II in Europe.
  At any event, Private McClammy later was sent to Fort Benning, 
Georgia, for jump school to complete airborne training. Following the 
D-Day landings, Private McClammy was assigned to the 501st Parachute 
Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division's Easy Company and was 
deployed to Holland.
  Having been a member of the famous Screaming Eagles for less than 4 
months, this young private was about to experience a day he would never 
forget. It was Sunday the 17th, Mr. Speaker, a perfect Sunday in 
September of 1944. Private McClammy was one of more than 30,000 
Americans and allied paratroopers involved in Operation Market Garden. 
They were charged with the important yet extremely perilous mission of 
descending into German-occupied Holland. Their objective was to secure 
the bridges across this occupied country's rivers so the allied forces 
could avoid the German defense line, the Siegfried line.

                              {time}  1845

  One of these bridges was referred to in the military history as a 
Bridge Too Far. The 101st traveled swiftly northwards and into the 
lowlands of Germany. If their valiant jump attempts were successful, 
many believed the war could be over by Christmas, but this was not to 
be.
  Private McClammy recalls the morning of the daylight jumps. He says, 
``My memory is not as good as it used to be, but it was a beautiful day 
and there was no enemy fire. Our goal was to capture and hold a bridge, 
a railroad bridge in Veghel, Holland, to prevent the German Army from 
seizing and destroying it. While the Germans were initially caught off 
guard by the airborne landings, they were by no stretch of the 
imagination defeated.''
  The jump into Holland was unlike any of Private McClammy's other 
jumps because there was no swinging around after his chute opened. 
Because they were so close, they jumped and almost immediately hit the 
ground. During the mission, Private McClammy's personal duties were 
clear: move forward, capture the bridge.
  The Screaming Eagles 501st Regiment was led by Colonel Howard 
Johnson. With all of but one of his battalions descending as planned 
into the drop zone near Veghel, Colonel Johnson's men, including 
Private McClammy, marched steadfastly into the city where they 
successfully completed their mission and held and followed their 
orders: hold until relieved.
  He says, ``We held the bridge and then got relieved by another unit. 
It wasn't until later in the day that the enemy fire started.'' While 
he completed that day's work unscathed, the next week he was not as 
fortunate. On September 23, the Germans started shelling and they 
continued to shell.
  Amidst an artillery barrage, a nearby shell explosion sent shrapnel 
flying into Private McClammy's hip. He was the sole survivor because 
three of his teenage friends, other members of the 101st, were killed 
in that attack. He was trapped for several days, and finally evacuated 
to a field hospital in Belgium where they operated on him.
  He was then flown to a facility in England where he spent the 
remainder of September until early December recovering from his wound. 
At that point, he traveled on a crowded ship back to the United States 
where he boarded a train from South Carolina to Texas that stopped at 
various cities in the southern United States to drop off wounded 
veterans.
  Private McClammy was discharged after the war and, like many of his 
band of brothers, never learned he had earned the Bronze Star for his 
action in World War II. It was only recently that a friend and fellow 
soldier from the Easy Company, Willie Ray Fox, brought this to his 
attention.
  Mr. McClammy tried for 2 years to get his medal without success. In 
March, he contacted my Jefferson County office, and he was awarded 
those medals last week.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the military and members of my office 
for helping to find him those medals, and they were, Mr. Speaker, the 
World War II Victory Medal, the Combat Infantry Badge 1st Award, the 
Honorable Services Lapel Button, the World War II Parachutist Badge, 
the Purple Heart, and the Bronze Star.
  We thank Private McClammy for his service. We thank him for being a 
good American. We thank him for his service.
  As Shakespeare wrote many years ago about the band of brothers: 
``From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be 
remembered--We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.''

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