The Miraculous Story of God’s Protecting Power in The Life of Staff Sargent Harold E. Claypool Story Background: I am Larry James Claypool, the son of Harold Ernest Claypool. From the time I was a young boy, my foster grandmother, Beatrice Kerns told a story about dad’s experience, as a GI soldier during World War II. Dad seldom would talk about his war year’s experiences. To relive those days in his memory must have been painful with the bombings, injuries, cries of pain and deaths of close buddies, himself coming close to being killed or maimed on a daily basis was too much for him to relive the smell, taste, sounds and cries from those he loved and were battlefield brothers. Dad, as radio man used his radio to call down air support bombings and by his coordinates and information targeted locations were identified and enemy soldier’s lives were taken within moments of dad’s bombing requests. Over the years, I thought about that story and always hoped to be able to hear the details of what really happened that day in June 1945 in Mindanao, Philippine Islands. I had no idea that the Lord would someday allow me the privilege to hear the story recited by one of the soldiers who was an eye witness to that miraculous event. While living in Dallas Texas, when my mom (Leona Pearl Claypool) and dad was coming down from Van Wert, Ohio to visit me one summer, dad said that we were invited to visit his former Army Captain William (Bill) C. Dowdy, Jr., who lived in McKinney, Texas, a short drive from where I lived in Carrollton Texas. Mom, dad, and I visited Mr. Dowdy and his wife and spent several hours together that day. Mr. Dowdy and Dad were so thrilled to see each other and discussed their post war lives, family and career experiences so much that the time flew by very quickly. It was in the middle of the afternoon, just before we were going to leave, that Mr. Dowdy looked at me sitting near him in their living room and while smiling at my dad, told me that he wanted to tell me a story that he would never forget and that I needed to hear that story from him who witnessed the whole event from start to finish. Here is that story… During World War II, in the Pacific Theater, the US Army 24th Division, known as the “Victory Division” was on the front line in the Mindanao, Philippine area in June 1945 for a total of 85 days. The 24th Division was being held in place and unable to advance by what many US Military Strategists claimed was a special forces Japanese Ground Unit that was made up of Japanese soldiers who were six foot and taller in height. This Special Unit had been dug in for days in preparation for an American assault. They had at their disposal large quantities of weapons and ammunition and had control of the hundreds of acres of open ground with machine gun locations strategically positioned. They were a last-ditch effort to keep US troops from crossing either the Talomo or Davao River (not sure since both run very close to the City of Davao on Mindanao Island) that bordered near their location and from taking the rest of the island. This Japanese Special Forces Unit and snipers kept the American 24th Division trapped down at a river location for two or three days and made it impossible for the Division to move forward. After the third day, the orders came through from HQ for the Division to advance. Some air support and bombings had been called in and had caused a brief, impromptu retreat of the Japanese Unit and made the rice paddies on the other side of the river accessible for what was thought to be a short duration. Captain Dowdy ordered the troops to wade through the chest-shoulder high river with their ammo and weapons held above their heads and take up a position on the new bank of the river. The 24th Division began to advance through hundreds of acres of rice paddies by the way of a walking path dividing two large paddies. The troops advanced a good distance through the paddies walking double and when necessary single file with weapons ready. Suddenly, while out in the open, a shout from a GI scout near the front of the group told everyone to get down. The soldiers could see coming towards them on the pathway bits of dirt jumping from the tat-tat-tat-tat sound of Japanese machine guns on tripods trying to catch the US troops in tri-angulation cross fire. One of the bullets cut through the thin, long side of the strap that held the radio on dad’s back. Fortunately, the radio was not damaged. The bullet cut through the strap and possibly the shirt material on dad’s back, but did not break or touch dad’s skin. As dad lay quietly on the walkway, he heard a voice calmly say to him….. “Do not breath or move!” Dad obeyed the voice and held his breath not knowing why until later. One soldier on the ground several feet behind where dad was laying reported that a Japanese soldier had rolled up from beside the walkway from the rice paddy and with a bayonet attached to his rifle held the bayonet several inches above dad’s neck for a few moments and then pulled it back and slipped back into the rice paddy and disappeared. The observing US solder several feet behind dad said later that if the Japanese soldier would have tried to push the bayonet into dad, he and another soldier had the Japanese soldier in their sights and would have shot him. While the Japanese were firing on the soldiers lying on the walking path, the remaining US GI troops still at the river bank began to unleash an incredible retaliation and volley of gunfire as the soldiers crawled their way back to the river’s edge to safety. While all men were being accounted for, dad asked where his young HS aged assistant (Hines or Heinz - spelling) was? He was the soldier who was assigned to carry the backup battery for dad’s radio. One soldier answered and said that Hines/Heinz was still out in the rice paddy area and another said that they could hear him crying. Captain Dowdy said that a look came over my father’s face that he had never seen before… a look of resolve and yet peaceful…. and as dad removed his radio on his back, said to everyone listening, “I’m not leaving him out there to be taken prisoner and tortured. I’m going out there and get him and I don’t care whether they kill me or not…. I’m going!” Captain Dowdy said that dad crawled out to the location where the young soldier was weeping and dad rolled down into the rice paddy area next to him. Dad said, “come on…. Let’s get you out of here.” But the boy was too scared and through sobs said he could not go. Dad later told Captain Dowdy that in order to rescue the kid, he took his Thompson Sub Machine gun and hit the young kid in the head with the butt of his rifle. He then, because he could not drag the boy, hefted the boy on his shoulders and began to walk down the pathway between the two rice paddies towards the river. Captain Dowdy filled in the rest of the story that while dad was carrying the kid toward the river the US troops watched and had their guns aimed from the river bank toward any Japanese machine gun location that might fire. Captain Dowdy said to his surprise that none of the Japanese machine gun locations fired any shots at dad at all. Captain Dowdy said that with binoculars, he could see the Japanese soldiers sitting behind the tripods, hands on the triggers, but it was as if God had either blinded or covered the eyes of the Japanese soldiers and sovereignly kept them from firing on dad and his young solder. Dad and the boy made it safely back to the 24th Division by the river bank and the young boy was taken care of by fellow troops. Dad was then given the order to go on the radio, give the coordinates for the location of the rice paddy acres and within hours several US airplanes delivered a mass of bombs that obliterated several miles of those acres, destroyed the Japanese troops who were there and the 24th Division went on to take the remaining land mass of the island from the Japanese and eventually help win the war. The Rest of the Story: According to Grandma Kerns before she died…. It was sometime later that summer in 1945, Grandpa Wiley “Pamper” and Grandma Beatrice Kerns were reading the local Van Wert Newspaper and noticed an article written by the United Press International about a US GI war hero in the Pacific Theater. To their amazement, the story was about Staff Sargent Harold Ernest Claypool of the 24th Division who participated in a rescue operation…. Neither that article or a second article later printed went into the specifics or detail the eye witness report that Captain Dowdy gave that dad single-handedly rescued a young soldier in an American troop assault in the Philippines earlier that June. The story did not go into detail about the miracles that made that event successful that Captain Dowdy shared with me that day, nor give the name of the young soldier, but did state that Sargent Claypool was receiving the Bronze Star Medal for his bravery and heroic achievement. That medal is in the possession of the Claypool family at this time. I think connected to this story (possibly later that night or a day or two afterwards) was when dad and a couple of other soldiers were sleeping in a foxhole one night and the Japanese bombers were responding to the American troop advances and dad woke up with a piece of hot bomb steel shrapnel embedded in the earth next to his head touching his hair and skin. The metal shrapnel did not cut him, but where the metal touched dad’s skin and hairline, his hair turned white overnight from that line up or down (not sure) to another spot on his head and remained white for a long time and then eventually grew back to his normal color. Had the bombing shrapnel been an inch or more over, it would have penetrated his skull, eye socket or brain area and killed him, but God protected him again. In looking back to that day at the Dowdy’s, it was obvious that as Mr. Dowdy recited the story with passion and clearly defined verbal-visual words picturing what the event actually felt like to be there, that God sovereignly gave dad the faith to believe and step out in that faith and ignore the possibility of certain death to rescue his young buddy who was not in a mental or physical state where he could save himself. It was stated with feelings of amazement that God blinded or closed the eyes of the Japanese soldiers at their machine gun locations and they never fired a shot at two defenseless American GIs - one walking and carrying the other towards their troops. Because of God’s protection, dad was able to return home after the war to Van Wert, Ohio, marry the love of his life, Leona Pearl (Cooper) Claypool and give birth to two children, Esther Leona and Larry James Claypool and, not to forget…. eventually give life to two grandchildren Jennifer and Brian and 4 great grandchildren….. Skarlet, Dallas, Caspian and Franklyn. Two other stories with limited Information: While the war raged in the Philippines, but almost near the end of that Island being taken by American forces, dad was told to deliver some equipment to a squad of troops somewhere along the front line. Dad took the jeep and went to the coordinates where he was told to go, but could not find any troops. In order to check out the countryside and identify where they might be, he got out of the jeep and took his binoculars and radio up a slight hill and began to call on the radio. While standing up on the top of the hill, a couple of troop carriers arrived looking for him and saw him up the hill. They immediately shouted and told him not to move or take a step. Several soldiers began slowly scanning the hill for landmines and after about 20 minutes and making some of the land mines explode made their way to dad’s location. He had unknowingly either crossed the front line or was in a Japanese created minefield to defend the battle line. He had somehow walked up the hill and, by God’s sovereign grace had not stepped on any landmines. It took the troops another 20 minutes or more to get him safely back to the jeep. That was a true miracle…. Dad was in a battle and somehow was the senior officer at the end of the battle. I know very little about the details, but the surrendering Japanese Commander who surrendered to dad actually gave dad his sword in surrender. That Japanese Commander’s sword is in the possession of the Claypool family at this time. Grandma Kerns was praying one evening for dad while he was in the army. She had no idea where he was, if he had been deployed out of the USA or was assigned a location in a battle war zone. While she was praying, the Lord showed her a large ship - a troop carrier and hundreds of troops marching up a gang plank onto the ship preparing for departure. While continuing in her prayer, God showed her the gate-arch area that the troops were marching through to get on the ship and then revealed to her a large painted sign above the arch that the troops were marching under. The painting on the ship said…. “Under This Arch Marches the Greatest Damn Soldiers in the World!” Several weeks or months later in a letter that dad sent to Grandma, he said that one day, all of the troops in his battalion or division were called to line up. The commanders called out something like six or seven names…. Dad’s name was one of them. The other troops he had been with were sent to fight the Germans and many did not return. Dad and his other few soldiers named out of the group were immediately assigned into a new troop division to go to the Pacific for the Japanese battle and were required to pack and board a ship that night to be deployed. Dad said in his letter to Grandma that as he walked up the ramp that night to get on the ship, he looked at the sign painted above him on the arch. Guess what it said? Yes….. “Under This Arch Marches the Greatest Damn Soldiers in the World!” Isn’t God faithful and true!!!!! God showed Grandma Kerns what was happening with Dad that night. What a testimony of our God and His love for us. We serve a wonderful, faithful, sovereign God who never fails us and ministers to us when we need Him the most. He kept dad safe in battle and sovereignly put dad where he wanted him throughout his life. God has done that for us, as well. He has a plan for our lives and through Psalm 139 – He knitted us when were in our mother’s womb and the next verse says God wrote in His Book of Remberance for us every day of our life before we ever lived one of them. He knows the day of our birth, the day of our death and every day in between. ESV Bible Translation. We are blessed!