Clay Rector, who was serving in the U.S. Navy as a Petty Officer Third Class, became Clinton County’s first casulty of World War II when the ship he was on, the U.S.S. Arizona, sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor some 75 years ago on December 7, 1941.

by David Cross

Mary Agnes Sawyers still has the Christmas card that her brother Clay Rector mailed to her on December 17, 1940. He sent one that year to each of his seven younger siblings.

A year later, what the Rector family received instead was a telegram dated December 20, 1941 from the Navy, one that his parents, Wendell and Lela Rector, had been dreading:

THE NAVY DEPARTMENT DEEPLY REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON CLAY COOPER RECTOR IS MISSING FOLLOWING ACTION IN THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS DUTY AND IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY X THE WAR DEPARTMENT APPRECIATES YOUR GREAT ANXIETY AND WILL FURNISH YOU FURTHER INFORMATION PROMPTLY WHEN RECEIVED X TO PREVENT POSSIBLE AID TO OUR ENEMIES PLEASE DO NOT DIVULGE THE NAME OF THE SHIP OR STATION=

REAR ADMIRAL RANDALL JACOBS CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF NAVIGATION

Twelve-year-old Clay Cooper Rector moved to Albany with the rest of his family in 1933 from their home at Stop, Kentucky in Wayne County. After an unsuccessful attempt running a store there, Wendell Rector attended barber college in Illinois and began a career as a barber in Albany, while his wife Lela stayed home to raise their children–and continued to have more (eight in all).

For many years Wendell was located on the square in Albany with M.A. (Crow) Brummett, as they cut hair and dispensed varying doses of wisdom and philosophy to their customers until Wendell retired in 1960. Wendell also served on the local school board, as Police Judge, and as Coroner.

After graduating from high school in 1938, Clay enlisted in the United States Navy on December 5, 1939 and by December 1941 had achieved the rank of Petty Officer Third Class (Storekeeper Third Class). He was assigned to one of the Navy’s great battleships: The U.S.S. Arizona.

Mary Agnes Rector was but seven years old on December 7, 1941, but she had a clear recollection of that morning as her uncle, A.E. Barnes, sitting in the living room that Sunday morning, talking to her mother, who was crying. “Professor” Barnes, as he was known, owned a radio and had heard the news reports that there had been a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, where the Rectors knew Clay was stationed, with major damage inflicted on the Pacific Fleet, including “Battleship Row,” where the Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Nevada, and other battleships were lined up as sitting ducks for the Japanese planes which were launched from six aircraft carriers over 200 miles off shore.

The Arizona did not survive long. A bomb caused the forward ammunition magazine to explode, cutting it in half. “There was a roar that could be heard for miles. Then she lays still.” She sunk within minutes, with its casualties being nearly 80 percent of its crew, amounting to over one-half of the naval casualties that day. Clay Rector and 1,176 fellow seamen were entombed in the Arizona, and later the decision was made to not raise the ship and leave the men entombed therein.

On February 2, 1942, the War Department confirmed the death of Clay Rector: AFTER EXHAUSTIVE SEARCH IT HAS BEEN FOUND IMPOSSIBLE TO LOCATE YOUR SON CLAY COOPER RECTOR STOREKEEPER THIRD CLASS US NAVY AND HE HAS THEREFORE BEEN OFFICIALLY DECLARED TO HAVE LOST HIS LIFE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY AS OF DECEMBER SEVENTH NINETEEN FORTY ONE X THE DEPARTMENT EXPRESSES TO YOU ITS SINCEREEST (sic) SYMPATHY=

REAR ADMIRAL RANDALL JACOBS CHIEF OF BUREAU OF NAVIGATION

On February 6, 1942, the Rectors received a letter personally signed by Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, offered his condolences in the tragic death of Clay Rector.

“One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic,” — Joseph Stalin

According to the World War II Museum, sixty million people were said to have been killed in World War II, the majority being civilians. There were an estimated 15 million battle deaths. Over 418,000 American military and civilians were killed in the war.

According to a 1945 list compiled by the local Draft Board and published in the New Era newspaper, 25 Clinton Countians, from places such as Cartwright, Watauga, and Seventy-Six, died in the war. Clay Rector was not the first.

A memorial service was held on Sunday, February 15, 1942 at the First Baptist Church where he was a member. A large crowd was said to have attended, as the time was arranged after the services at other local churches to allow the entire town to attend.

Meanwhile, the death of Clay Rector brought the war home to Albany immediately. He was one of their own-and other local boys stationed overseas, such as Bessie Tuggle’s son, Captain Roger Tuggle, in the Philippines, were also in harm’s way. Roger Tuggle and Clay Rector were two of Clinton County’s best known young men.

At an Albany restaurant the next day, a majority of the young men of fighting age gathered there committed to enlist the next day-and several soon followed through on their commitment. Soon buses were taking men, and many women, to the defense plants in Michigan where they would produce the munitions and materials necessary to defeat the Axis forces. Locally there were paper drives, bond drives, and scrap iron drives. Mary Agnes remembers her sister, about age four, hauling scrap up the street in her red wagon, and stopping to salute the American flag on the way.

Although she remembers it as a very sad time initially, it was also a time of great patriotism. Indeed, her only other brother, at age 17, and two of her five sisters enlisted in the service during the war, with one of the sisters delicately modifying her birth certificate to change her birth date from 1927 to 1921. When her true age was discovered, they sent the teenager home with an Honorable discharge.

Fighting age men who didn’t join the war effort were looked on with suspicion, or with disdain. You either enlisted, were drafted, or something was wrong with you-sometimes a reason, and sometimes an excuse. Many teenagers such as Rodney Piercey, one of the few survivors of the “Greatest Generation” locally, quit high school to join the service. The New Era had a weekly feature, “With Clinton Boys In The Armed Forces” which spoke of those completing basic training, promotions, those on leave, and on too many occasions the casualties of war.

Many items were rationed, including gasoline and tires. Automobile production was suspended in early 1942 as the auto plants produced tanks and jeeps instead of Fords and Chevys. Therefore, there wasn’t much travel by automobile unless it was necessary. Each community had a Draft Board, a Ration Board, and a War Bond Chairman. All of the news was War News, obtained by radio with Edward R. Murrow and others being the trusted sources of information for America.

The war news was very bad in 1941, and not much better in 1942. However, the outlook began to get better by 1943 and when Paul Hunley and his comrades stormed the beaches at Normandy in June of 1944 it became clear that the Nazi empire would not survive. Japan was going to be a much tougher opponent until President Truman authorized the A-Bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagassaki in early August 1945, prompting the Japanese surrender. Soon the boys, and girls, of Clinton County would come home-but some such as Clay Rector and Roger Tuggle, who was captured in the Philippines in 1942 and was killed while a Prisoner of War in 1945, would remain forever across the sea. Others such as Benton Grider and Alva Flowers met a better fate, being captured by the more respectful Germans and returning home safely. Clinton Countian Murl Conner would become the second-most decorated American soldier in World War II, with hopes remaining of a Medal of Honor which would make Conner America’s most decorated soldier of the war, ahead of Audie Murphy.

Mary Agnes Sawyers still has in her possession the telegrams from the War Department, her brother’s Purple Heart, a posthumous Kentucky Colonel commission from Governor Keen Johnson, his pea coat and undress blues uniform which were shipped to her parents in 1942; even the letter that accompanied the $51.49 due him from the Navy when he died, sent to his next-of-kin on May 28, 1942.

But the most sacred and prized possession that she has is the Gold Star–the small star which was given to her parents, to be worn on the lapel, indicating that the bearer had lost a child in the active duty of the service of the United States of America.