Clyde was a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh until his military enlistment, in Wilkes County, North Carolina, on February 13, 1943.
As part of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) during World War II, which identified exceptionally intelligent soldiers, he attended the University of Dayton in Ohio. Both he and his army buddy Joseph Bowden Neely, Jr. married their brides on the same day, August 21, 1943, in Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio at the First Baptist Church. The brides (Clyde's Edith Mangum and Joe's Kathleen Bell) drove from North Carolina to Ohio to marry. Clyde was 19 years old.
With the demise of the ASTP, Clyde (ID: 34606510) was deployed to Europe, with the 405th Infantry, 102nd ("Ozark") Division, Company E, where he was killed in action near the Elbe River in Germany on Sunday, April 15, 1945 at age 21. Clyde was awarded the Purple Heart. He is buried beneath a cross at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands, not far from Cologne, Germany. Joe's only child Sharlotte visited Clyde's grave in 1975.
Clyde and Edith had no children, and more than six years after Clyde's death, Edith remarried, in 1951, to Sidney Owen "Jack" Potter, Sr., a Marine. Jack and Edith had two sons, Charles Rhodell Potter, II and Sidney Owen Potter, Jr.
Clyde was a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh until his military enlistment, in Wilkes County, North Carolina, on February 13, 1943.
As part of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) during World War II, which identified exceptionally intelligent soldiers, he attended the University of Dayton in Ohio. Both he and his army buddy Joseph Bowden Neely, Jr. married their brides on the same day, August 21, 1943, in Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio at the First Baptist Church. The brides (Clyde's Edith Mangum and Joe's Kathleen Bell) drove from North Carolina to Ohio to marry. Clyde was 19 years old.
With the demise of the ASTP, Clyde (ID: 34606510) was deployed to Europe, with the 405th Infantry, 102nd ("Ozark") Division, Company E, where he was killed in action near the Elbe River in Germany on Sunday, April 15, 1945 at age 21. Clyde was awarded the Purple Heart. He is buried beneath a cross at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands, not far from Cologne, Germany. Joe's only child Sharlotte visited Clyde's grave in 1975.
Clyde and Edith had no children, and more than six years after Clyde's death, Edith remarried, in 1951, to Sidney Owen "Jack" Potter, Sr., a Marine. Jack and Edith had two sons, Charles Rhodell Potter, II and Sidney Owen Potter, Jr.
Inscription
PFC 405 INF 102 DIV
NORTH CAROLINA
Gravesite Details
Entered the service from North Carolina