Rushing to the sound of battle to help when you haven’t been asked to do so has been part of warfare forever.
For a Texan with every reason to stay at home, that moment came in 1940.
Roger Bentley Clements, known by his middle name, was the son of a prominent family in Goldthwaite, Texas, the “Seat” in rural Mills County, between Abilene and Austin. His father was W.D. (Duke), and mom Tillie. There were two sisters.
Handsome, athletic, smart, he graduated from Goldthwaite High School in the Class of 1935, did a year at John Tarleton Agricultural College, and then was off for Texas A & M (where he earned his private pilot’s license).
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When the European war kicked off in September of 1939, Bentley was a senior looking forward to graduation in the spring. A desire to go and fight Nazi Germany prevailed and he left in the spring of 1940 for Canada.
Clements became one of the first of around 9,000 Americans who journeyed north long before Pearl Harbor to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. He went through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, graduating in July, 1941, and headed overseas.
While in England, he wrote a poem called “On Going Over”, dedicated to his mom. The final stanza reads:
“So grieve not for me while I’m gone,Chins up and a heart that’s brave,If God wishes, I shall be one,to enjoy the freedom WE strive to save.”
The young Texan was ready for combat early the next year, and was sent in March to No. 37 Squadron (RAF) at Shallufa, on the Suez Canal. He arrived at a time when the see-saw Western Desert battle was at its most crucial point. Rommel and his Afrika Korps captured the key port of Tobruk in May, and were pushing the Eighth Army back to the Egyptian border for the second time.
Right in the middle of it was No. 37 Squadron.
On Sept. 7, 1942, pilots Sidney Turner, and Archie Cameron, took Vickers Wellington 1c (ES989 – LF-A) off the dusty runway at 19:15 hours as part of an attack on port facilities in Tobruk. Bentley Clements was onboard as navigator and bomb-aimer.
Nothing was heard from them again, and no wreckage found, so it’s likely they were shot down and went into the Mediterranean.
Two days later, Tillie Clemens received a letter from a woman in England, who Bentley had asked to send his poem along. When his mom read it, she had no idea her son was already dead.
The crew is remembered on the Alamein War Memorial, Egypt.
Per Ardua ad Astra to the brave team of Turner, Cameron, Clements, Rod Macdonald, Peter McIntyre, and Geoff Rawbone.
Bentley Clements was the first man from Mills County to lose his life in the Second World War. There would be dozens more, including two sets of brothers.
(Thank you to Mary Franklin for her research, as appearing in Mills County Memories [1994, Mills County Historical Committee]).
