D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Clinton Bownds

Boatswain 2nd Class, U.S. Coast Guard
1941–1946

Seaman Clinton, Bownds Gilberts Bar Base, 1943

We were using depth charges at Okinawa. A 327-foot ship doesn’t carry too many because those depth charges are over 400 pounds each. You could sink yourself if you weren’t real careful.

I was born November 24, 1921 in San Antonio. I joined the Texas National Guard’s 36th Division in about 1939. I graduated from Burbank High School in May, 1941.

After Pearl Harbor, our captain called me in and said that he was going to have to discharge me and my twin brother as we were too young. But I was 19. My brother and I said we’ll have to wait until tomorrow so we can join something else. We went to the post office over by the Alamo and looked around. We knew what we was looking for but we couldn’t find it. The Texas National Guard would have put us in the Army, which we didn’t want to do, so we joined the Coast Guard about 30 hours after Pearl Harbor. They sent us to boot camp in Florida three months later. They tell you to leave home with the clothes on your back. We were denied liberty and we had the same clothes nearly four months.

The local press called my brother and I the “Double Trouble” and “South Texas’ Dynamic Duo against the Enemy”. We were the first twins to join the service after Pearl Harbor. I got out of boot camp the week I got clothes, about April 1942. We went to Gilbert’s Bar Station USCG six months later. We were up there 8-9 months training and ended up with orders to go to Pearl Harbor.

While there, I was a buoy tender that set the buoys marking the remains of the battleship Arizona shortly after the battle. My brother and I served in the South Pacific and participated in the battles of Guadalcanal, Manila, and Okinawa. We were using depth charges at Okinawa, looking for submarines. We were near the deepest waters in the ocean. We were sounding; you could turn it up and everybody could hear because it was a small ship. A 327-foot ship doesn’t carry too many because those depth charges are over 400 pounds each. You could sink yourself if you weren’t real careful. We saved a hospital ship by shooting down a kamikaze and it barely missed us as well. I was on the LST 71 (Landing Ship, Tank). I sailed on 12 different ships during the war, traveling the Pacific.

I was discharged August 22, 1946 in Alameda, California with the rank of Boatswain’s Mate 2C. I might have served longer, but I met a cute little gal and she wouldn’t let me go. Faye and I got married on January 1, 1947 and were married for 63 years. 

After the service I took a deep breath. I didn’t look for a job, I had had enough. I could go nearly a full year before I had to go to work. Things were good if you wanted to go back into the service, but I didn’t. I got a job and worked as a butcher for HEB for almost a year. I was also on a minor league baseball team in San Antonio for a short time. My dad had a printing shop and I did that most of my life. I had a print shop in my home and became a master printer. At the same time, I worked for the San Antonio Express News as a typesetter. I printed until almost 2000. {02-25-2017 • Canyon Lake, TX}