Cletus Smith
Private Cletus Smith served with Baker Company, 2nd Raider Battalion (Carlson’s Raiders).
He was killed in action during the Makin Island Raid on 17-18 August 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 347545
Current Status
Remains not recovered.
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
November 21, 1921
at Crowley, TX
Parents
James Carol Smith
Velma Pearl (Greenwood) Smith
Education
Details unknown
Occupation & Employer
Lumber yard worker
Service Life
Entered Service
January 10, 1942
at Houston, TX
Home Of Record
Angleton, TX
Next Of Kin
Mother, Mrs. Pearl Smith
Military Specialty
Raider
MG Ammunition Carrier
Campaigns Served
Makin Island Raid
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
—
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Before dawn on 17 August 1942, two companies of the 2nd Raider Battalion disembarked from a pair of submarines, boarded rubber boats, and paddled ashore on Makin Island. The specially-trained Marines and their commander, Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, expected a rapid sweep along the island and a quick rout of the 65-man Japanese garrison. Unfortunately, the Americans landed in disorder and a clumsy Raider accidentally fired his weapon, alerting the defenders to the danger. Short but sharp firefights developed, with the Japanese alternately attacking head-on or allowing Raiders to walk into ambushes.
After daylight, still proceeding up the island, I ran out to a tree in a fair-sized clearing and dove behind it. Still no firing. A Raider ran by me headed for another tree further into the clearing. A machine gun then opened up from the brush and trees at the further side of the clearing, and the back of the Raider's jacket looked like it had a fan in it from the bullets coming out... The Raider fell a few yards ahead of me and to my left... the machine guns swung down on me....
All was quiet for a while, then several kinds of small scrawny pigs came out of the brush and started to eat the dead Raider who had been killed ahead of me. Twice I fired... at them to drive them away. The two machine guns worked me over each time... I gave up trying to drive the pigs off.
In the thirty-minute struggle that followed, Lincoln’s platoon suffered nine men killed in action and several more wounded.
Although the Raiders inflicted serious harm on the defenders, the unexpectedly difficult fighting and the arrival of Japanese aircraft convinced Carlson to break contact and attempt to withdraw to his submarines. This complicated feat took until the evening of 18 August, and meant that the Raiders were unable to evacuate or bury their dead. After the battle, they reported eighteen men confirmed killed in action, and an additional twelve missing.
Private Cletus Smith, a machine gun ammo carrier from Texas, was among those initially reported as missing in action. He was officially declared dead as of 19 August 1943.
Burial Information or Disposition
Upon returning to Hawaii after the raid, Carlson’s unit held a roll call and asked anyone with information about the dead or missing to speak up. Private Lincoln volunteered information on two men – PFC Richard E. Davis, and the Raider who fell in the pig-infested clearing. Regulations stated that two eyewitnesses were necessary to confirm a death; nobody else saw that man fall, so in the words of Oscar Peatross, “he continued to be carried as missing in action instead of having the dubious distinction of being named ‘the first Raider killed on Butaritari.'”
Lincoln was quite sure that the Raider killed in the clearing was Cletus Smith; Peatross speculates that Smith was serving as a rifleman – “the primary role of all Marines” – after his squad’s machine gun was lost in the landing.
In November-December 1999, a team from Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI, a predecessor of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) arrived on Butaritari to exhume a mass grave dating to 1942. They recovered and individually identified the remains of nineteen Marines killed during the raid. This effort, combined with the post-war knowledge that nine other Raiders were captured and executed on Kwajalein, leaves only two men unaccounted for from Makin itself: Corporal James W. Beecher and Private Cletus Smith.
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 18 August 1942.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Pearl Smith.
Location Of Loss
Smith was killed at an unknown point on Makin Island, now Butaritari.
