He was with the 5th Regiment through that fame-winning Belleau Wood
battle, and has endless stories to tell of experiences in that terrible
fight, some of them amusing as an afterthought, though they were not
so regarded at the time. For example, the experience when he and a
stretcher bearer were crawling through the grass toward the trench
where General Catlin lay seriously wounded. Shells were dropping and
machine-gun bullets were slashing all about.
“Keep closer down, Doc,” was the constant admonition of the stretcher
bearer, “closer down.”
“The lad didn’t realize, I guess,” Doc says, “that I was perfectly
willing to get closer to the earth but my stomach prevented my doing
so.”
He says of the awful days in Belleau Wood, where his life was
repeatedly in danger:
“It was glorious to be with the boys there, as they saved Paris and
made history. Out of the 1,600 men in the 3rd Battalion, there were
only 200 left after ten days in Belleau Wood. Many a time the rosary I
carried was covered with blood as one of those brave boys grasped it
for the last time.” (Creed made no difference at a time like that.)
“I could relate instances of individual heroism for hours at a time.
I lay by the side of Top Sergeant Grant of the 20th Company while he
picked off nine Germans consecutively at 400 yards; that’s Marine Corps
marksmanship for you.
“‘Anything I can do for you, boy?’ I asked him.
“‘No, Doc,’ he said, ‘but you might pray while I aim.’
“‘I’ve been doing that,’ I told him, ‘every time you squeeze the
trigger.’ Later I saw him blown to pieces by a shell.
“Then there was the chap named Young who saw Major Berry wounded and
threw himself in front of him as a shield from the bullets that were
flying like hail. Later, when I spoke to him about his act, he merely
said, ‘I’ve done nothing.’ A few days afterward when he had volunteered
to perform a dangerous mission in the town of Lucy and was doing what
he would probably have called ‘nothing,’ he, too, was killed by a bit
of shell.
“One of the boys saved me when I was stunned by shrapnel and in my
stupor started to walk toward the German line. He saw where I was
headed and got Doc out of that pretty quick. Then I was paralyzed by
another piece of shrapnel and was taken to a Paris hospital. But I was
lucky. I was out again in five weeks and got back at the front just
in time to be with my boys when the great drive opened on July 18 at
Soissons.”
During that intense fighting he was again at the side of the men of the
5th to lend a hand whenever possible. One wounded Marine asked him for
a smoke, which was forthcoming, but the lad was unable to take it, his
hands were both shot.
“Light it for me, will you, Doc?” he said, and Doc did, although he
hadn’t had any practice for more than thirty years.
Another story he tells is of a runner who, before one of the battles,
asked him to lead a prayer meeting. Although somewhat astonished by the
request, Doc complied and the meeting was duly held in a dugout. Later
an officer was questioning the runner concerning his whereabouts.
“I was in the dugout at a prayer meeting,” said the boy.
“A prayer meeting?” demanded the officer.
“Yes, sir,” persisted the lad, “and it was a damned good prayer
meeting.”
Besides the Croix de Guerre, Dr. Clifford proudly wears the blue Cross
of Lorraine, given him by an officer in that province.