WWII Veteran Hero Carl Clark Passed Away

East Palo Alto: Veteran whose heroic deeds went unrecognized for six decades dead at 100
Mercury News
Jason Green
April 1, 2017

The captain “could not recognize me in the battle report because we had that vicious bigotry,” Clark said in an interview with this newspaper in 2012. He added that he was thrown in the brig, the ship’s holding cell, on two occasions for “acting like a white man.”

Carl Clark, 95, speaks after being awarded The Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with the Combat Distinguishing Device at Moffett Field in Mountain View on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Clark, a World War II veteran, was honored Tuesday for his heroism on May, 3, 1945, when he helped save his destroyer, the USS Aaron Ward, during a kamikaze attack.

(Kirstina Sangsahachart/ Daily News)

EAST PALO ALTO — Friends, family and military personnel gathered Friday to pay tribute to the late Carl E. Clark, a U.S. Navy veteran from Menlo Park who had to wait more than 65 years for formal recognition of his heroism on the front lines of World War II.

Clark died March 16 at the Menlo Park division of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. He was 100 years old.

Clark, an African-American, received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal at a ceremony in January 2012, six decades after he shrugged off a broken collarbone to douse fires and drag his fellow sailors to safety amidst a harrowing kamikaze attack on the USS Aaron Ward.

Although the captain personally thanked Clark, his actions were excluded from the official record.
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