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By Kenneth Scar<\/b>
\nPhotography by Kenneth Scar<\/b> and Chris Waldrop<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/p>\n
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We\u2019re running out of accolades to give Ben Skardon \u201938. The list includes the Clemson Medallion, the University\u2019s highest honor; the Alumni Distinguished Service Award, the Clemson Alumni Association\u2019s highest honor; and the Alumni Master Teacher Award. Two endowments at Clemson have been established in his name, and in 2016, the flagpole in Memorial Stadium was dedicated to him. The governor of South Carolina honored him with the Order of the Palmetto, the state\u2019s highest honor. In 2019, he received a Congressional Gold Medal.
\nThe 103-year-old would rather not receive so much attention, but he also understands he is a conduit to the past. It\u2019s a responsibility he takes very seriously.
\nSo, he humbly accepts each award with the enthusiasm and aw-shucks wonderment of a boy at his first college football game. He believes it is his duty to acknowledge and enjoy the recognition because there are shadows watching over his shoulder who would be sorely disappointed if he didn\u2019t. Ghosts of men who were not so blessed with time.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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Beverly N. \u201cBen\u201d Skardon was born on July 14, 1917. He grew up in Walterboro, South Carolina, \u201cthe son of a traveling country preacher,\u201d and attended the all-male military Clemson College from 1934 to 1938. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army shortly after graduation, which might be the most significant event of his life.
\nToday, Skardon is sharp and spry, with white whisps of hair combed neatly around his forehead and hazel eyes that are clear and focused. He stands on a frame only slightly bent and speaks in a low Southern drawl. It takes him some effort to rise from a chair to shake hands, but he will insist on standing, and then clasp with a steely grip.
\nIf ever you\u2019re invited to his home, which is not five minutes from the Clemson campus, you will be greeted with a heartfelt \u201cWell, hello!\u201d and offered an adult drink of your choice, preferably one of his special \u201cmar-tin-eyes\u201d \u2014 meaning strong enough to knock out an ox. Step down the short hallway that leads from his kitchen to his office, and you\u2019ll see framed citations for two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart hanging above the desk where he pores over his stamp collection (he is a passionate philatelist).
\nBut the award Skardon holds most dear doesn\u2019t hang on a wall. That would be his Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB), a 3-inch-wide rectangular bar with a light blue background and superimposed Springfield Arsenal Musket, model 1795, that is only authorized to be displayed on the upper left chest of the Army dress uniform.
\nTo earn the right to display the CIB, the U.S. Department of Defense requires that a soldier must have \u201cfought in active ground combat while assigned as members of either an infantry or special forces unit of brigade size or smaller at any time after 6 December 1941.\u201d
\nSkardon earned his CIB in a hot, tangled jungle far from home, under terrible conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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Death March<\/b> It was Skardon\u2019s gold Clemson Ring \u2014\u00a0which he had managed\u00a0to keep hidden \u2014\u00a0that saved his life.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Prisoners of War<\/b> \u2022\u00a0 Army Air Force Maj. Theodore C. Bigger \u201934 Only three of the eight \u2014 Skardon, Bigger and Lawton \u2014 lived to come home. Eight Clemson survived the Bataan Death March.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> The Hell Ships<\/b> \u201cThe war was over. Everything that I was terrorized by disappeared, and I never felt so exhilarated in my whole life.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Betsy<\/b> Teacher<\/b> Pilgrimage<\/b> \u201cMy debt to Henry Leitner and Otis Morgan is heavy. It cannot be repaid. People ask me, \u2018How can you account for being alive when your best friends are dead?\u2019 I say, \u2018I can\u2019t.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> CORRECTION:<\/strong> In the printed version of this article, Albert George ’36 was listed as a survivor of the Bataan Death March. After further research by contributors, it was found that George was captured on\u00a0Mindanao in May of 1942, a month after the Bataan Death March occurred. However, George did suffer as a POW in various Japanese camps until he was placed on the Hell Ship\u00a0Oryoku Maru in December 1944 for transport to Japan. As stated in this article, the Oryoku Maru was sunk by American Navy bombers just days later. George survived the sinking of the Oryoku Maru as well as the sinking of\u00a0 Enoura Maru and arrived in Moji, Japan, in January 1945. He was later liberated.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
\nAt the beginning of 1941, as World War II enveloped the world, Skardon was called to duty overseas. The young captain was assigned commander of Company A of the 92nd Infantry Regiment Philippine Army, a battalion of Filipino Army recruits on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. He volunteered for the duty, as the Philippines had a reputation before the war as a cushy assignment in a tropical island paradise. And it was that \u2014 until December 8, 1941, when Japan invaded the islands 10 hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor.
\nThe American and Filipino troops faced an uphill battle from the start. Japan had an enormous geographic and strategic advantage. The islands were immediately cut off from the outside world. Despite a complete lack of naval or air support, Allied soldiers fought for four bloody months, surviving on quarter rations.
\nSkardon led his troops through some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of that theater, earning his two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star for valor in combat, as well as the Purple Heart, during that short time.
\nOn April 9, 1942, everything changed. Skardon, along with approximately 10,000 American and 66,000 Filipino soldiers, crippled by starvation and disease, were finally ordered to surrender.
\nThey were herded 80 miles north through the searing heat of the Philippine jungles in what came to be known as the Bataan Death March. The exact figures are unknown, but it is believed that thousands of troops died at the hands of their captors, who starved and beat the marchers and bayoneted those too weak to walk.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nThe marchers who survived then had to endure more than three years of inhumane conditions and sadistic treatment in Japanese prisoner of war camps.
\nSkardon was imprisoned at Cabanatuan, a military training camp that had been converted to an internment camp, housing 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners. An estimated 2,656 died, mostly from disease and malnourishment but also from summary executions and lethal beatings.
\n\u201cThe Japanese told us we were captives, not prisoners of war, and they\u2019d treat us any way they wanted to,\u201d Skardon recalls. \u201cSo, we were treated like animals \u2014 worse than animals.\u201d
\nAt Cabanatuan, Skardon fell deathly ill with malaria, beriberi and diarrhea. Two fellow Clemson alumni, Henry Leitner \u201937 and Otis Morgan \u201938, kept him alive by spoon-feeding him, massaging his feet, and carrying him in their arms to and from the latrine. But it was Skardon\u2019s gold Clemson Ring \u2014 which he had managed to keep hidden \u2014 that saved his life.
\n\u201cOtis learned a little bit of Japanese, and he became what you call an \u2018in-charge,\u2019\u201d Skardon says. \u201cOtis was able to let it be known that he knew of a gold ring to trade for food.\u201d
\nMorgan traded the ring for a small chicken, some rice and a can of potted ham. The nourishment was as good as medicine: \u201cMy appetite was restored, my eyes cleared up, my feet cleared up, and I was whole again, so to speak.\u201d
\nThat story of Leitner and Morgan saving Skardon\u2019s life is now repeated at every Clemson Ring Ceremony.
\nEight Clemson alumni survived the Bataan Death March. Together with Ben Skardon, Harry Leitner and Otis Morgan were:
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Skardon_Leitner_Morgan-copy.png\")
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\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0Army Capt. William R. English \u201937
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0Army Lt. Martin Crook Jr. \u201939
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0Army Air Force Capt. Francis H. Scarborough \u201939
\n\u2022 \u00a0Army Capt. Marion \u201cManny\u201d R. Lawton \u201940<\/p>\n
\nIn 1984, Lawton wrote the book Some Survived,<\/i> a powerful and unflinching look at the horrors they experienced. In it, he tells how a fellow inmate smuggled a radio into the barracks, piece-by-piece, which became the one fragile link to the outside world. News reports would be passed prisoner-to-prisoner as the tide of the war \u2014 a universe away from the camp \u2014 slowly turned against their captors:
\n\u201cOn October 20, 1944, we heard that there had been a big landing on the island of Leyte, not more than 300 miles to the south. There was joy and gratitude in the camp. \u2026 We felt that even before the battle for the Philippines was over, MacArthur would send in troops to rescue all prisoners of war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\nAs the inevitability of defeat became apparent, Japan felt it had two choices of what to do with the thousands of prisoners: execute them or ship them to the mainland to be used as slave laborers and, ultimately, bargaining chips. The decision was made to load as many prisoners as possible into unmarked transport ships and send them to Japan.
\nOn December 14, 1944, seven of the \u201cClemson 8,\u201d including Skardon, were among 1,619 sick and emaciated prisoners marched to Manila Bay and loaded into the windowless cargo holds of a passenger ship called the \u014cryoku Maru. (Crook had been kept in a different part of the country and was put on a different ship.) Above, Japanese officers and important families were quartered in the first- and second-class spaces. Below, prisoners were crammed into the dark hold like cattle. Lawton describes the scene in Some Survived:<\/i>
\n\u201cIn the semidarkness, it was hard to estimate how much space there was. My guess was \u2026 a total of 4,000 square feet. \u2026 Into it 800 gasping, sweltering prisoners were jammed. Rank and authority lost their meaning as tempers grew short and men became desperate for space to stand and even for air to breathe.\u201d
\nAs the \u014cryoku Maru left the harbor, prisoners began to yell and beg for water. The guards threatened to open fire into the hold if they didn\u2019t shut up. Darkness covered them as the sun set, erasing the few dim rays of light and any hope of escape.
\nFifty died on the first night.
\nThe next day, a flight of U.S. Navy planes from the USS Hornet discovered the \u014cryoku Maru slowly steaming its way north into Subic Bay. The ship had no markings to show there were Americans on board, so they bombed it, unwittingly killing more than 200 of their own countrymen.
\nAs the ship sank, surviving prisoners jumped into the sea and swam 300 yards to shore, where they were summarily rounded up. Two weeks later, they were loaded into identical holds on another ship, a rusty old freighter named the Enoura Maru. The seven Clemson men were still alive at this point.
\nNext came 13 excruciating days in the hold of the Enoura Maru. Each night brought dozens of deaths. The bodies were piled up in an open area near the stairs. There had to be at least five in a pile before they were allowed to drag them up onto the deck for brief, unceremonious burials at sea.
\nOn January 9, 1945, the Enoura Maru was also bombed by U.S. Navy planes as it was docked in the port of Takao, on the southwest coast of Formosa. The cargo hold containing the prisoners took a direct hit, killing 295 more men including Otis Morgan.
\nThe 930 surviving prisoners were transferred to yet another ship, the Brazil Maru. The Brazil Maru managed to stay afloat for three miserable weeks, during which the POWs pushed an average of 25 dead comrades into the sea every day. The bodies of Scarborough and English were among them.
\nThe Brazil Maru docked in Moji, Japan, in the dead of winter on January 29, 1945. Just 497 of the original 1,619 men forced onto the Oryoku Maru stepped onto Japanese soil, many lingering close to death. One hundred and sixty-one more would die in the next 30 days, leaving just 264 with a chance of returning home.
\nMiraculously, Skardon, Leitner, Lawton and George were among them. Lawton and Leitner, who had become very close, were shipped to \u201cCamp 3,\u201d somewhere in the interior of Japan. It was bitterly cold, with 8 inches of snow on the ground. Leitner contracted pneumonia and died on a cold night in mid-February.
\nThe two Clemson men who had saved Skardon\u2019s life in Cabanatuan were now gone. Lawton had witnessed both deaths. The news of their demise dealt Skardon the most devasting blow of his entire ordeal.
\nBut Skardon did not give up. He eventually ended up in a prison camp in Mukden, Manchuria, where Russian units freed him in August of 1945. He was 28 years old and weighed 90 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nWhen Skardon returned to the U.S., he spent six months in the Oliver General Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, before being assigned to Fort Benning. POWs only had to report in on Tuesday mornings to have their vital signs taken, and the rest of their time was free.
\n\u201cThe war was over,\u201d Skardon says. \u201cEverything that I was terrorized by disappeared, and I never felt so exhilarated in my whole life.\u201d
\nSkardon and a group of fellow POWs, who came to be known as the \u201cFort Benning Boys,\u201d accepted every invitation to parties and balls that came their way, driving all over South Carolina in a \u201cbig Chrysler automobile\u201d with changes of clothes in the trunk.
\n\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe had no duties, so I dated pretty heavily,\u201d Skardon remembers with a tilted grin. \u201cGirls at that time were simply amazing to me. I never left the dance floor, except to drop by the bar and show them my CIB.\u201d
\nOne December night in 1946, a beautiful, dark-haired Southern belle named Sara \u201cBetsy\u201d Golden \u201969 caught his eye at a debutante ball in Columbus, Georgia. Her dress was covered in orchids.
\n\u201cIt was called a \u2018break-off\u2019 dance,\u201d Skardon explains. \u201cIf a guy was dancing with a lady, you could go touch him on the elbow. He would stop and bow, and you could step in. The girl I came with was very popular, so I was standing against the wall all night. That\u2019s when I saw Betsy. She had her hair back and was just gorgeous. We started dancing, and I pulled out all my moves. But she knew every one of them. I thought, \u2018Well, this is most fascinating.\u2019
\n\u201cI never danced with another lady after that.\u201d
\nBen and Betsy were married less than a year later and had four children: Sara, Beverly, John and Charlotte.
\n\u201cShe was my debutante bride,\u201d he likes to say.
\nWhile Skardon brushes off suggestions that he must have suffered great psychological trauma after what he\u2019d been through as a POW, there are hints that he didn\u2019t come out of it completely unscathed. He speaks of vivid nightmares that would leave him flailing and sweating in the sheets, even after he and Betsy were married. But her steady presence enabled him to move forward.
\nYoungest daughter Charlotte offers the perfect metaphor for the calming influence her mother had on her father: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever seen my dad dance, but it\u2019s pretty bad,\u201d she laughs. \u201cHe always does some kind of modified jitterbug thing. But when my mom danced with him, she would make him glide around, and it would always look perfect.\u201d
\nTheir union lasted 71 years, until Betsy passed at age 92 in 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nDespite his harrowing experience in WWII, Skardon\u2019s military career did not end there. He went on to serve in Korea (1951-52) and Germany (1956-59).
\nAfter retiring from the Army at the rank of colonel in 1962, Skardon earned a master\u2019s degree in English from the University of Georgia and then returned to his alma mater in 1964, the same year that Clemson College became Clemson University, as an instructor in the Department of English.
\n\u201cI took at least three English classes taught by Col. Skardon,\u201d says David Stalnaker \u201984. \u201cI gave him the name \u2018Bloody Ben\u2019 because he used excessive red ink when he critiqued his papers. I submitted my first paper to him; he hands it back, and all I can see is red ink. I thought, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m going to flunk this class!\u2019 Then I looked at the back page, and it said, \u2018A good effort \u2014 you can do better. Come see me during office hours.\u2019 I did, and that\u2019s when things started shifting from fear and terror to love and respect. He wanted to know what my career goals were and what he could do to help me to become a better student and a better person. We\u2019ve been friends ever since.\u201d
\nSkardon taught at Clemson for more than 19 years. He was named the Alumni Master Teacher in 1977, an honor presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
\nBut Skardon never spoke of what he endured in WWII. His students had no idea what he\u2019d been through.
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Skardon_Leaning-on-Desk.jpg\")
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\n\u201cAt that time, I was not aware of his military service history, but I did know that he was a special man,\u201d says former student Mary Beth Hill \u201977, who earned a degree in psychology. \u201cI first heard him tell of his Bataan experience on the night of my son\u2019s Ring Ceremony in 2007. I know I embarrassed my husband and younger son with my tears, but they just would not stop.\u201d
\nHill\u2019s testimony is typical of his former students, many of whom kept in touch with him as they, too, grew old.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s so amazing,\u201d says Skardon. \u201cI still have my grade books. I look at them and realize six or seven thousand are in those books!\u201d
\nHe retired as an associate professor in 1985.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nMore than 20 years after retiring from Clemson, Skardon caught wind of something happening in the high mountain desert of New Mexico.
\nWord had it that thousands of people, mostly veterans and active-duty service members, had been gathering there once a year to honor Bataan Death March victims by running a grueling marathon over the roughest terrain they could find with 35-pound packs on their backs. A son of one of his fellow POWs who lived near the event site convinced him to come check it out.
\nSkardon made the journey to White Sands Missile Range to attend his first Bataan Memorial Death March in 2007, when he was 89. He joined about a dozen fellow Bataan Death March survivors as an honored guest. At that event, he spontaneously decided he didn\u2019t want to just sit and watch with the other survivors \u2014 he wanted to walk. So, he waited until the last participant was off and running and started walking, just to see how far he could go. He went 8 and a half miles. The next year, he came back and did it again.
\nTo date, Skardon has walked in the Bataan Memorial Death March 12 times. It is the continuation of a journey that began more than seven decades ago in the dank jungles of the Philippines.
\n\u201cThis is now my pilgrimage,\u201d he said during his walk in 2017. \u201cComing here is like going to Mecca \u2014 it\u2019s a shrine.\u201d
\nWhen he walks in the memorial march, Skardon is accompanied by members of \u201cBen\u2019s Brigade,\u201d a group of his former students, admirers and supporters, as well as family members of men he served with who come from around the country to walk behind him. In 2019, they were more than 90 strong.
\n\u201cThe colonel has told me that he marches to honor fallen comrades,\u201d says Stalnaker, a founding member of Ben\u2019s Brigade who has made all but one of the memorial marches with him. \u201cHe says the march inspires him, but I have found it is the colonel who is inspiring.\u201d
\nAt White Sands, Skardon and the few remaining survivors who can attend are treated like rock stars. Cameras and autograph-seekers follow their every move. In 2017, the CBS news program 60 Minutes<\/i> produced a feature story about Skardon that has aired twice on national television, resulting in fan mail from all over the world piling up in his mailbox. For Skardon, all that matters is the walk.
\n\u201cMy debt to Henry Leitner and Otis Morgan is heavy,\u201d Skardon says. \u201cIt cannot be repaid. People ask me, \u2018How can you account for being alive when your best friends are dead?\u2019 I say, \u2018I can\u2019t.\u2019\u201d
\nHe last marched at White Sands in 2019, at age 101. He walked more than 3 miles that year. He was on his way to the airport in 2020 when the event was canceled at the last minute due to the coronavirus pandemic. He lamented when it was canceled again in 2021.
\nTo keep his tradition alive, a group of Ben\u2019s Brigade members organized a virtual memorial march to replace the 2021 march at White Sands, the \u201cClemson 8\u201d Challenge. Skardon was the first one to sign up and walked a mile a day for eight days during the event, which took place March 21\u201328. He trained for it on clear days, briskly striding behind his walker up and down the quiet streets of his neighborhood, where he still walks when the weather is nice.
\nEvery so often, tree-framed views of the Blue Ridge Mountains open behind him in the distance. He hums and sings gently to himself as he goes, and it sounds like a prayer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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<\/a>Eighteen years old. Charles Shain \u201950 was drafted in World War II before he had a real chance to think about college, let alone the rest of his life.
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The 103-year-old Ben Skardon would rather not receive so much attention, but he also understands he is a conduit to the past. It\u2019s a responsibility he takes very seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":23712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[346,1104,1937,2313,2811,2815,3424],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-ben-skardon","tag-english-department","tag-military","tag-professor","tag-summer-2021","tag-summer-2021-features","tag-wwii"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Ben-Skardon_Header.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23711"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}