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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Les Clotiaux

 

Date and Place of Birth: 1921 Nederland, Texas
Date and Place of Death: August 9, 1945 Smiley, Texas
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Catcher
Rank: Corporal
Military Unit: USAAF
Area Served: United States

 

Six Army men from Foster Field were killed early Thursday when a plane in which they were returning to their base here from a baseball game at Waco, crashed and burned in a wooded area 60 miles to the northwest.

Harlingen Valley Morning Star August 10, 1945

 

Lester O "Les" Clotiaux was born in Nederland, Texas in 1921. Clotiaux graduated from Nederland High School in 1937. He went to work for the Gulf Refinery and played baseball with the Barrel House Bees in the Gulf Refinery League. He also had a brief trial in the Piedmont League.

 

Clotiaux entered military service on August 29, 1942. He served as a corporal with the Army Air Force at Foster Field, Texas and was the regular catcher on the Foster Field Falcons baseball team.

 

On August 9, 1945, the Falcons traveled to Childress Army Air Base in Texas for a ballgame. The Falcons won that contest and five of the players - Clotiaux, Duard Lawson, Harold Phillips, Chester Seipp and Pete Zarilla, along with pilot Second Lieutenant Peter R Davis - flew back to Foster Field in a twin-engined airplane. On the return journey the plane crashed near Smiley, Texas and burst into flames. Corporal Clotiaux and the other five men on board were all killed.

 

 

On August 12, 1945, funeral services were held for Corporal Clotiaux at the First Methodist Church in Nederland. He was buried at Block Cemetery in Nederland and the burial included a military escort from the Lake Charles air base and US Marine Corps pallbearers from the Marine base at Mid-County Airport in Nederland.

 

Thanks to Davis O Barker for help with this biography.

 

Added September 18, 2006. Updated December 17, 2006.

Copyright © 2008 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.