HomeMy WebLinkAboutMcClurkan, Burney - Bio
Burney McClurkan
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Our loving father, grandfather, and husband Burney McClurkan, was
born in the small Texas town of Denton, and later moved to Fort Worth and
Irving. He spent so much time visiting his grandsons in College Station as
well as Lewisville that he could almost claim citizenship in either of those
two Texas communities as well.
Dad passed away last February at the age of 88and so, we've lost
another member of the great World War 11 generation who served his
country with pride, loyalty and responsibility. He was inducted into the
Army in June of 1945 as a special agent in the 970th Counter Intelligence
Corps and served mostly in occupied Germany for the next 14 months.
Beginning in early 1942, after learning of the systematic atrocities in
Europe, the Allies issued a declaration declaring apprehension and
punishment of those responsible for Nazi war crimes to be among the major
war aims. The US Army established the Central Registry of War Crimes
and Security Suspects and published registries of persons being sought for
crimes against humanitY. During just the first ten months in occupied
Germany where Dad served with the Army CIC, the elc apprehended some
120,000 Germans listed for automatic arrest. This group included top Nazi
leaders, members of the SS and Gestapo, high ranking officers of the armed
forces, and suspected war criminals.
Even though the nature of his work weighed heavily on my father's
heart, he was proud and honored to serving in the manner that he did. In
some situations, he and his partners would be responsible for tracking a
suspect as they gathered information. He was deeply saddened by one
incident he related to me. I do not know who he and a partner were tracking
in the town of Stuttgart but I have wondered if it was someone related to
Bormann. Dad was on one side of a street while his partner was on the
opposite side following a suspect. Evidently, someone was following his
partner (Germany had surrendered but there were still many Nazi
sympathizers dedicated to harming the occupying forces) and the partner
was shot. Dad said that it was about the hardest thing he had ever done to
refrain from going to his partner to help him but he had to continue trying to /_
follow the suspect.
Another assignment carried him to Dachau to gather information on
war crimes committed there. So many innocents died from being worked
senseless through forced labor for companies like BMW, Messerschmidt and
Photo Agfa. Sanitation was gross and food was severely limited for the
prisoners. Medical experiments were also conducted there. When their
health broke, they were hanged, shot, beaten or allowed to starve to death
and then cremated in the Dachau ovens. In later years, when Dad heard that
some idiots questioned if the holocaust ever happened, he was incensed. He
had observed the truth in the worst of ways.
Burney assisted in gathering information seeking to locate Martin
Bormann. Bormann proved to be highly allusive and protected by a strong
network of Nazi supporters. Dad viewed him as being nearly as bad as
Hitler whom he served as second in command. Bormann was an extreme
racist who was the zealous executor of Nazi persecution and extermination
of the Jews. It was he that declared that the Jews must be permanently
eliminated by the use of ruthless force in the special extermination camps of
the East. His decree gave Adolf Reichmann and the Gestapo complete
power over Jews as well as the many other groups hated by Bormann. It
was also Bormann who was a rabid fighter against the Christian churches.
He stated in a confidential 1942 memo that Nazism was incompatible with
Christianity and the power of the churches "must absolutely and finally be
broken." My father loathed this man as well as the fact that he eluded
capture and escaped the death sentence he received.
Dad also was a part of investigating Hitler's retreat in the Black
Forest. He referred to it as the Eagle's Nest. In the notes for this picture, he
refers to finding a rock. The "rock" is a piece of porcelain and on the card
attached, my father typed "This is a piece off of Hitler's toilet bowl from his
private bathroom at his home in Berchtesgaden, Germany. The world's
most infamous ass sat here" It was secured by him in April of 1946.
In Dad's military file was a letter from General J M Wainwright. My
father spent his civilian years exemplifying these words: "Start being a
leader as you put on your civilian clothes. If you see intolerance and hate,
speak out against them. Make your individual voices heard, not for selfish
things, but for honor and decency among men, for the rights of all people.
Remember, too, that NO American can afford to be disinterested in any part
of his government whether it is county, city, state or nation and choose your
leaders wisely" Dad lived these words and our family lives with great pride
in this brave and decent man.