Crandon F. Clark Papers

Crandon Clark was born on September 18, 1921, and raised in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, where he lived with two brothers and a sister. Clark's father worked for Western Union, as did his grandfather and great-grandfather. His mother served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Clark attended high school at the Cheshire Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut.

Clark entered Rutgers College, Rutgers University, as a freshman in 1940. As an undergraduate, Clark played on the football and track teams, joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity and served as an ROTC cadet. Clark met his wife, a New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) student, during a blind date to a Rutgers crew meet. His father's work relocated the Clarks to Washington, DC, during his sophomore year, which reclassified him as an out-of-state student. However, Dean Frazier Metzger and Coach Harvey Harman assisted Clark in securing an Upson Scholarship, which enabled him to return to Rutgers.

In June 1943, the Advanced ROTC class was ordered to active duty and sent to Fort McClellan, Alabama, for basic training. When Clark and fifty-two of his classmates arrived in Alabama, they were covered in soot from the train ride; they were greeted by a Sgt. Greenway from Georgia who declared, "I've never seen a blacker bunch of white men arrive at this camp than you fellows." Thus, this group became known as "the Black Fifty." Following basic, the Black Fifty returned to Rutgers as part of the Army Specialized Training Program; Clark then completed infantry officer's training at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he received his commission as a second lieutenant.

Clark served as a platoon commander with the 69th Infantry Division, first at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and then, as strategic reserve in England before going into action shortly after the Battle of the Bulge. Engaging the Germans from the Siegfried Line campaign to V-E Day, Clark saw combat in the German towns of Landwehrhagen, Eilenburg, Leipzig, Ehrenbreitstein and Benterode. At the end of the war, Clark was placed in charge of a prisoner of war camp in Austria. While on occupation duty, Clark was able to study political science and economics at Biarritz American University in Biarritz, France; the credits he earned there allowed him to graduate in absentia from Rutgers with a degree in business administration.

After being discharged, Clark attended Harvard University on the GI Bill. He served as an adjunct faculty member at Rutgers in the marketing department over a fourteen-year period. He was an editor of the 69th Division History Book and the Class of 1944 Military History Book.