Lieutenant Robert S. Clever

Robert Clever was the son of Clarence Clever and Ruby Clever. He was born in Portland, Oregon on 22 May 1914. He was the youngest of three children.  He had one older sister and one older brother. Harold Clever and  Marian Clever.

SW 6th Avenue - Portland during 1914. The year Robert S. Clever was born.

He graduated from Clevland High School and went to the University of Oregon for two years.  After he left the university he went to the aviation school. Robert enlisted as Aviation Cadet at Vancouver Barracks, Washington on 15-03-1941.

Clever was, by all accounts, a cut-up, witty and fun to talk to. He was on the university campus . . . living at Campbell . . . doing odd jobs . . . joking the profs. Until he left for the aviation school.

Bob typified what the average American citizen thinks the average American flyer is like: happy-go-lucky, ruggedly handsome, modest but talkative.

Bob enjoyed his daringly dangerous trip over Tokio and was willing to talk— up to a point—about the jaunt with Jimmy Doolittle when he was the "alum of the month"— only 90 days ago. He told how the planes approached the capital of "The New Order," skimmed along just over the treetops to reach the targets. Their aim was good and luckily the firing Japanese anti-aircraft wasn't so sharp. Bob had a great time in Portland in July when he was given several weeks leave. Portland had a great time with Bob, too. The city went "all out" to honor its hero. 

In the Tokyo raid, he served as bombardier on Crew 7. In an interview for his home-town Portland Morning Oregonian later, in August 1942, he told of watching as fishermen on the coast of Japan waved cheerfully at him as the planes roared overhead. “I looked at that guy, and I said to myself: Why, the darned old fool, he’s waving at us! It was our welcome to Japan, and we didn’t expect it, no sir. I didn’t wave back, though.”  

Doolittle Tokyo Raider Force  Crew No. 7 (Plane #40-2261, “The Ruptured Duck”, target Tokyo) 95th Bomb Squadron.Bob worked at the J. C. Penny company and the Oregonian. They, too, shone in Bob's reflected glory of being the first American to drop a bomb over Tokio.

Jimmy Doolittle wanted to take his Tokio surprise raiders with him to shoot the Nazi's out of the sky. Not all of them went. One that stayed behind was Bob Clever, whose ambition was not to go east but go west again with more steel-engraved messages for Emperor Hirohito.

Clarence Clever and his son Robert

He made a daring daylight raid on Tokyo and came through not without a scratch;  he was severly injured when he was throwned through the plexyglass of plane's cockpit when plane 7 crashed near the coast of China after bombing Japan. Robert's life was saved by his crewmember David J. Thatcher. Thatcher brought his crew to safety after the crash. After partly recovered from his injuries in China he flew back to the USA and he had with him a mighty exciting story to tell his Dad, A. C. Clever.

Robert Clever, right on the picture, recovering at the Enze hospital in China.

Robert S. Clever was killed in an airplane crash on 20-10-1942 near Versailles, Ohio. By then he was 28. What exactly happened is unknown to me, but seems an engine failure was the cause of the plane crash.  As navigator-bomber on the ill-fated plane on a routine trip over Ohio when it crashed, Bob was one of seven who died. Army officials have not released full details concerning the accident.

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