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Vet 500

CLAY  BLAIR  (500-1988)

United States Navy, Submarines

blair1CLAY BLAIR served aboard USS GUARDFISH (SS 217) during World War Two and was also a wartime reporter and journalist.
blair3CLAY later wrote for TIME Magazine and LIFE Magazine and was always with his wife Joan on field assignments.  He later became Editor-in-Chief of the SATURDAY EVENING POST.

When CLAY joined Sharkhunters, he and his wife visited HARRY COOPER (1-LIFE-1983) in the COOPER family home – a small apartment in Tampa at the time.  His number was going to be 493 or something like that but he said that he wanted a Membership Number that he could remember, so we jumped him out of line and assigned him Member #500-1988.

CLAY told us at that time, in 1988, that he was going to write the two books on the U-Boats which, as it turned out, were the last two he would ever write.

blair2CLAY BLAIR wrote many books, all extremely well researched.  They include:
*  Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover
*  Silent Victory – the US Submarine War Against Japan
*  Survive!
*  MacArthur – Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero
*  Combat Patrol
*  Return from the River Kwai
*  Mission – Tokyo Bay
*  Swordray’s First Three Patrols
*  Beyond Courage, Escape Tales of Airmen in the Korean War
*  A General’s Life, Omar Bradley
*  Ridgeway’s Paratroopers, the American Airborne in World War Two
*  The Forgotten War – America in Korea
*  Hitler’s U-Boat War, the Hunters 1939-1942
*  Hitler’s U-Boat War, the Hunted 1942-1945