McClure, who escaped POW camp during WW II, dies

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 9:47 a.m.

James McClure liked being where things were hot.

A World War II Army veteran, he longed for an assignment in the balmy South Pacific, where he was captured by the Japanese at Corregidor and later was part of a daring 11-man escape from the Davao Penal Colony in the Philippines.

As an Air Force officer in charge of security, he served in volatile areas of the world, including during the 1956 Suez crisis, when Egyptian President Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

And he jumped at the chance to come to Las Vegas in 1967 at the behest of Howard Hughes' company to serve as master locksmith for its resorts. McClure said the dry desert climate cleared up a longstanding respiratory ailment.

James E. McClure, who dipped into his own pocket to help fund the rape crisis center started by his wife, Florence McClure, in the 1970s, died Tuesday at Nathan Adelson Hospice after a brief battle with lung and liver cancer. He was 88.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 38 years will be 9:20 a.m. Friday at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

"My father was very adventurous," said Carolyn McClure Dunne, a lyricist from Henderson. "He went into the service at age 17 because he wanted to see the world. And he did."

McClure's heroic escape was told in the book "Some Survived, An Epic Account of Japanese Captivity During World War II" by ex-prisoner-of-war Manny Lawton.

Lawton's account says that when then-Lt. McClure and 10 other officers were forced into slave labor, repairing a hog pen in March 1944, they used their shovels to overpower their guards and escaped into the dense jungle of the Philippines. Just six of them survived the ordeal.

In Las Vegas, McClure was in charge of repairing and replacing the locks on rooms, offices and security boxes at Hughes-owned resorts, including the Frontier and Desert Inn, where his wife served as executive office manager.

"He supported me in everything I did," said Florence McClure of Las Vegas, who founded the Community Action Against Rape Foundation and has been a vocal advocate for the rights of women prison inmates.

"He was happy to allow me to take the spotlight while he stood in the background."

Born Oct. 18, 1916, in Bluejacket, Okla., James McClure was the third of seven children of electrician William McClure and the former Agnes McHugh. After graduating from Hartshorne (Okla.) High School, he entered the Army as a private and finished his 23-year military career as an Air Force major.

McClure earned the Bronze Star during World War II for going behind enemy lines as part of a team that freed American prisoners of war.

In the late 1950s and early '60s, McClure served as assistant manager at the Laguna Beach Hotel in California.

He was a member of the American Ex-POWs, American Guerrillas of Mindanao and American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

In addition to his wife and daughter, McClure is survived by a son, James McClure of Cupertino, Calif.; a sister, Rosemary Myers of McAllister, Okla.; five grandchildren, Jonathan Levig and Lara Ricci Wagge, both of Las Vegas, Donald Levig of Del Mar, Calif., and Conor McClure and Julia McClure, both of Cupertino; and four great-grandchildren.