THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

May 2, 1991

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            An Admiral in the U.S. Navy once called Waupaca his hometown.  Capt. C. E. Ekstrom and family paid a visit to his hometown, Waupaca, in August of 1950.  While here they were guests at the Fred Suhs home.  The naval officer had just been relieved of command of the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt and was en-route to his new command, the navy station on Whidbey Island, Wash.

            In 1951 he was promoted to the temporary grade of rear admiral.  Ekstrom was selected for promotion to what the Navy calls flag rank by a board in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1951, and was approved by the President of the United States, Harry Truman, 10 days later.

            Shortly after the President approved his selection for the promotion, Ekstrom received his orders detaching him as commanding officer of the Whidbey Air Station, and directed him to report to San Diego as chief of staff to Vice Admiral T. L. Sprague, naval air commander of the Pacific Fleet.

            Clarence E. Ekstrom was born in Waupaca on March 10, 1902, a son of John and Mathila Ekstrom.  He graduated from Waupaca High School and shortly afterward he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD.  It was there that he earned the nickname “Swede.”

            After graduating from Annapolis in 1924, he completed his flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station and was assigned to the Navy’s historic aircraft carrier, the U.S. Langley, in 1929.

            Ekstrom returned to the Naval Academy for a post-graduate course in aeronautical engineering.  He completed this training in 1931 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by a year’s duty at the naval aircraft factory in Philadelphia, PA.

            In 1935 Ekstrom went on shore duty in Washington, D.C., in the Bureau of Aeronautics.  It was during this time that he met and married a Seattle, Wash. girl, Elizabeth Lodoll, and to them a son, John, and a daughter, Martha, were born.

            During World War II he commanded patrol and seaplane squadrons and was an executive officer aboard the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill.  He also commanded the carrier escort Savo Island in action against the Japanese in the South Pacific.  He was awarded the Navy Cross, Legion of Merit and a Bronze Star.

            Admiral Ekstrom’s later duties involved commands of Carrier Division 17 during the Korean War and Carrier Division 6 with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.

            In October 1959 Admiral Ekstrom became the commander of the Pacific Navy Air Force at San Diego.  He retired there in 1962.

            Admiral Clarence E. Ekstrom died January 10, 1986, in San Diego.  A private burial with full military honors was held at Fort Rosecran’s National Cemetery.

            This is most probably the only time that a naval officer of such high rank has called Waupaca his home.

            (The material for this article was found in the July 19, 1951, edition of the Waupaca County Post and the obituary for Admiral Clarence E. Ekstrom.)