By Jeff Mullin
MEDFORD — At 20, Clifton Honeyman did what many young men his age do, he left home to find work.
But one day, while he was on a road crew near Duncan, his life changed forever.
That day was Dec. 7, 1941.
“The superintendent came driving up where I was and said, ‘Kid, you’re going to be gone,’” said Honeyman. “I said ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor.’”
Honeyman did, indeed, leave his native Medford to join the military, but only after waiting until the next year’s wheat crop had been sewed. In September 1942 he joined the Navy, beginning a military career that earned him the nickname by which most people know him today, “Chief.”
Today Honeyman, 85, a retired bulldozer operator and former Grant County commissioner, spends most of his time caring for his wife, Dorthea, who is ill after colon surgery.
He was recently honored by Medford American Legion Post 37 for more than 60 years of membership. He has been a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars just as long, and has held various offices in both organizations. He downplays the longevity of his membership.
“That won’t set any records because there are still some veterans who have been members longer than that, probably,” said Honeyman.
Honeyman joined the Navy, in part, to see the world, and he did just that, sailing to such exotic locales as Iceland, South America and Casablanca.
“I never could find Humphrey Bogart,” he said with a chuckle.
He joined the Navy Sept. 26, 1942, his mother’s birthday. After going to boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, he attended diesel school. When he was just about to graduate, he suffered a ruptured appendix, which put him in the hospital for five weeks.
After his recovery, he was sent to Boston and assigned to the USS Barnegat, a 1,766-ton seaplane tender. Honeyman helped keep the Barnegat’s 6,000-horsepower diesel engines running.
The Barnegat escorted convoys from Boston as far north as Iceland, before supporting the invasion of North Africa. In June 1943 the ship was assigned to South America. While operating out of Brazil, the ship’s seaplanes sank two German U-boats.
“We had depth charges and the equipment to give them some protection from the U-boats,” said Honeyman of the ships the Barnegat escorted.
During Honeyman’s tenure on the ship, the Barnegat suffered no combat casualties.
“We really weren’t in the right place at the wrong time,” he said.
After achieving the rank of chief motor machinist, Honeyman was transferred to Norfolk, Va., then to Grand Prairie, Texas. There he was in charge of outlying airfields for Naval Air Station Dallas.
“I was there when Japan gave up,” said Honeyman.
He was discharged in January 1946, and returned to Medford. He and his father bought a bulldozer and went into business. He married Dorthea June 4, 1950, which kept him from being sent to the Korean War. The couple had two sons and two daughters, including one set of twins.
Honeyman also ran a magneto shop and started the local Redi-Mix concrete plant, before getting into county politics.
“The next thing I knew I ran for commissioner, and I was commissioner 20 years,” he said.
He continued to operate bulldozers for a local contractor until he was 80.
Engines remain a passion for Honeyman. He has a shop in which he restores old cars and tractors. He is currently working on a 1919 Buick. His brother, Robert, was his partner in the shop until his passing in 2001. These days, Honeyman doesn’t have much time to spend on his hobby because of caring for his wife.
“I don’t know how much more time I’ll get to spend on them,” said Honeyman of his old vehicles.
Honeyman has an engineer’s attention to detail, as is evident in one of the souvenirs he has retained from his Navy service, a small notebook in which he kept a neatly-penned list of duty rosters for each watch, each day.
