Chief Warrant Officer 4
Clarence E. Reeves

Chief Warrant Officer Four Clarence E. Reeves was born in Smith County, Texas on February 20,1922. Entering the Army in 1939, he served during World War II as a Combat Infantry Squad Leader, landing on Omaha Beach on June 7,1944. His unit was awarded two Presidential Unit Citations for bravery in combat, and he was himself awarded the French and Belgian Croises de Guerre and the Bronze Star Medal.

Appointed an Ordnance Warrant Officer in 1950, he completed several tours of duty in France and Germany before embarking on 28 years of nearly continuous tours outside the Continental United States, both as a warrant officer and later as a civilian. These tours took him to France, Germany, Vietnam, Korea, and Hawaii. He is known for the organization and establishment of the "Production Line" maintenance system.

In Korea, he instituted an assembly line processing procedure, wherein, 163 acres of equipment and repair parts were inventoried, located, and disposed of before the end of his two year tour there. It had been estimated that the job would take five years. During his final tour as a warrant officer, he organized and was chief of the Command Maintenance Inspection Team at Cam Rahn Bay Depot, Vietnam.

Embarking on a new career as a civilian employee for the Department of the Army in late 1967, he served in a variety of important posts, declining supervisory positions because he preferred to continue working with troops and equipment. While in Hawaii, he saved the Army millions of dollars by identifying new and serviceable equipment from among mountains of materiel returned from Vietnam which was inspected, classified, and issued to units to replace shortages.

During his final tour in Hawaii during the 1980s, he was directly involved in forces modernization and the fielding of new weapons at Headquarters, WESTCOM. For three-and-a-half years, at the solicitation of the University of Hawaii, he first developed, and then taught, various courses of instruction on diesel engines. Mr. Reeves retired in 1990 following more than half a century of federal service as an outstanding R&D and acquisition support specialist for the Army.