(subdued music) - West Tennessee has lost a hero.

Dyersburg's Jack Claiborne, a retired Seaman First Class, passed away at the age of 99.

He served our country during World War II in Normandy on D-Day.

Hello, I'm Peter Noll, West Tennessee PBS General Manager and CEO.

I'm here at Jackson's Muse Park, where banners hang honoring our local veterans.

We were honored to be with Jack Claiborne at a flag retirement ceremony held at Casey Jones Village.

We spoke to him in what is believed to be his last-known interview.

Personally, as a son of a veteran, I was especially honored to meet Mr. Claiborne and to thank him for his service.

For the next 30 minutes, West Tennessee PBS will share that never-before-seen interview with Mr. Claiborne as we pay tribute to him and all veterans.

- Seaman First Class Jack Claiborne indeed is one of the Greatest Generation ever, and he's part of our ceremony today as we are retiring the flags that have served our country so well.

Mr. Claiborne, I gotta ask you this question.

You were at D-Day.

- Yes.

- 19 years old.

What kind of emotions went through your mind on that day?

- Everything.

Everything.

I don't know what you knew, what a landing craft, I mean a Navy LCI was, but that LCI stood for Landing Craft Infantry.

And it was not like this, the others.

It was pointed bow, and we went right into the beach, let a ramp go off each side, and the troops went down right on the beach.

In D-Day, the tides over there rose and fell 25, 26 feet.

We always went in at high tide, and the Germans knew that, so they would, at low tide, they would go out there and they would do like railroad ties up on an end and put a mine on top of them.

And also rail things sticking up in there.

If your ship went in at high tide, there was little rails and things, and the mines would blow the bottoms out of your landing craft.

So this is the first one we had to go in at low tide, to where we could see those things.

And that's the reason so many, you see so many pictures of soldiers wading, and a lot of 'em drowned, stepping in holes, and they had their packs on their backs, and it was just terrible.

But like I said, I helped land the 202 troops.

The LCI would hold 202 troops and sleep 'em overnight, and they were cramped in there like you can't believe.

But anyway, I helped land those 202 troops at 7:30 that morning.

And then we went about helping.

Two LCIs was right beside of us, and one of 'em got hit directly, direct hit from German artillery and it killed a lot of men.

So we had to pull, had to help pull that ship back off the beach and get the wounded and the crew that was still living off of there and pulled it, pulled it out there and it sunk.

And so it was just, just a bad situation.

And then we, I was on the beach there, up and down the beach, for 58 days after that.

I didn't, it was the.

Our captain was a wonderful man and was really sharp in his business.

And he, the Channel is always rough, and they had to have a breakwater somewhere to where they could land stuff.

So about dinner time, after the fighting got over the hill on that bluff at Omaha Beach, they brought in tugs, brought in old, old Liberty ships, and one old Indians battleship that was built in 1896, and wrapped them up, bow to stern, and blew the bottoms out of them, and made a breakwater, made a good-sized port, where they could bring the cargo ships in with supplies and all and take stuff back to England.

About, oh, 10, 12 days after D-Day, they had the worst storm on the English Channel they'd had in over 100 years and it destroyed all of that.

But anyway, they had made this commander, a port commander.

And so he brought aboard our ship seven signalmen and eight radioman where he could radio different ships to come in and unload.

He wanted a shallow-running ship to where he could go up and down the beach.

And this LCI, it landed, it's the smallest sea-going vessel in the Navy.

It, going loaded, going to sea, it took us 21 days to cross the North Atlantic in it.

And it was 158 feet long and 23 feet wide.

And I got a fishing boat out here, Humboldt Lake.

It was 18 feet long.

And the ship, sea-going ship, five feet wider than my ship was long, my fishing boat was long.

- You had a decidedly different experience with that.

Well, I want to tell you on this special day, we're glad you're here to continue to tell these stories, and also thank you for your service and for everything you mean to the folks at the Tennessee State Veterans Home.

That's where my mother was until she passed away last year.

- I had a sister-in-law that was an Army nurse out in New Guinea and all during World War II, and she married my brother.

And she died up there just a triple room from where I'm in now.

Of course that's been good many years ago.

She was quite a girl.

- Thank you again for your service and God bless you.

- Thank you, sir.

And I appreciate everybody, and I especially appreciate the people out there at the home that treat me so wonderful.

- I am so honored today to have the privilege to introduce to you an amazing veteran that I just met the other day.

After a two-hour conversation with him, to say I was touched deeply by his story would be an understatement.

You see, Jack Claiborne is a World War II Navy veteran and survivor of the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach.

He was a gunner on one of the landing crafts that day.

He would like to share with you some of what he experienced on that D-Day.

So Jack, why don't you come forward?

We have a microphone right down here on the brick passageway and share with us something about D-Day.

- [Commentator 1] Jack Claiborne is 100 years old.

And as we say, with every passing day, men and women who served during World War II are no longer with us.

And he's one of the few that's remaining.

He is at the Tennessee State Veterans Home in Humboldt that does such a wonderful job of dealing with our veterans.

And you can see the crowd.

- Standing ovation.

Wonderful.

(audience applauds) He's in a wheelchair, of course.

- I want to thank everybody for attending this.

I first want to thank the state of Tennessee for having a home out there that I can go to.

- Is that better?

- And it's amazing.

And I'll talk a little about D-Day and then I want to introduce you to somebody that's more important than any person for the veterans I've ever seen.

But anyway, I'll start talking about D-Day.

I was over there, over way with England.

Some of you did not know that the D-Day was supposed to have been on June the fifth.

And there was such a tremendous storm on the Channel that Eisenhower canceled it a day.

And it was still upon us, the storm, the day of D-Day.

But anyway, we went across.

And on D-Day morning, excuse me, at 7:30, I was on a landing craft, an LCI.

And that was, an LCI stood for Landing Craft Infantry.

We carried 202 troops in, at 7:30 that morning to the beach.

I helped land them.

And on that beach that day, there was 4,000 boys got killed that day.

I was right out there among 'em, a 19-year-old boy.

And a 19-year-old kid shouldn't have to see this stuff.

But I had to help handle dead, living, and people without arms, people hollering.

And the good Lord was with me.

I didn't get a scratch, and He's still with me.

I'll be 99 years old in September, and He's still with me.

But that's all I'll say about D-Day.

I also, I stayed on that beach for 58 days after that.

And so anyway, I want to introduce this person.

She's done more for the veterans than anybody I ever saw.

She started this Forever Young Veterans organization.

She lives at Collierville, Tennessee.

She has a meeting, and she has carried hundreds, hundreds of people all over the world, veterans.

And she's carried me back to Normandy three different times.

And I just love her to death.

Her name is Diane Hight.

She's carried hundreds, hundreds of people, veterans, all over the world.

And I want her to come forward and say a few words.

And Diane, would you come forward?

- I'm right here, Jack.

(audience applauds) - This is one of the sweetest ladies I ever saw.

And she has done all of this and has never accepted one penny.

- Hi, Jackson.

- Hi.

- You're not gonna believe this.

When my husband was stationed at the Pentagon, I'm from Arkansas, we would drive all the way through to Arkansas, we'd come through Jackson, and I said to him, "You know, I would love to live here someday."

And we are in, I never thought we would be in Tennessee ever, but we do live in Collierville, Tennessee, so we're close.

But I've always loved Jackson.

Well, I wanna just briefly tell you why I started Forever Young Veterans.

When I was growing up, my father became an alcoholic after World War II, and I watched him suffer and our family suffered.

And he loved this country so much.

And when my husband was flying for FedEx, and our youngest was going into his senior year of high school, I said, "I wanna do something for World War II veterans."

They've never asked for anything from our country.

And my dad never asked for anything.

And I thought I can do some small little wishes for them, maybe get a medal they never received, or reunite them with a comrade.

But what I didn't realize, and it was a shock to me, is that our World War II veterans were suffering silently, just like my dad, and their families were suffering like our family.

And so at that point, we decided to make Forever Young Veterans about honor and healing.

We wanted to help bring healing to our veterans who had suffered in combat and also to their families.

And like Jack told you, we have traveled the whole world together.

Haven't we, Jack?

We've had some amazing experiences.

And I just want you to know, this is an American hero.

We have honored thousands of veterans, but he is one of my favorites of all time.

Jack, I love you, and you are an American hero.

- Thank you.

(audience applauds) - [Commentator 1] Jack corrected us a moment ago and said that he's about to be 99.

(commentator 2 chuckling) - In September.

- [Commentator 1] But I'll say again, the West Tennessee, the Tennessee State Veterans Home in Humboldt does such a marvelous job in caring for our veterans.

- Jack, in honor of you coming today and participating in our retired flag day, I have a couple of things for you today to give you.

First off is a US flag, brand new US flag, from the American Veterans Association.

So I want to present that to you today.

- Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

- And Jack, today we have retired, we're gonna be retiring many flags.

One of them in the group was a huge garrison flag.

On normal flags, your little metal grommets that hold the flag on the pole are just little metal, round grommets.

But on the garrison flag, that flag is so heavy that requires big pins.

So on that flag, I cut two of the clips off and put 'em on a carabiner, and I want to present that to you today because that's gonna be a flag that we're gonna be retiring today, as remembrance of June 24th, 2023, retired flag day.

And we have another presentation, of Senator Jackson has something for you also.

Senator, I'll get it for you.

- Thank you, Dan.

Again, this is a huge, huge honor.

Mr. Claiborne, thank you for your service.

You are truly one of America's Greatest Generation, and we thank you for what you did during World War II.

I didn't know exactly what it was that you did, but a gunner on a landing craft.

You were a target, and I'm so glad that you were able to survive that, as many others did not.

So thank you for your service to our country.

Representative Todd and I want to present you with a Tennessee state flag that you can have and hopefully will be able to display somewhere.

So Representative Todd.

- I want to thank everybody that's here for being so nice to me.

It's just amazing that the Lord has blessed me like this.

I want to appreciate everybody that's here, and especially Diane 'cause she has done so much for me, and I just love her, just can't tell you enough about her.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

(audience applauds) - Jack, if they could hold this for you, these gifts that we've given you, because we have something else that's special.

Today is our retired flag day, and we're gonna be retiring quite a few US flags.

Well today, in honor of you, you get to put the first US flag on the fire over here.

So I'm gonna give you this flag here.

And guess what, Jack, when I was going through all of the flags, I came across a US Navy flag that needs to be retired.

So you get to retire that flag also for your service in the US Navy during World War II D-Day.

Thank you.

Both of these to be put in there?

- Yeah, you can, if someone wanna push you over, closer to the fire here.

- Do the back things.

- We want to honor you.

Yes, sir, just goes in.

Yeah, just toss it right on in.

- [Commentator 2] Mr. Claiborne being wheeled over to the fire to put the very first flag to be retired.

(audience applauds) - From all of us at West Tennessee PBS, rest in peace, Jack Claiborne.

We thank you for your service.

And we thank all veterans, military service members, and their families for their sacrifices.

Thank you for watching and remember to take time to thank a veteran.

(subdued music)