Rest In Peace John Haile Cloe

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia,
John graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1963 and went on to
serve 29 years in the U.S. Army.
He served two tours of combat duty with U.S. and South Vietnamese
Infantry units in Viet Nam, then became an Air Force civilian historian
and retired as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves in 1992. His many
writings include a series of highly regarded military history books.

When
Virginia Military Institute was notified of his passing, a VMI official
said: “John was the most decorated member of his class,” an aspect of
his distinguished career that the unassuming man never mentioned. Among
his honors John received 10 Air Force level awards and was the Alaska
Historical Society’s Alaska Historian of the Year in 1992. He won the
society’s Pathfinder Award in 1988 and the American Aviation Historical
Society’s Author of the Year Award in 2004.

John won the Air
Force Wing Historian of the Year Awards in 1976 and 1994. In 2003 Brig.
Gen. Robertus Remkes cited John for 40 years of dedicated service to the
nation. He was also awarded the Air Force Association’s Exceptional
Service Award and two Medals of Merit for his documentation of Air Force
history in Alaska.

John’s books include Top Cover for America:
The Air Force in Alaska, published in 1984; The Aleutian Warriors, a
History of the Eleventh Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Four, which was a
comprehensive book about the Alaska Theater of World War II
published in 1992; and Mission to the Kurils, an account of the arduous
but little-known World War II air and sea operations by American bomber
crews against the Japanese Home Islands from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Mission to the Kurils was published in 2016.

He also wrote a
book about one of the projects he championed, the recovery and
restoration of a P38 fighter plane from a crash site in Temnak Valley on
Attu Island. The book was entitled Saving The Lightning. The restored
fighter is now on display at the Elmendorf Aviation Historical Park on
Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson. John’s friend, military colleague and
fellow author Ted Spencer, retired executive director of the Alaska
Aviation Heritage Museum, said John Cloe was a champion for the military
heritage in Alaska.

John also wrote a book, Attu, the Forgotten
Battle, which will be published by the National Park Service in support
of the National Historic Monument on Attu Island, which is owned and
managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Over the years John
produced more than 40 histories and studies, many of them classified,
covering the Cold War In Alaska.

In a review about Mission to the
Kurils by Mike Dunham of the Alaska Dispatch News, Dunham noted that
the 2016 book was the first history of the little-known war fought by
American bomber crews flying from Aleutian air bases to attack targets
in the Japanese Home Islands. In a news article about his passing,
Dunham wrote that John’s “encyclopedic knowledge of the military history
of Alaska made him the leading expert on World War II in the
territory.”

In 1970 John was stationed at the Infantry School at
Fort Benning, Georgia and, John told Dunham, the air conditioning broke
so he “put in for a cooler assignment.” John drove to Alaska via the
unpaved Alaska Highway with his late wife Cay and was assigned as a
historian at Elmendorf Air Force Base, a position he held until 2006. He
made Alaska his home for the rest of his life.

John was widowed
twice. His first wife, Harriet Catherine (Cay) Hill, passed away in
1992. He then met Jane Slisco and they were married in 1995. Jane died
in 2008. John found love a third time with Susan and the two were
married in 2011.

John’s lifelong commitment to the military and
its history led him and Susan to visit battlefields around the world.
Two of the last four summers he guided groups of World War Il history
buffs on tours of sites of historic significance in the Aleutian
Islands.

John was a member of the board of directors of the
Alaska Humanities Forum and the Alaska Historical Commission and an
elder at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Anchorage. He was active in the
Air Force Association and the Eleventh Air Force Association, a group of
World War II veterans who served in the Aleutians. He was also a
private pilot and avid climber, reaching the highest point in 49 of the
50 states, missing only Denali in Alaska. (He attempted to climb both
Denali and Mt. Everest but fell ill and was forced to abort both
climbs.)

John is survived by his wife Susan, stepdaughters and
stepsons, Cynthia (Cindy) and Dan Ryynanen of Maple Valley, WA; and
Christina (Andrews) and Rob Jennings of Napa, CA; Toms and Kelly
Andrews, Christian and Leslie Andrews, and Christopher and Kelly
Andrews, all of Anchorage; and step-grandchildren Lucas and Tyler
Ryynanen and Susannah and Isabel Jennings, Claire and Gage Andrews,
Polly-Faye Andrews, and Lily and Sophia Andrews.

Funeral
services will be held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at 3 p.m. on
Saturday, January 21, followed by a celebration of life in Waldron Hall
at the church.

Arrangements are with Janssen’s Evergreen Memorial Chapel.

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