page_title: McClelland Barclay
section_title: US Naval service
hierarchical_section_title: McClelland Barclay / US Naval service
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster for Navy Relief show by McLelland Barclay, 1943
context_page_description: McClelland Barclay was an American illustrator. By the age of 21, Barclay's work had been published in The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and Cosmopolitan. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve in 1938 and following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he went on active duty. At the time of his death, in 1943, he was a Lt. Commander.
context_section_description: In June 1938, he was appointed Assistant Naval Constructor with the US Naval Reserve. In mid-1940, Barclay prepared experimental dazzle camouflage designs for Navy combat aircraft, but evaluation tests revealed that pattern camouflage was of little use for aircraft. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Barclay completed the first of many recruiting posters for the Navy.
  On October 19, 1940, Barclay reported for active duty. He served in the New York Recruiting office, illustrating posters for the next two and a half years. These images would become some of the most recognizable recruiting images of World War II. Barclay was determined to be a front-line combat artist. In March 1943, he told the San Francisco Examiner, "A camera cannot catch the human element of a fight, the sweat and blood and courage our boys expend every time they face the enemy." In 1941 he volunteered for this position, but was rejected. Eventually he would serve in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters on the USS Arkansas (BB-33), USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), USS Honolulu (CL-48), and the USS Maryland (BB-46).
  Promoted to Lt. Commander, Barclay worked on further assignments until July 18, 1943, when he was reported as missing in action. The USS LST-342 he was aboard was torpedoed in the Solomon Islands. On board, sketching and taking photographs at the time, Barclay's body was not recovered.
  Barclay was awarded the Purple Heart Medal posthumously. He was also awarded the American Defense Service Medal, Fleet Clasp; the Asiatic-Pacific Area Campaign Medal; the American Area Campaign Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal.
caption: Navy Relief show poster by Barclay (1943).
exif: {}