From Prisoner of War to Professor of Bible
by Rev. David T. Myers

Clyde Wayne Field was his name. College students at the now closed Highland College in Pasadena, California had him teach classes for the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, as well as English Bible. He was an able teacher, instructing those who sat in the daily sessions at the small Presbyterian College week after week. But his experiences in life prior to this was anything but orderly.

Born in Braymer, Missouri, when he came of age, he joined the Army Air Corps of the United States. As our country had entered World War 2, First Lieutenant Clyde Field began to fly in heavy bombers over Germany, seeking to defeat the Nazi’s in their global plans for world domination.

Early in 1944, his plane was hit by aircraft fire, forcing Lt. Clyde Field to jump out of the burning plane. Seeking to steer himself by the rip cords to miss the population center beneath him, he tried everything within his power to accomplish that. But he landed in the middle of the German town. He was a prisoner of war.

Clyde was sent to a Gestapo-run prisoner of war camp for the next year. One of six thousand Allied prisoners, he suffered emotionally and physically. His daily food was cabbage soup and bread made from flour and sawdust. Once, he was given a small portion of food and realized that if he didn’t add to it, it would be gone in a day or so. So he went around the prison camp, adding grass, and leaves, anything, to make it stretch longer. However, it tasted terrible, so he had to throw the whole concoction out.

As Russian forces closed in from the east on the prison camp, the whole contingent of captured Allied troops were forced to walk in their weakened conditions one hundred miles. Desperate times called for desperate measures. As Clyde Field engaged a German farmer in his best high school German, he knew that his fellow prisoners were in the rear raiding the farm animals. Eventually, Allied forces came and rescued the prisoners of war. He was released on this day, May 29, 1945, and returned to the United States.

He attended and graduated from Wheaton College and Faith Theological Seminary. Further Master of Theology studies were done at Grace Theological Seminary. Ordained in the Bible Presbyterian Church, he served two BP churches in California and Montana. But his main teaching ministry was at Highland College, where this author studied under him from 1959 to 1963.

Clyde Field went to be with his Lord and Savior on December 24, 2007.

Words to Live By:
One of his Highland College students, Shirley Larsen, of the state of Washington, commented to this author in an email that (Clyde Field) “really helped me form a strong basis for my view of Scripture as God-breathed, authoritative, and reliable. His emphasis on who Jesus was from John chapter 1, because of the language structure of the text, gave me a life long foundation for belief and trust in our Triune God.” Would it be the same for all of us, as we communicate the Reformed faith to our families and the church family, the result will be a stronger faith in Christian doctrine and life in them.