Barton Among Calhoun's Most Accomplished Vets PDF Print E-mail
By JOEL McNEECE
From leading troops in battle during World War II to serving as the first ever chief of security with the CIA, Col. Claude D. Barton is certainly among Calhoun County’s most accomplished soldiers.
Col. Barton was born Aug. 12, 1916 approximately one mile north of Derma. When he was 2-years-old, his parents Leo Rupert Barton and Ora Lee Pyron Barton moved the family to Oldtown, north of Pittsboro.
“We were a farming family and we only had about 65 acres at Derma,” Col. Barton said. “We needed a bigger farm and found that at Pittsboro.”
Col. Barton began school at Oldtown in a two-room, two-teacher school house. He stayed there through fifth grade, then started at Pittsboro.
“Pittsboro only taught through the eleventh grade at the time so I had to go to Bruce my senior year,” Col. Barton said.
When he wasn’t in school, he was typically working.
col_barton664“There was always something to do on the farm,” Col. Barton said. “My dad thought everyone around had to work. By the time I was 11-years-old he had made me his tractor-boy.”
Col. Barton graduated from Bruce High School in 1935 and from there attended Mississippi State College (now University). At the time, all MSU students were required to enroll in the school’s Army ROTC program for two years. Col. Barton elected to apply for the competitive advanced ROTC program in year three.
“It provided a uniform and $25 a month,” Col. Barton said. “That was good money at the time and I needed it.”
While earning his degree in agriculture engineering, Col. Barton also received his commission as a second lieutenant, infantry.
Upon graduation in 1939 he was offered a job with Allis Chalmers Tractor Company in Memphis that provided room and board, plus $75 a month.
“I elected to go on active duty instead,” Col. Barton said. “I liked the people I was working with. Thought it was a better opportunity.”
He entered the Army in July 1939 and was commanding an infantry battalion less than four years later. Col. Barton’s service in World War II was in the Pacific theater. He led troops into combat in Okinawa and in the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and also one of the largest naval battles in history. Col. Barton and his fellow United States troops invaded the island of Leyte as part of a strategy aimed at isolating Japan from the countries it had occupied in South East Asia, and in particular depriving its forces and industry of vital oil supplies. The Imperial Japanese Navy  mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to defeat the Allied invasion, but was repulsed by the US Navy.
“I consider successfully commanding an infantry battalion in the Leyte operation as my biggest accomplishment,” Col. Barton said.
Following his return from the Asiatic-Pacific theater, Col. Barton was assigned to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. He was named the agency’s first Chief, Security Division.
The National Defense Act of 1947 authorized the creation of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Col. Barton was immediately assigned as the office’s Director of Security. He remained in that post until 1950.
“My task was to organize the security division and to write the initial security regulations for the Office of Secretary of Defense,” Col. Barton said.
He left Washington in 1950 to enroll in the Army’s Command and General Staff College. Upon graduation in 1951, he was assigned to another new headquarters – Allied Forces Southern Europe in Naples, Italy.
He returned to the U.S. in 1954 and was assigned to the Army’s infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia. He served as instructor of tactics for four years along with  other duties such as Chairman of Regimental Tactics Committee, Chief Advanced Group, Deputy Director Department of Tactics, and Commanding Officer of 2nd Battle Group, 14th Infantry.
It was while at Fort Benning that he was promoted to colonel and selected to attend the Army War College.
He graduated from there in 1959 and was immediately assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Korea as senior advisor. After a one-year tour, he returned to the States where he was named Chief, Security Division, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff – Intelligence, Department of Army.
His experiences continued in later years as Chief of Combat Developments Division at Army Pacific Headquarters in Hawaii,  Commanding Officer of the 25th Infantry Division and Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence at Pacific Headquarters.
In 1967 he requested and was granted an assignment as professor of military science at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
After a 31-year career, Col. Barton retired from the Army in 1970 with a long list of honors – Silver Star, Legion of merit with three oak leaf clusters, Bronze Star, Combat Infantryman’s badge, and a Presidential Unit Citation for his battalion’s action on Ie Shima in the Ryuku’s Islands in 1945.
Col. Barton then became an active member of the Columbia community when he was hired as executive director of the local United Way.
“I wasn’t ready to quit work,” he said.
Col. Barton’s wife Mary Ruth Catlett, a native of Kentucky who he met when she was a captain in the WACS, passed away a few years ago.
They have three daughters – Claudia Barton Welsh is a professor of veterinary medicine at Texas A&M; Judy Barton Gibbons is in administration at Southern Methodist University; and Cathy Barton Para and her husband are musical entertainers with a cruise line.
“If it’s got strings, Cathy can play it,” Col. Barton said.
Several year ago, Col. Barton was looking at a collection of hammered dulcimers with Cathy at an exhibit in Kansas City. Cathy remarked she would like to have one.
“I could make one better than those,” Col. Barton told Cathy.
From there a new hobby arose. He has since built one Appalachian dulcimer and 14 hammered dulcimers.
“It’s been fun,” said the 93-year-old Col. Barton.