Jack McClaran to speak about WWII experiences in Fishtrap lecture series

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Wallowa County rancher Jack McClaran will speak on “World War II and the Liberation of Buchenwald” in the first of a series of springtime lectures offered by Fishtrap.

McClaran was in the US Army’s 8th Armored Division and later the 4th Armored Division. He participated in the Allies push to win the war in late 1944 and 1945.

He fought in the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge and was part of the historic crossing of the Rhine River into Germany. He was also among those Allied soldiers who liberated Buchenwald, one of the first and largest of the infamous German concentration and death camps, where more than 50,000 people died at the hands of the Nazis.

McClaran’s talk will be at the Odd Fellows Hall in Enterprise, on Tuesday evening, April 14, at 7 pm. Tickets are $5 and may be purchased in advance at Fishtrap or at The Bookloft in Enterprise.