Lester Cary Cloud was born in Fresno County, in the San Joaquin Valley of California, on September 5, 1912 to Mr. and Mrs. H. R. Cloud. About 1925 the Cloud family, which included sons Lester, Maynard, Carl and Virgil and daughters Opal and (Mrs. W.L. Landis), moved to the Pajaro Valley. Lester may have attended grammar school in Aromas before entering Watsonville High School, where he remained for a very short period of time. After leaving school, he worked in the Pajaro Valley briefly before moving to Alameda County, where he worked as a longshoreman. Prior to 1942, Cloud married; however, that marriage ended in divorce.

Lester Cloud was inducted into the army at San Francisco on July 28, 1942. He was sent to San Antonio, Texas, and Fort Benning, Georgia, for basic and advanced infantry training. Prior to being shipped overseas in September 1943, Lester married his second wife.

Upon arrival in Europe he was assigned to the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division that fought its way from the Mediterranean Sea to the Rhine. In March 1945 the 142nd reached the major German defensive area known as the Siegfried Line.

“The day it hit the Siegfried Line [March 19, 1945], the Second Battalion of the 142nd took out eleven pillboxes. The next day it took out twelve more. It was slow, deadly work. Special "knockout" squads of infantrymen and engineers had to drag themselves up to each pillbox under cover of heavy supporting fire. One man would make his way to the rear and plant a "beehive"—a high explosive cone which directed all its force downward into the concrete and steel of the pillbox—to blow out the defenders. Then the squad or another one would go on to the next pillbox. Every pillbox covered the ones around it in a complicated system of interlocking fire. An entire sector had to be knocked out at a time, not merely one fortification or several.”

On March 19, 1945, Technician Fifth Class Lester C. Cloud was killed in action while serving with the 142nd Regiment. He was buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery in St. Avold, France; his awards include the Purple Heart.

(CBR; ABMC; NARA2; WRP April 11, 1945 1:5; Texas Military Force Museum, 36th Infantry Division; http://www. texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/36division/archives/france/hyman5. htm, [16 September 2008])