SAPULPA - The training officers just called twins Don and Clyde McMasters both "Mac" while they trained to be Navy aviators in World War II.
One had a widow's peak to distinguish between the two, but they looked the same with uniform cover on their head.
"The guys in the Navy would push our cap back to see who was who," Clyde McMasters said.
The brothers graduated from high school together, went to college together, joined the Navy together after Pearl Harbor was attacked, came back to Sapulpa to run an insurance company together and retired together.
On Wednesday, they will go to Washington, D.C., together on the Oklahoma Honor Flight, which takes WWII veterans to see the monuments built to honor their service and sacrifice in the nation's capital.
"We're going to see a lot of things we've never seen up there," Don McMasters said. "They have a wonderful trip planned."
More than 100 veterans will leave on a chartered flight from Tulsa International Airport early Wednesday and return late that day after a whirlwind tour of the city.
Stops will include the WWII Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
Don and Clyde McMasters were born in Sapulpa in August 1922, but Clyde had a few minutes' head start.
"He's 10 minutes older than I am," Don McMasters said. "That's my senior brother."
They attended grade school at Jefferson Elementary School, walking three blocks to school every day and then home for lunch.
They sat next to each other in class, and their teacher thought they were making mischief.
"She thought we were cheating on the exam because we'd make the same grade and miss the same questions," Clyde McMasters said.
They weren't cheating, they said. They would never do that.
"The next exam they put us on opposite corners of the room and we still made the same grade and missed the same questions," he said. "Of course, the reason was we studied together and were strong on the same things and weak on the same things."
They graduated from Sapulpa High School in 1940 and headed to Park University near Kansas City, Mo., together. They were sophomores there on Dec. 7, 1941. That date of infamy put their lives on a new path, but it was still a path they shared.
They signed up for the Navy's V1 program in Oklahoma City the next June. The program allowed them to stay in school until the Navy was ready for them, and then they would be called to service.
"When we went back to Park that fall, we noticed that a lot of our classmates were going into the Navy aviation cadet program," Clyde McMasters said. "We wanted to be with our classmates, so we went into Kansas City and changed our classification from V1 to V5, which was the aviation cadet program."
It wasn't until 1943 that the Navy called them up for service.
They got the word in October of that year, only three days before they were set to complete all the credits they needed for their bachelor's degrees.
"Three days before the end of the semester, we took our exams early and reported to active duty," Clyde McMasters said.
The two went through training and officer candidate school before they were eventually commissioned officers. They were at a naval air station in Iowa when victory was declared in Europe. They were at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida on VJ-Day.
The war had ended, and they had spent it stuck in Navy training limbo. At the time, they felt like they had missed something.
"Everybody was wanting to do their part at that time, and we were fidgeting that we weren't in there; we ought to be doing our part," Clyde McMasters said. "As I look back, it was a blessing that we were in the training command and did not have to get on active duty."
They finished out their stint in the Navy before going to college in Indiana to obtain master's degrees. After that, they stayed in the Navy Reserves but came back to Sapulpa and set up an insurance company.
They both served in the community in which they worked, as well. Both men were Sapulpa Chamber of Commerce members. Clyde McMasters was on the city planning board, and Don McMasters served on the City Council and was the mayor for two years.
They sold their insurance firm and retired in the early 1990s and still live in Sapulpa, where they are active in the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs.
Through it all, the strongest constant was a bond only brothers can really grasp.
"We never had a chance to get homesick because we always had someone we could lean on," Don McMasters said.
Welcome home
A welcome home ceremony for the Oklahoma Honor Flight participants is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tulsa International Airport's northwest baggage claim area.
Jerry Wofford 918-581-8310
jerry.wofford@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Bond of brothers
