Ships
- USS Wasp (CV-18) Commander in command from 4 March 1946 · Relieved on 5 June 1946
Joseph Clinton Clifton was born on 31 October 1908 in Paducah, Kentucky. He attended the University of Kentucky in 1926, then went to the Naval Academy, where he was an All-Eastern fullback, and graduated in 1930. After service in the battleship Tennessee he was designated a naval aviator in 1932.
He flew with several squadrons, including VF-2, the "Flying Chiefs." From 1942 to 1944 he commanded VF-12 aboard Saratoga, first in F4U Corsairs and then F6F Hellcats. During that time he flew a captured A6M2 Zero, gathering data that helped refine fighter tactics against the Japanese. In 1944, as Commander Air Group 12, he led the combined British-American strike from Saratoga and HMS Illustrious on Sabang (Operation Cockpit). In 1945 he ran fighter indoctrination at NAS Green Cove Springs, Florida, then became executive officer and finally commanding officer of Wasp in 1946.
Postwar he served in the Air Warfare Division and commanded Transport Squadron 8. During the Korean War he commanded the seaplane tender Corson off Formosa. He attended the Naval War College (1954) and commanded NAS Memphis, the Atlantic Barrier and Airborne Early Warning forces at Argentia, the Naval Air Advanced Training Command and, in 1960, Carrier Division 7 in the Seventh Fleet. He retired in July 1963 as chief of naval air technical training and joined Litton Industries in Beverly Hills. His decorations included two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Legions of Merit.
He died of complications from diabetes on Christmas Eve 1967 in Santa Monica, California. A street in Paducah bears his name.