Clelland E Martinson
Military
Archival Photo
Object Number - UPL 57591 - Kelly "Clelland" Martinson, 8th Air Force 305th Bomb Group. POW.
Damaged by flak and fighters on a mission to Frankfurt, GR on 24 Mar 1944, B-17G #42-31544 left formation after the target and crashed NNW of Ghent, Belgium after the crew baled out. Prisoner of War (POW). Was returning from Frankfurt mission over belgium by 5 folke-wulf 190 German Fighters.
POW
Connections
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Units served with
- Unit Hierarchy: Group
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
- Unit Hierarchy: Squadron
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
People
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
- Nationality: American
- Unit: 305th Bomb Group 366th Bomb Squadron
- Service Numbers: O410629
- Highest Rank: Captain
- Role/Job: Pilot
Aircraft
- Aircraft Type: B-17 Flying Fortress
- Unit: 305th Bomb Group 366th Bomb Squadron
Places
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Stalag 4B
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Stalag Luft 4, Gross Tychow, Pomerania
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Stalag Luft VI, Heydekrug
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Stalag 7a, Moosburg
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Stalag 13D, Oflag 73
Related media
- Media Type: Document
- Object Number: Document 57592
- Description: Oral History Project World War II Years, 1941-1946 - Kelly Martinson
Events
| Event | Location | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Born |
Annandale, Wright County, Minnesota, USA | 7 March 1924 | |
|
Died |
Fridley, Minnesota, USA | 3 April 2006 | Kelly "Clelland" Martinson, age 82, of Fridley. Veteran WW II - 8th Air Force 305th Bomb Group. POW. Member of Cataract Masonic Lodge #2, Mpls Scottish Rite, Zuhrah Temple, Shaddrick LaBeau American Legion Post #303, Fridley VFW Post #363, American Ex-Prisoners of War #1. Self-employed owning his own business, Kelly Company, for 30 years. Interment Ft. Snelling National Cemetery. Memorial service Friday, 11:00 AM, with visitation one hour prior to the service at: Washburn-McReavy Coon Rapids Chapel This obituary was originally published in the Star Tribune. |
|
Buried |
Fort Snelling National Cemetery | 7 April 2016 | Section 25 Site 1729 |
|
Other Prisoner of War (POW) |
Germany | 24 March 1944 | |
|
Other Biography |
Clelland "Kelly" Martinson was born 7 March 1924 in Annandale, Minnesota. From age eleven Kelly lived in Minneapolis with his sister and mother; he graduated from Minneapolis Vocational High School in 1942. Kelly enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in November 1942. He was trained as a gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine heavy bombers. In early 1944, Kelly joined a B-17 crew which was sent to England and assigned to 366th Bomb Squadron, 305th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force. By late March Kelly had completed fifteen combat missions, operating as the plane's tail gunner. But on 24 March 1944, while on a mission to Frankfurt, Germany, Kelly's B-17 was shot down over Belgium. Kelly and another crew member evaded capture after bailing out. "We were in this haystack, and we were there for two days. So in the second evening we decided we better start walking.... We tried to get around the town of Ghent. It was so dark that we'd take turns leading each other. [They stumbled upon several police officers.] They were Belgian police. We thought, man, we've got it made; these guys are going to take care of us. They took us to the police station, and I opened my escape kit, which had chocolate, gum, and so forth in it. I was giving them some gum and candy. One of them got on the phone.... About ten minutes later the Germans came and got us. [After being held briefly in a small-town jail, Rodney Shogren and the other members of his crash-landed bomber were transported by train to the city of Frankfurt.] There was another crew with us, too. We must have been ten or twelve. When we got off the train down there [in Frankfurt], there were people that were vicious at us there. I mean they were.. (trails off). They were spitting on us. Threw sticks at us. At the train station. [The guards] started to walk [toward the center of town], but they hurried up and put us on a streetcar. But the guards had to hold these people back when they did that. The German guards protected us, or the civilian people would have killed us, I think. They called us baby killers. We dropped bombs on their people. I don't blame them for being vicious at us.... I could understand their anger. If I was a civilian and been bombed by them, l'd probably have the same feeling..…. Bombs, they don't hit their targets all the time. Everybody drops their bombs on the lead bombardier, so those bombs could go a long ways. Then we carried incendiary bombs sometimes. They would explode about five hundred feet above the ground and spread out. So I mean well, that's not human at all." After being captured by the Germans after bailing out, Kelly spent the remainder of the war as a POW. His time as a prisoner was spent at these camps: Luft VI Heydekrug; Luft IV Grosstychow; XIII-D Nuremberg; and finally VII-A Moosburg. This final camp, which Kelly arrived at in early April 1945, was liberated by advancing American troops on 29 April 1945. Following evacuation from Moosburg, Kelly was transported back to the United States. He spent some time recovering from his time as a POW, then was discharged in October 1945. Again a civilian, Kelly got married in 1945 (wife Joyce) and helped to raise three children. He worked many years as a factory representative in the machine tool industry, self-employed as the Kelly Company. Clelland “Kelly” Martinson passed away on April 3, 2006 in Findley, Minnesota at the age of 83. Veteran WW II - 8th Air Force 305th Bomb Group. POW. Member of Cataract Masonic Lodge #2, Mpls Scottish Rite, Zuhrah Temple, Shaddrick LaBeau American Legion Post #303, Fridley VFW Post #363, American Ex-Prisoners of War #1. Self-employed owning his own business, Kelly Company, for 30 years. He was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Minneapolis, Minnesota. | ||
|
Enlisted |
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA | Enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in November 1942. He was trained as a gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine heavy bombers. |
Revisions
Saylor, Thomas, "Oral History Project World War II Years, 1941-1946 - Kelly Martinson" (2004). Oral History Project: World War II Years, 1941-1946. 47.
https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/oral-history_ww2/47
Saylor, Thomas, "Oral History Project World War II Years, 1941-1946 - Kelly Martinson" (2004). Oral History Project: World War II Years, 1941-1946. 47.
https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/oral-history_ww2/47
Saylor, Thomas. Long Hard Road: American POWs During World War II. St. Paul, MN : Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007.
“Clelland Martinson,” Legacy from Apr. 6 to Apr. 7, 2006.
Clelland E. Martinson (7 Mar 1924–3 Apr 2006), Find a Grave Memorial ID 28877923, citing Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA
Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / MACR 3537 / MACR 3537, self, Losses of the 8th & 9th Air Forces / Paul Andrews, Project Bits and Pieces, 8th Air Force Roll of Honor database
