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Capt. Robert L. Martin Congressional Gold Medal, DFC, Air Medal, Purple Heart

Discussion in 'WWII Obituaries' started by GRW, Aug 16, 2018.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    "Robert Leander Martin was born in Dubuque, Iowa, on Feb. 9, 1919. His mother, a homemaker, died shortly after he was born. His father was a foot doctor.
    Robert L. Martin, a combat pilot who said he flew “63 and a half” missions during World War II as part of the barrier-breaking Tuskegee Airmen, was shot down over German-occupied territory on the 64th and spent five weeks trying to return to Allied lines with the help of Josip Broz Tito’s anti-fascist Yugoslav partisans, died July 26 at a senior living center in Olympia Fields, Ill. He was 99.
    The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Gabrielle Martin.
    Mr. Martin, known as “Fox,” grew up in Iowa and became entranced by airplanes when he attended an air show as a 13-year-old Boy Scout. He persuaded his father to let him take a ride on a Ford Trimotor.
    “And the pilot, after starting the engine, buckled me in, he touched me with a wire and shocked me, and he said, ‘You’re going to be a pilot,’ ” he remembered in a video interview for the Experimental Aircraft Association, a Wisconsin-based international association promoting recreational flying. During college, Mr. Martin completed a civilian pilot-training program, joking that for a small fee “you could get silver wings and get all the girls.”
    He graduated from Iowa State University in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
    War was raging when he graduated from Iowa State University. He joined the Army Air Forces and trained at the segregated military complex in Tuskegee, Ala., in January 1944. With the rank of lieutenant, he immediately set sail for Italy and was attached to the 100th Fighter Squadron, which helped provide cover for Allied bombers on missions over targets in Europe.
    After his military discharge in September 1945 at the rank of captain, he became an electrical engineer with the city of Chicago and retired in 1988."
    www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-martin-tuskegee-airman-who-flew-63-and-a-half-combat-missions-dies-at-99/2018/08/04/db678df4-9448-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5154fcb90f2d
     
    Paul Zator and lwd like this.

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