Benjamin G Kinnick
1st Lt USMC
1942-44 / KIA
1st Lieutenant Benjamin Greene Kinnick was captain of a five member crew on a B-25 Mitchell Bomber. He was assigned to the VBM 433 Squadron, known as the Fork-Tailed Devils, as part of the 14th Marine Air Group.
On September 16, 1944 1st Lieutenant Kinnick and his crew took off from Emirau Airfield with the mission to bomb Japanese strongholds on New Guinea as part of the island hopping strategy implemented by the US military leaders. His plane was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Kevieng. When it failed to return, this aircraft was officially listed as Missing In Action (MIA).
The entire crew was officially declared dead on January 26, 1946 and memorialized on the tablets of the missing at Manila American Cemetery.
Born in 1919, Benjamin was the second of three boys born to Nile Kinnick, Sr., and Frances Clarke Kinnick. Ben played pick-up football with his brother, Nile, on a lot north Governor Clarke’s home at 297 N. 15th St in Adel. Ben and Nile were constant companions and fierce athletic competitors.
Benjamin attended Iowa State University and graduated with an engineering degree in 1942. He then joined the Marine Corps, became a B25 bomber pilot and was stationed in the South Pacific. At the time of his death he was married to Lt Eleanor White Kinnick who was stationed at Staten Island, New York.
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