(KNOX) – U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Irvin C. Ellingson was celebrated in a ceremony at Veteran’s Memorial Park on Thursday, 81 years after he was killed in World War Two. Ellingson’s casket was flown from Minneapolis to Hector International Airport in Fargo. Family, friends, elected officials, veterans and community members attended the ceremony, and there was a motorcycle escort transporting his casket.
Ellingson graduated from Mayville State University in 1937, and enlisted into the military shortly after his brother was drafted in 1942. He went through training at Sheppard Field (now Sheppard Air Force Base) in Texas and attended radar school in Florida. He was serving as a radar observer aboard a B-29 aircraft in the Pacific Theater.
On April 14, 1945, Ellingson’s plane crashed during a bombing mission over mainland Japan. His plane was shot down after it dropped its bombs, and he was 40 miles inland when a Japanese fighter came up and shot two rounds, hitting the number four engine.
He was one of 62 Air Corps members who were captured and held at Tokyo Military Prison. On May 26, another Allied bombing run over Japan caused a fire that destroyed the prison, killing every American held there just a few months before the war’s end. Ellingson was only 25 years old.
Their remains were eventually buried at the American cemetery in Manila, until 2022, when a special Pentagon initiative began identifying the victims of the prison fire using DNA. Ellingson’s remains were positively identified in 2025.
Ellingson will be laid to rest on Saturday, June 20 in his hometown of Dahlen.
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