Almost 70 years after Kemp Martin's B-17 bomber crashed in Italy during World War II, a bulky package showed up on the doorstep of his daughter's Houston home. The jagged scraps of metal - one of which appears riddled with bullet holes - had been sent by Italians who belong to the "Salerno 1943" association, a volunteer group dedicated to preserving the memory of aviators who flew in the Allied invasion of southern Italy. Remnants of the C Batt, along with copies of photographs, telegrams and military orders provided by Martin's family, will be featured in an exhibit that opens April 14 at the State Archive in the Italian city of Salerno, said Matteo Pierro, a member of the association. When war broke out in 1941, Martin interrupted his studies at Indiana University to be commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. About a month later, Martin's wife received a phone call at the Indianapolis factory where she worked. When the Italian government surrendered in September 1943, the two airmen became prisoners of the Germans, who prepared to move them north with other POWs. In the confusion of the transfer, Martin and Pasero slipped under a series of barbed wire fences and made a run for it. The following year, members of the Salerno 1943 association found the remains of a B-17 near Salerno with the help of an eyewitness, now in his 90s, who remembered watching crew members parachute out of the bomber before it slammed into a mountain. The unusual package arrived at Barker's west Houston home last month.
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