Technical Sergeant Walter Adell McClellan gave his life for his country in World War II and did not return home for the better part of a century. Walter Adell McClellan was born to Amy Elizabeth Raley and Robert Harry McClellan on August 28, 1925. In 1932, the McClellan family moved from St. Augustine to Pensacola.

After high school, McClellan worked at Naval Air Station Pensacola until he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944. He transferred to England and participated in various bombing missions. On April 17, 1945, McClellan flew from Chelveston, England to Dresden, Germany on a B-17 Flying Fortress known as the Towering Titan to complete a bombing mission on enemy marshalling yards and railway depots. While en route, an enemy fighter damaged McClellan's plane.

McClellan parachuted out of the damaged aircraft before it crashed south of Dresden with the remainder of the crew. German SS Troops captured McClellan. They took him to Burkhardswalde for execution and buried him in Sportplatz in a grave marked Here Rest an Unknown Allied Flier.

Following the war, the people of Sportplatz exhumed McClellan's remains and reburied him in the town's churchyard. In September 2008, a team, which included members of the U.S. Army Graves Registration Command and the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command recovered McClellan's remains and brought them back to the United States. On April 23, 2010, after sixty-five years overseas, TSGT Walter Adell McClellan was laid to rest with full military honors in Barrancas National Cemetery.

researched and written by Kathleen Zielinski.