Martin Clemens
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Major Warren Frederick Martin Clemens CBE, MC, OAM was a British colonial administrator and soldier.
Clemens was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was sent out to the Solomon Islands as a member of the British Colonial Service. He served a three year service in Malaita. He became a district officer in 1941. With the coming of the Pacific War, Clemens volunteered for military service in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force. After a short leave in Australia, Martin Clemens came on an evacuation ship to evacuate British and Chinese to Guadalcanal. He was placed as the district officer and coastwatcher. He was responsible for nearly fifteen thousand citizens and various other people on the island. The Japanese planned to cut off United States communications with New Zealand and Australia by attacking Guadalcanal. The managers of the coconut plantations had fled Guadalcanal in panic, abandoning the native workers from neighboring islands, who were left to be returned by Clemens. He then established his radio station and coastwatching activities. Though he was a commissioned officer, he carried nothing from the military and had no uniform. A likely catch for the Japanese, who had in early May occupied Tulagi, and in June had commenced the construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal, further isolating Clemens and his activities and forcing him to conduct them from enclaves in the mountains. Guadalcanal thus became the site of a first and major offensive against the Japanese.
Cooperation between Clemens and the U.S. Marines made him a key operative on the island. A barefoot Clemens on his jungle shielded mountain, playing hide and seek with the Japanese, was running low on food, supplies, power for his radio and shoes as his had disintegrated. Clemens and his scouts helped the U.S. Marines much with continuous raids on Japanese supplies and radio reports of the enemy's position. His efforts to help the war earned him the Legion of Merit by the U.S., the Military Cross (MC) by the UK, an Order of Australia medal. His later colonial career led to his appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He has also been featured in the video game Medal of Honor: Rising Sun.
[edit] Memoir
- Clemens, Martin (2004 (reissue)). Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher's Story. Bluejacket Books. ISBN 1-59114-124-9.
