The Four Freedoms Monument

Vehicle traffic passes by the corner daily. The drivers may use the unique statue with a long-darkened brass nameplate as a landmark, but most do so without knowing its origin or significance.

It stands in silent testimony to the valor of a citizen of Madison County long ago. The man who was the inspiration for this artistic creation courageously died in the first week of America’s involvement in World War II.

Legions of men and women were to follow him into the hazards and destruction of global war. Captain Colin Kelly, Florida’s native son, was one of the first to sacrifice all in the confrontation with Imperial Japan.

The signpost next to the monuments tells the history of its design, purpose and dedication.

Kelly was a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corp, the precursor of the U.S. Air Force. A graduate of West Point, he was the first to pilot a Boeing B17 in the far east, at the time the U.S.’s premier heavy bomber.

This aircraft was huge for the late 1930’s when it came into service. Its four Wright Cyclone super-charged engines were rated at over 1000 horsepower each, but they were needed to pull this lumbering giant into the air with a lethal load of high explosives.

Kelly not only had to fly the behemoth, he also had to command a crew which included a copilot, a navigator, and aerial gunners who defended the aircraft from enemy fighters. When making a bombing run, the bombardier steered the plane with the Norden bombsight (another American technological wonder).

On December 10, 1941 Kelly and his crew were in the besieged Philippines. They went aloft carrying three 600-pound bombs in search of an Imperial Japanese Navy carrier group.

While searching for their primary target, they spotted an amphibious assault force. Unable to locate the aircraft carrier they returned to the ships seen earlier in the day.

Releasing the high explosive ordinance on their third pass over the warships, they damaged the light cruiser Natori and the destroyer escort Harukaze. With nothing more to drop on the attack force, Kelly headed for Clarke Field in the Philippines.

On the return flight, Kelly’s B17 was intercepted by a patrolling flight of the Tainan Air Group. Repeated attacks quickly followed from the Japanese Navy A6M’s (also known a Zeros).

The four figures which make up the statue represent the ideals discussed in a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt. They were freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

The Japanese planes were faster and far more agile than the bomber. Manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the attacking aircraft had a reputation for delivering massive destruction to targets like Pearl Harbor a few days earlier.

The Tainan Air Group was based in Tainan, Taiwan, which was then under control of Imperial Japan. The famed air group had many top scoring fighter aces, including Saburo Sakai who was the attacking flight leader that day.

Repeated machinegun fire from the Zeros damaged the B17’s engines, fuel system and control system. As he approached Clarke Field, Kelly ordered his crew to bail out, and most made it away from the aircraft.

As the copilot was exiting, the plane exploded. Kelly and Technical Sergeant William J. Delehanty were killed with the battered plane crashing three miles from Clarke Field.   

The brass nameplate on the base of the statue serves as a permanent reminder of the statue’s dedicatee, Captain Colin Kelly.

The Four Freedoms monument had been commissioned by President Franklin Roosevelt as a way to tangibly exhibit the concepts he articulated in his state of the union speech in early 1941, months before the U.S. entered the war.

The statue was created later that year by noted sculptor Walter Russell. It was dedicated to Captain Kelly in 1943 at Madison Square Gardens in New York City before a crowd of 60,000 in attendance.

In June 1944 the statue was relocated to its corner in Madison, Florida where it stands now in recognition of a man who treasured American values more than his own life. Every day is Memorial Day for Colin P. Kelly. With the holiday fast approaching, it is as important as ever to recognize his sacrifice.