Clarence Carlson, farmer, World War II veteran and “an all-around honorable person,” celebrated his 100th birthday Saturday during an open house with more than 200 family and friends at his home near LaSalle.
Carlson was born April 23, 1924, in the Longmont area, and he worked on his family farm before and after serving in the army at the end of the war. The party was held by Carlson’s four daughters, Linda, Cheryl, Marcia and Janet, and 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Violet Carlson, who was married to Clarence for 65 years, died in 2018.
Blake Carlson, one of Carlson’s grandsons, wrote about Clarence in a report for school in 2016. Blake described his grandfather as “a loving man” and “an all-around honorable person.”
Carlson was a private and later a third-grade technical sergeant from July 1945 to late November 1946. Carlson was stationed in Nuremberg, Germany, during the Nuremberg Trials when representatives of Nazi Germany stood trial for war crimes in front of the International Military Tribunal.
Carlson served with the 221st Signal Depot Co. as a non-commissioned officer in charge of warehouses containing captured German signal equipment. He supervised two enlisted men and 142 Germans while they dismantled the equipment, according to Blake’s report.
While in Nuremberg, Carlson watched the trials including the proceedings for Hermann Goring, a Nazi leader, commander and Adolf Hitler confidante who was the highest-ranking Nazi official tried by the tribunal.
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