Profile by connor leak

Bob Kenyon The Last of His Kind

By Connor Leak

“We were fighting for our existence.”

-Bob Kenyon

n June 26th, 1944, Bob Kenyon and the US 90th Infantry Division, known as the “Tough Ombres,” were on patrol in northern France, rooting out Nazi encampments in an effort to liberate Europe from German occupation. Kenyon and his division had been repelling Nazi forces for almost 3 weeks, and each battle

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had incurred its own casualties. As the Ombres trudged through the French landscape, they were suddenly shelled by German artillery. While his division came under fire, Kenyon was struck by a white hot piece of artillery shrapnel, traveling at 700 miles per hour. Dazed, but oddly calm, he reviewed his wound, and walked 507 yards back to the aid station. There he was given a shot of morphine, and was shipped to England for treatment on his shoulder. Kenyon finally found comfort in that bed in England, and his long campaign in Europe was finally over.

Kenyon was among the first US infantrymen to set foot on the

European coastline. His time spent in northern France earned him several decorations, including 2 Bronze Stars, a French Legion of Honor, and a Purple Heart for his injury sustained in the invasion. He has experienced some of the most visceral carnage that anyone alive can relate to, and yet he still believed in the American cause.

There have been thousands of debates on the ethics of war, but Bob’s view is much simpler. Despite his firs hand experience on the coastline o Normandy, he firmly says “we were fighting for our existence.” Following this sobering statement, Kenyon told the typical tales of German oppression and the evil of Adolf Hitler.

However, Kenyon’s belief in war ends there. His disdain

for violence and war stemmed from his experience, and later wars like the Vietnam and Gulf Wars only fueled his distaste.

While WWII was a war of “necessity”, future wars America took part in came at the cost of the lives of servicemen with no real gain. He truly fought for what he believed, but that would still take its toll.

At 18, Kenyon completed his military school in the ROTC program. After that, he was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia to further his training as a US Infantryman. At that point in time (1943), the war had been raging in the Pacific for 2 years, and there were many suspicions that a second front was to be waged in the European mainland. The gravity of the situation hadn’t yet sunk in for Kenyon, though.

Chosen by one of the generals at Fort Benning to play football, Bob and his miscreant gang of fellow athletes gained some notoriety with the officers at the camp for their consistent laziness. But the good times couldn’t last.

As his season concluded, his orders came in. Kenyon was stationed in America for a few more months before he was sent overseas to meet the invasion.

Now in southern England, Kenyon would be forced to wait for 3 months, training, preparing, and praying for the day that was on each of the soldiers’ minds. And on June 6, 1944, that day would

come at last.

“I didn’t even know where Normandy was!” Kenyon told me, and yet there he was, in a metal boat, heading out to fight on its beaches. The assault on the beaches of Normandy racked up some of the heaviest casualties in the invasion. In the The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan writes, “Some saw ‘bodies stacked like cordwood’ and counted ‘more than 150 dead’”(225) on their respective sectors of the beach.

Kenyon managed to hit the shore, gather his men, and embark on his mission to capture the town of Ste. Mere Eglise.

And they did. Ste. Mere Eglise became the first town retaken during the invasion, and they never forgot the bravery of the men who took it. The French townsfolk could finally return to the home they once knew, but he would end up spending weeks on the French coast, fighting German resistance, liberating French villages, and mourning the loss of fellow American lives.

His campaign ended abruptly after his division’s attack by German artillery. At the hospital, Kenyon had finally returned to a genuine bed, food, and human interaction. He finally found relief in that hospital, and his injury purchased him a one-way ticket back to America and back to the life of a “civie.” “I was never the same after [Normandy].” Kenyon said, after explaining his experience in France,

and it was true that he was fundamentally changed. On his return home, he grappled with readjusting to life without a uniform. For months Kenyon continued to wear his military garb, and for years he continued to brandish his scars. His shoulder was healed, but his experience in France made a mark on more than just his body.

Kenyon returned to his civilian life. He got married, had a son, and worked as manager of a food plant in the North Bay. However, he had to cope with years of PTSD from his time in Normandy, and his struggles only worsened after the death of his wife, Ruth, in 2003 as a result of cancer. Dr. Mark Moris, reverend for the Valley Presbyterian Church, remembered that as the time Bob really turned toward the relief of the church group. Dr. Moris remarked that at first, Bob was hesitant to vent his experience in WWII to the other members of the group.

As time progressed, however, Kenyon began to fill a niche in the group, and began to emerge more and more as a leader for the other veterans in the church, “Always when Memorial Day is coming up, or Veterans’ Day is coming up, he’s the one who gets in touch with me to make sure we’re getting that covered” (Moris). The major turning point for Bob, as Dr. Moris described it, was his trip to Aragon High School.

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Julie Williams, a retired teacher at Aragon High School and a fellow church-goer of Bob’s, invited him and his friend, Bill Hagen who was a medic during the invasion of Normandy, to her AP US History class.

She had heard Kenyon’s story at the church, but was a little hesitant to bring him because of the rowdiness of her class, “the kids can be, well, a little difficult sometimes.”(Williams). Kenyon and Hagen entered the room, with maps, medals, and VFW hats. Every student watched intensely as the two veterans shared their experiences.

Kenyon told his story, the story of him waking up in an English haze, walking into the metal boats, wading in the waist deep seawater trying to reach Europe a few meters away, watching soldier after soldier drown or get shot. His audience couldn’t speak. They were so entranced by his story, absorbing every bit of information that came from him. Hearing the story of the class reminded me of my first time listening to Kenyon’s story. It’s incredible. Julie recalled how he choked up while reciting his experience, and Hagen interjected by saying, “‘See, boys and girls? People? We’re telling you this, you need to know!

You need to know, so you will keep this from ever happening again.’” At the end of his talk, the class of 16-17 year olds couldn’t believe the story of the

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19 year old soldier fighting for his life on a beach in France.

Julie was noticeably shaken

by Kenyon’s story. Even today, 20 years later, she still strongly said, “I was deeply honored, but it was hard for me to process [the story] because, really the depth of his message reached us so deeply we were quite preoccupied.”

As Dr. Moris described his visit, “...from that point on he was kinda realizing that his story was a value to other people.” Kenyon wasn’t shy about his story anymore. Now, he is more than willing to pass on his experience, and in some way, that has helped Kenyon just as much as it teaches us.

40 years after he landed on the beach in 1944, Bob Kenyon was once again on the Norman shores. Decades ago, he was running onto the beach with a gun in his hand, and now, he was just standing on the beach with his hands in his pockets. He

returned to Normandy under much better terms. The 40th Anniversary of the invasion arrived, and Kenyon elected to re-

turn to his former battleground to get some kind of closure. Bob Kenyon, a man of few words, could only describe his first visit to Normandy as “very emotional.”

On this first return trip to Normandy, Kenyon was accompanied by his wife, Ruth, and initially was a little resistant to return to his old battlefield. However, he was determined to make the pilgrimage back to what he considered sacred ground for the troops who fought there. Even after an emotionally draining trip returning to the French coast, Kenyon continued to return to Normandy to attend as many anniversaries as he could manage. On the 60th Anniversary in 2004, when he was 83 years old, Bob’s service to liberate France was in some way repaid when he was given the French Legion of Honor, France’s highest military award. He described receiving the Legion of Honor as the highlight of his life.

His trips sparked the interest of several newspaper outlets in the Bay Area. As Mark Gomez described in his own profile on Kenyon, “That visit in 1984 sparked a relationship between Kenyon and the people of Periers, a village liberated by his unit, the 90th Infantry Division.” Periers, as Kenyon describes it, is a second home to him. And the people of Periers welcome veterans like him with open arms.

In Alan Sissenwein’s own article

on Kenyon’s trips he writes, “... life in Periers came to a standstill while the residents catered to veterans, often driving them to areas where they had fought.”

His incredible return to Normandy made Kenyon a local hero in the Palo Alto area, and for one of the first times in his life, his sacrifice was finally acknowledged, both by the country of France and by the people he fought for back home.

Now past his 92nd birthday, Bob Kenyon isn’t very optimistic about any more trips to Normandy. He missed the 70th Anniversary on account of his health, and he isn’t even optimistic he’ll still be kicking by the time the 80th Anniversary arrives. But that realization doesn’t impact his day. He trudges on, going to the Elks Lodge gym every day at 2:00, taking care of his small, energetic Yorkie, Trixie, and watching football every Saturday and Sunday. He consistently continues to avoid the “In Memoriam” page of the 90th Infantry’s yearly newsletter, and has the attitude to continue this trend for years.

He spends a lot of his time in his T.V. room, which is probably the most fascinating room in his house. He sits in his recliner, watching T.V, while he is surrounded by military memorabilia, pictures, medals, books, and plaques. The most significant items, however, are two helmets: the first, a Nazi Stahlhelm, and

the second a US Infantry helmet – Kenyon’s Infantry Helmet.

Surprisingly, many years after the European Campaign, Kenyon had both helmets repainted.

He remembered . The Stahlhelm looked striking, and even had a logo painted on one of its sides. But the Infantry helmet was far more impressive. With its base color repainted, Kenyon added the insignia of the 90th Infantry Division and a phrase on the side that read: “D-Day June 6, 1944”. While this helmet has a mint condition appearance, beneath its elegant surface are the dents and scratches from Normandy.

Kenyon’s story, as everyone I’ve met while writing this profile has said, is more than just a story about the terrors and struggles he overcame, it’s a warning. He warns of the perils of war, of what some men are capable of doing, and of what some men have done to protect what they believe in. He honors the soldiers he fought with and against, and disparages the institution of war and violence. As a man of few words, Kenyon summed up his story and its message in two sentences:

“I can’t tell anyone what it was really like; you have to experience it yourself.

I just want [people] to know what I went through.”

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Works Cited

Beesley, Jim, ed. 96th Anniversary (2013): n. pag. Print.

Gomez, Mark. “France Salutes a Hero of Normandy.”

- San Jose Mercury News. San Jose Mercury News, 7 Aug. 2008. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.

Kenyon, Bob. Personal interview. 6 Sept. 2015.

Williams, Julie. Personal interview. 4 Oct. 2015.

Moris, Mark. Personal interview. 27 Sept. 2015.

Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day: June 6, 1944. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959. Print.

Kenyon, Bob. Personal interview. 10 Oct. 2015.

Sissenwein, Allan. “World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France (October 25, 2000).” World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France (October 25, 2000). Almanac News, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.

Williams, Julie. “A Thank You to Bob Kenyon.” Letter to Bob Kenyon. 1994. MS. N.p.

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