David Kenyon Webster
David Kenyon Webster | |
---|---|
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division | |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Awards | Bronze Star Medal Purple Heart (2) |
Other work | Journalist, author |
David Kenyon Webster (2 June 1922 – disappeared 9 September 1961, presumed dead)
Youth
Webster was born in
Military service
Webster trained with Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion at
On
Released by the hospital in February 1945, Webster rejoined his unit.[3]: 201 [4]: 220 What he found was a regiment decimated by combat in the Battle of the Bulge, exhausted, weary, and bitter over his absence and the loss of friends.[citation needed] Soon thereafter, Easy Company discovered their first concentration camp, the Kaufering concentration camp complex.[citation needed]
Author
"He had long ago made it a rule of his Army life never to do anything voluntarily. He was an intellectual, as much an observer and chronicler of the phenomenon of soldiering as a practitioner. He was almost the only original Toccoa man who never became an NCO. Various officers wanted to make him a squad leader, but he refused. He was there to do his duty, and he did it—he never let a buddy down in combat, in France, Holland, or Germany—but he never volunteered for anything and he spurned promotion."[4]
Awards and decorations
Webster's list of authorized medals and decorations are:[citation needed]
- Bronze Star Medal
- Purple Heart with one oak leaf cluster
- Good Conduct Medal
- European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medalwith Arrowhead and 4 service stars
- World War II Victory Medal
- Army of Occupation Medal
- Oak Leaf Cluster
- Combat Infantryman Badge
- Parachutist Badge with 2 jump stars
Later years
Webster was the last of the surviving Camp Toccoa veterans who had fought in Normandy to be sent home after the surrender of Nazi Germany. When he was discharged in 1945, he returned to work as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. Webster took up sailing and fishing and made a hobby of studying oceanography and marine biology.[4]: 301 During those years he worked on his wartime memoirs and occasionally approached magazines with article proposals related to his war service, but he never attempted to publish a full treatment of his experiences in the 101st Airborne Division.[citation needed]
In 1952, Webster married the former Barbara Jean Stoessell,[5] and had three children.[1]
Webster's interest in sharks led him to write a book on the subject entitled Myth and Maneater: The Story of the Shark.[4]: 301 [6][7]
Lost at sea
On 9 September 1961, Webster embarked on a fishing trip in a twelve-foot (3.7 m) sailboat, leaving in the morning and planning to come back in the afternoon. When he failed to return, the Coast Guard embarked on a search. Early the following day, commercial fishermen recovered his boat five nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi) offshore. One oar and a tiller were missing. His wife told the press that Webster would go shark-fishing in the small craft but did not use a life preserver. At the time of his death, he was employed as a technical writer with System Development Corp.[8]
Legacy
Except for a few short stories in magazines such as the "Since there was little traffic at night, no noncom stood here after dark. He posted his men and slept until time to wake up the relief. I usually left that job to someone reliable like Janovec, for with a gin party every night, I was seldom in condition to wake anybody else up."[9]
The Taft School established an award for excellence in writing in Webster's honor.[10]
See also
- List of people who disappeared at sea
References
- ^ a b c A Brief Biography of David Kenyon Webster, Author of Parachute Infantry
- ^ "David Kenyon Webster letters".
- ISBN 978-1594132360.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7434-6411-6.
- ^ California, County Marriages, 1850–1952," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8DY-668 : 28 November 2014), David Kenyon Webster and Barbara Jean Stoessell, 01 February 1952; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, county courthouses, California; FHL microfilm 1,283,751
- ^ "Biography". David Kenyon Webster. Kenyon Webster. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
- ^ Webster, David Kenyon (1962). Myth and maneater: The story of the shark. P. Davies.
- Newspapers.com.
- ISBN 0-385-33649-7.
- ^ "Endowed Funds/Enrichment". Taft Alumni. The Taft School. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
David Kenyon Webster Prize. For excellence in writing.
Bibliography
- Webster, David Kenyon (1972). Myth and maneater: The story of the shark. Angus and Robertson. ISBN 978-0-207-12265-1.
- Webster, David K. (1994). Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich. Bantam Dell. ISBN 978-0-440-24090-7.