Moore, Kenneth Jack “Ken”, born 05-11-1924 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, USA to Virginia Stambaugh. Ken was married 07-06-1945, coming home from Europe with Genevieve Wells from El Centro, Imperial Co., California (1926 – 2001) The couple had tree children, Christopher Jay “Chris” Moore (1946 – 2000) Francis Jay “Frank” Moore (1948 ) and Stephanie Virginia Moore.
After a six-month ordeal with ovarian cancer, Stephanie Moore went out in that wild storm that hit Northern California in 2006. She was not one to go quietly into the night.
Ken was raised by a single mother and graduated from high school in Redding. Soon after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor Ken joined his buddies in enlisting. Moore volunteered to be a paratrooper with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment,
101st Airborne Division,
2nd Battalion, and they were chosen to be a medic, although he got only about two weeks of medical training. He didn’t see any combat until D-Day, June 6, 1944, when he was one of thousands of troops parachuted into France. As a medic, he carried medical supplies, but no weapon. Moore and medic Wright, Robert Edward “Bob”
commandeered the church,
designating it as an aid station by hanging a Red Cross banner outside.
The memorial and church at Angoville-au-Plain. Today across from the church, like so many villages in once ravaged Normandy, is a war memorial with two flags. One French and one American.
Wright had more medical training than Moore, but their expertise was limited. Wright instituted an order that all rifles had to be left outside the door and the injured began streaming in, by themselves or with the help of others. As the wooden pews started to fill, the medics designated an area near the alter for critically injured soldiers they couldn’t much help. With Wright taking on the bulk of medical duties, Moore sometimes ventured outside to haul injured soldiers to the church in a cart found nearby.
With his Red Cross arm band in full view,
he didn’t take fire. Moore and Wright treated more than 80 soldiers, including about a dozen Germans. They were awarded Silver Star medals
for their actions, and both served in other battles, including the Battle of the Bulge.
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16-12-1944 to 25-01-1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers’ favor.
About 19,000 U.S. soldiers died, and 47,500 were wounded and more than 23,000 missing. The British suffered 1,400 casualties with 200 killed. And the Germans had 100,000 soldiers killed, wounded or captured.
Death and burial ground of Moore, Kenneth Jack “Ken”.



After the war, Moore returned to California and worked for the Chevron oil company as an area representative. Ken eventually owned several gas stations of his own until the mid-1980s when back problems forced him into retirement. Moore died on 07-12-2014 , in a hospital in Sonoma, California at the age of 90, due to a congestive heart failure. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered.
U.S. Army paratrooper Robert Wright with the Legion of Honor medal during a ceremony in Sainte Mere Eglise, France, June 6, 2011. Department of Defense

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