Webster, David Kenyon “Web”.

Back to all people
airbornepurple heart

Webster, David Kenyon “Web” born 22-06-1922 in Bronxville, Westchester County, New York, USA  of English and Scottish descent.to David Frank Webster (05-11-1875 / 24-05-1875) and his wife Joan Kingsley, born Ohl, Webster (17-04-1890 / 07-08-1975).David was educated at The Taft School, Watertown, Connecticut, then enrolled as an English literature major at Harvard University. In 1942, David volunteered for the paratroopers before finishing his degree. He used his middle name, Kenyon, while addressing his family in his letters to home rather than his first name, David.

Webster trained with Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion at Camp Toccoa. He parachuted into France on D-Day with Headquarters Company of the 2nd Battalion, then requested a transfer to 506th Easy Company, under command of 1st Lieutenant Thomas Meehan with which David served until his discharge in 1945. As Meehan’s  C-47 Skytrain plane on D-Day was hit by German Anti-Aircraft fire.and the total paratroopers didn’t survive the crash, Richard “Dick” Winters   took over the command.

On D-Day, Webster landed nearly alone and off-course in flooded fields behind Utah Beach, and was wounded a few days later. A few months later, he parachuted into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden. After Market Garden failed, the company shifted toward Arnhem. During an attack in the no-man’s land called “the Island” (also referred to as “The Crossroads”), he was wounded in the leg by machine gun fire. He was evacuated to a hospital and spent the next several months recuperating in England.

Prior to the war, Webster was a friendly, well-spoken writer. He kept most of his cheerful air about him, but as the war went on, he developed a hatred for the Germans, something that was reinforced when Easy Company discovered the concentration camp at Landsberg. During Operation Market Garden, Webster’s personality changed into a more deep and depressed manner, probably because he witnessed the death of his good friend, Robert “Bob” Van Klinken. Van Klinken, Robert Robert Klinken on 20-09-1944, age 24, was killed in action in Nuenen near my hometown of Eindhoven, Netherlands..

Released by the hospital in February 1945, Webster rejoined his unit. 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. Soon thereafter, Easy Company discovered their first concentration camp, the Kaufering concentration camp complex.

Author Stephen Ambrose wrote of Webster:

“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.”

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. 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 .

In 1952, Websest in sharks led him to write a book on the subject entitled Myth and Maneater: The Story of the Shark .

Death and burial ground of Webster, David Kenyon “Web”. 

On 09-09-1961, 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.

Message(s), tips or interesting graves for the webmaster:    robhopmans@outlook.com

Share on :

end

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *