US Army Training Center - Yearbook (Fort Bragg, NC)

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BHIE IJIEH EE EH L .IIJH T. KENNEDY Brigadier General John T. Kennedy, Commanding General of Fort Bragg, and one of the honored few whose valor has earned for them the proudest of military dis- tinctions, the Congressional Medal of Honor, was born in South Carolina on July 22, 1885. His early boyhood was spent on a farm in Orangeburg County. His family later moved to the city of Orangeburg and it was in this city that he received his early education and spent his boyhood days. Later he attended the Citadel, a noted military academy at Charleston in his home state. The year he entered the Citadel he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. ln 1908 he was graduated from West Point where he was commissioned as a'Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and for two years thereafter served with the 6th Cavalry in the Philippine Islands. There he took part in several battles with the rebellious and hostile Moros. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for con- spicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in one of these engagements with the enemy on Patian Island on July 4, 1909. It was while he was in action against the savage Moros that he voluntarily entered with a few enlisted men the mouth of a cave occupied by the desperate enemy. In this action he was severely wounded, and was awarded the Order of the Purple Heart. Lieutenant Kennedy returned from the Philippines to serve at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, and at Texas City, Texas. While at Texas City he took part in frequent patrols along the Mexican border. In May, 1914, he was a member of General Frederick Funstan's command in the occupation of Vera Cruz. On December 8, 1914, he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. After an intervening period of duty at Fort Riley, Kansas, he again saw service below the border, this time with General John J. Pershing in his punitive expedition against the Mexican outlaw, Francisco Villa, in March, 1916. Upon returning to the United States, he became an in- structor in the Army Schools at Forts Riley and Leaven- worth. On January 13, 1917, he transferred to the Field Artillery, joining the 7th Field Artillery Regiment at San Antonio, Texas. On February 26, 1917, he was promoted to Captain. ln July, 1917, Captain Kennedy went to France with the 5th F. A. of the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, serving with the First Division. On August 5, 1917, he was promoted to Major, F. A. temporary. His service with the 5th F. A. at Le Valdehon and at the front near Nancy in the fall of 1917 was followed by his appointment as Director of ln- struction at Camp de Coetquidon fa two-brigade firing and training center for Field Artilleryj from January to July, 1918. In July, 1918, he rejoined the 5th F. A. flst Division? at the Battle of Soissons as a Lieutenant Colonel, temporary, his promotion having been attained on June 25, 1918. As a Lieutenant Colonel he commanded the 5th F. A. from immediately after Soissons until after the Armistice, and saw action in the Saizerais sector and in the battles of St. Mihiel and Meuse Argonne. The 5th F. A. fought with the 4-2nd Division and the 2nd Division, as well as with the 8 First Division. Witli the Army of Occupation in Coblenz, Germany, he served as Commandant of a school for four months. For his World War 1 service he was awarded the Dis- tinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, and from the French Republic the Etoile Noir. For four years following his return to the United States he was Director and Instructor of 'Tactics in the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and a member of the Field Artillery Training Regulations Board. On July 1, 1920, he was promoted to the permanent rank of Major, F. A. ln 1923 he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, where he was an honor graduate in the class of 1924. He was retained as an instructor at the school until 1926, when he became Com- mandant and Professor of Military Science and Tactics of the Field Artillery ROTC Unit at the Alabama Polytechnic lnstitute, at Auburn, Alabama. During the five years spent at Auburn, Major Kennedy helped to produce many of the reserve oflicers now on active duty in the Field Artillery throughout the Army. From the Alabama Polytechnic lnstitute he was sent to the Army's highest Educational Institution, the Army War College, in Washington, D. C. For four years follow- ing his graduation from the War College, he served on the War Department General Staff. His promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel came on March 1, 1932. - As Commanding Oflicer of the 2nd Battalion, 83rd Field Artillery, he spent two years at Fort Bragg. While at Fort Bragg he was promoted to Colonel, on January 1, 1937. ln 1938 he returned to Fort Sill to direct the much expanded Department of Tactics and Communications, which he had organized and developed during his previous assignment there. As the National Emergency approached in 1940, Colonel Kennedy was made Corps Artillery Officer of the First Army Corps, a post which he held until he was sent to take com- mand of the newly organized GHQ Field Artillery Brigade at Fort Bragg. On December 2, 1941, Colonel Kennedy assumed com- mand of Fort Bragg. On May 21, 1942, he was elevated to the rank of Brigadier General. ln the summer of 1942 he was appointed a member of the seven-man Military Com- mission to try the eight Nazi saboteurs who were captured after landing on the Atlantic Coast from German submarines. General Kennedy has been in command of Fort Bragg, one of the largest and finest Army Posts in the country, continuously from the week before Pearl Harbor to the present time. ln honor of their illustrious citizen and soldier of dis- tinction, the people of the State of South Carolina have placed a tablet in the State House at Columbia in recognition of his receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the residents of Orangeburg have named one of the two air fields newlyestablished there Kennedy Field,', for .John T. Kennedy, Brigadier General, United States Army.

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r ' Fort Bragg was named in honor of a native North Carolinian who was born in Warren County on March 22, 1817. After he graduated from West Point at the early age of 20, he served in the Seminole War for three years as a Second Lieutenant. In the war against Mexico, as a member of General Zachary Taylor's staff, he won dis- tinction as an officer and was promoted to the rank of Captain for ugallant and distinguished conduct. His able leadership and superb strategy at the brilliant Battle of Buena Vista won for him the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was called from private life into the Confederate Army and was made a Brigadier General. Actively engaged in the two day Battle of Shiloh, in April, 1862, he further exemplified his mili- tary genius, and on the death of General Albert S. Johnson was elevated to the rank of full General. His most notable success, the defeat of General Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga, was followed by his own defeat at Chatta- nooga in November, 1863. BRAXTON BRAGG, Lieutenant Colonel, U. S. A. Ceneral, C. S. A. Early in 18644 he was entrusted with the conduct of mili- tary operations as Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Army under the direction of President Jefferson Davis, a distinction of considerable magnitude, and in November of the same year he was placed in command of the Depart- ment of North Carolina. His defeat at Bennettis Place, near Durham, N. C., where he and General Joseph E. Johnston endeavored to defeat General Sherman, marked the cessa- tion of Confederate action in this section. After the war he was for some time Chief Engineer for the state of Alabama and as such had charge of the improve- ments in Mobile Bay. The remaining years of his life were spent as an inspector for a large railroad in Galveston, Texas, where he died on September 27, 1376. Thus, Fort Bragg bears the name of a brave, resourceful, hard-bitten fighting man . . . a soldieras soldier . . . a fighting man who saw action in three wars and won distinction in each of them . . . GENERAL BRAXTON BRAGG.