"I traded in my walking cane for an M-1 rifle and some hand grenades." (Interview)

Kenneth T. Delaney

PFC Delaney, after discharge January 1946 War: World War II, 1939-1946 Branch: Army Unit: Company C, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division Service Location: England; Normandy, France; Belgium; Germany; Czechoslovakia Rank: Sergeant Place of Birth: Astoria, NY

"I wasn't really nervous," Kenneth Delaney writes of landing on Omaha Beach, "I was just seasick." As he got off his landing craft, loaded with grenades, maps, a rifle and Bangalore torpedoes (explosive devices for removing barbed wire and other obstacles), Delaney was shot in the foot. As he watched many of the medics being killed, he managed to drag himself to safety and eventually got help. Wounded again that winter, Delaney was released from the hospital just in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.