Bailey, Kenneth Armour

Born February 28, 1896, in Newark, New Jersey. Son of C. Weston and Sara Armour Bailey. Home, Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Educated Peddie Institute, New Jersey, and Stevens Institute of Technology. Joined American Field Service, June 25, 1917; attached Section Seventy. Enlisted U. S. Army Ambulance Service, Section 636. April 11, 1918, transferred Artillery Officers' Training School, Saumur. Commissioned Second Lieutenant, July 10th. Attached 102d Field Artillery, July 18th. Killed in action, October 9, 1918, near Château-Thierry. Buried American Cemetery, Thiaucourt, Meurthe-et-Moselle.

LIEUTENANT KENNETH A. BAILEY, 102d Field Artillery, began his military career with the American Field Service. He enlisted in June, 1917, and was assigned to Section Seventy, which left for the front, July 15, 1917. After a summer spent in the recently evacuated country around Noyon and in active participation in the Battle of Malmaison on the Chemin des Dames, he was transferred with most of the personnel of this Section to S. S. U. 636 under the U. S. Army Ambulance Service. One of his fellow members of the Section writes of him in the American Field Service Bulletin: "'Bill' Bailey, as we always called him, had the happy faculty of making friends of all with whom he came in contact. We knew him as one who could be depended upon to do his part and more, whether work or a frolic was on hand, and we remember the long evenings when he would cheer the barracks with his large stock of Scotch songs. These same qualities caused him to be known, during his short career in the artillery, as one of the most efficient and popular junior officers of the regiment."

It was characteristic of "Bill" that he never grumbled, no matter what the hardship or task might be, that he could be always counted on to do his duty and more, and that nothing ever seemed to upset or quell for a moment his prevailing good humor and ready wit. He was exceedingly popular among his fellow members of the section and held from the beginning the deep respect and affection of his officers.

During the winter of 1917-18, spent in the Champagne Secteur des Monts, "Bill" began to turn his thoughts toward a combatant branch of the service. As he wrote in December, after seeing the heroic work of the French and the dastardly work of the Germans, he wanted "to get where he could throw things at Fritz and not pick up what he had messed up." Much of his spare time when en repos during the early months of winter while others of his comrades were amusing themselves as best they could, he devoted to studying any available text book he could procure to fit himself for the work he had in view. Nor did this study prevent him from joining wholeheartedly in the life of the Section, for he was an excellent all-round good fellow.

In April, 1918, he was recommended for the American Officers' Artillery Training School at Saumur, France, and received the appointment. Here he made rapid progress and was graduated with honors, receiving his commission as Second Lieutenant on July 10, 1918. Eight days later he was assigned to Battery B of the 102d Field Artillery and was sent immediately into position near Château-Thierry. From then until his death,---he was killed in action, October 9, 1918,--- he gave himself devotedly to his chosen work and took part in some of the hardest fights of that memorable summer. One tribute which he pays to his fighting countrymen must be quoted: "I never in the wide world can express the profound respect I have for the American doughboys. They have nothing in them that even resembles fear and are as irresistible as a forty-two centimeter shell. My hat is off to a doughboy every time." His point of view makes it easy to understand why he was so universally liked by the men under him and what his loss meant to both his subordinates and superior officers in the Battery.

Nowhere did the news of his death come with a greater shock than to the members of his old ambulance section. We who had known him well as a soldier and a comrade, knew also the promise which life held for him, had he lived, and not one of us but has since faced life with a little more determination, and a little more desire for real service and self-sacrifice because of his example.

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921