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Kean, William Benjamin, LTG.
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Contact Info
Home Town Buffalo
Last Address Winter Park, FL
Date of Passing Mar 10, 1981
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William Benjamin Kean
Lieutenant General
United States Army
He was born William Benjamin Kean, Jr., in Buffalo, New York on July 9, 1897. Kean graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1918 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry.
After receiving his commission, Kean was assigned to the U.S.M.A. as a student officer. He then carried out an observation tour of battlefronts in Italy, Belgium and France, and was an observer of the Allied occupation in Germany. In late 1919 he returned to the United States and completed the Infantry Officer Course at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Kean carried out numerous assignments of increasing rank and responsibility, including a posting to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. In 1925 he graduated from the Signal Officer Course, and in 1939 he was a graduate of the Command and General Staff College.
While with II Corps Kean played a role in the incident in which General George S. Patton was accused of slapping a soldier. After Bradley had investigated, he entrusted the only copy of the written report to Kean, who was directed not to show it to anyone without Bradley's permission.
During his assignment with First Army, Kean was one of the key planners of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
In October 1950 the 25th Division participated in the breakout from the Pusan perimeter and drive into North Korea. In November, Chinese Communist troops crossed the Yalu River and pushed back United Nations. Kean's division carried out a systematic withdrawal and took up defensive positions, first on the south bank of the Chongchon River, and then south of Osan.
After planning and reorganization a new offensive was launched in January 1951. By February Inchon and Kimpo Air Base had been recaptured, the first of several successful assaults on the Chinese/North Korean force that helped turn the tide in the United Nation's favor.
Later in 1951 the 25th Division participated in Operation Ripper, driving the enemy across the Han River.
In Korea Kean, a supporter of integrating the military, assessed the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment, which was one of his subordinate commands, as being ineffective in early combat operations. The 24th Regiment largely reclaimed its reputation in later operations, but it was disbanded in October 1951 as part of the Army's effort to integrate, and its soldiers were assigned to other units.
In 1951 Kean was assigned to command the III Corps, first at Camp Roberts, California and later at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. In October of that year he led a 5,000 man task force as it took part in an exercise at the Nevada Test Site. During this event, atomic weapons tests were conducted to measure the effects on military members in close proximity.
Kean's decorations included multiple awards of the Distinguished Service Medal, including two during World War II. He also received the Silver Star for heroism in the Korean War. In addition, Kean received multiple awards of the Legion of Merit, and was a recipient of the Bronze Star.
In October, 1954 Kean was appointed Executive Director of the Chicago Housing Authority. He remained in this position until 1957.
At the C.H.A., Kean was the subject of controversy for his emphasis on reducing vacancy rates over racial integration of the authority's housing projects.
After resigning from the housing authority, he moved to Florida, where he was employed as Public Relations Director for the Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater.
After retiring Kean lived in Belleair and Winter Park, Florida. He died in Winter Park on March 10, 1981.
World War I
From Month/Year
April / 1917
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Description The United States of America declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917. The U.S. was an independent power and did not officially join the Allies. It closely cooperated with them militarily but acted alone in diplomacy. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material and money, starting in 1917. American soldiers under General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived in large numbers on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. They played a major role until victory was achieved on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to Great Britain and the other Allied powers. During the war, the U.S mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 110,000 deaths, including 43,000 due to the influenza pandemic. The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. military. After a slow start in mobilising the economy and labour force, by spring 1918 the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict. Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world,[citation needed] although there was substantial public opposition to United States entry into the war.
Although the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, it did not initially declare war on the other Central Powers, a state of affairs that Woodrow Wilson described as an "embarrassing obstacle" in his State of the Union speech.[26] Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 17, 1917, but never made declarations of war against the other Central Powers, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire or the various Co-belligerents allied with the central powers, thus the United States remained uninvolved in the military campaigns in central, eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The United States as late as 1917 maintained only a small army, smaller than thirteen of the nations and empires already active in the war. After the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917, it drafted 2.8 million men into military service. By the summer of 1918 about a million U.S. soldiers had arrived in France, about half of whom eventually saw front-line service; by the Armistice of November 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were arriving in France daily. In 1917 Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. In the end Germany miscalculated the United States' influence on the outcome of the conflict, believing it would be many more months before U.S. troops would arrive and overestimating the effectiveness of U-boats in slowing the American buildup.
The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not to waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to serve as mere reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to fight in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Séchault.
Impact of US forces on the war
On the battlefields of France in spring 1918, the war-weary Allied armies enthusiastically welcomed the fresh American troops. They arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, at a time when the Germans were unable to replace their losses. After British Empire, French and Portuguese forces had defeated and turned back the powerful final German offensive (Spring Offensive of March to July, 1918), the Americans played a role in the Allied final offensive (Hundred Days Offensive of August to November). However, many American commanders used the same flawed tactics which the British, French, Germans and others had abandoned early in the war, and so many American offensives were not particularly effective. Pershing continued to commit troops to these full- frontal attacks, resulting in high casualties against experienced veteran German and Austrian-Hungarian units. Nevertheless, the infusion of new and fresh U.S. troops greatly strengthened the Allies' strategic position and boosted morale. The Allies achieved victory over Germany on November 11, 1918 after German morale had collapsed both at home and on the battlefield.
