It took some doing but on this Veterans Day, we now know more about Bill Kennedy’s service in World War II.
Kennedy, a longtime Peorian who died in 2017, was a 24-year-old navigator shot down over Germany on Dec. 2, 1944. Kennedy spent months as a prisoner of war camp before the camp was liberated by the Russians in the spring of 1945.
Kennedy’s story was uncovered by Bill Knight in a recent story in Peoria Magazine. The former Peoria Journal Star reporter and professor at Western Illinois University had to track down Kennedy’s exploits using records from the National Archives as well as material from military researchers.
The story could have been lost forever but for the efforts of Craig Moore, owner of the Younger Than Yesterday record store, 2615 N. University St., a shop located near the Kennedy home.
With no immediate family on hand, Moore was concerned that items from Kennedy's past would go unclaimed. “Their son collected records and shopped here,” Moore told Knight. “After (the son) died, some of his records and his dad’s mementoes made their way to me,” he said.
Those mementoes included a uniform, a U.S. flag along with an Air Medal and Purple Heart, artifacts that motivated Moore to contact longtime friend Knight to find out more.
Knight learned that Kennedy enlisted in 1942 and sent to Europe in August 1944 where he was assigned to a B-24 crew. With 19 missions under his belt, Kennedy took off on his last WWII flight to bomb an oil refinery at Blechhammer, Germany, 1,000 miles from the Army Air Corps base.
After anti-aircraft fire struck the plane, the crew bailed out with only Kennedy and the pilot remaining. After a successful crash landing, Kennedy, who suffered a head injury, and the crew were captured. After being treated at a Nazi hospital, Kennedy was transferred to Stalag Luft 1, a famously overcrowded POW camp near the Baltic Sea where he was interned along with thousands of other U.S. and British prisoners.
“After the war, Kennedy married Mary in 1946, graduated from Loyola in less than three years and worked in Chicago before moving to Peoria in 1954,” noted Knight.
Kennedy worked in the car business before completing a 25-year career at Caterpillar. An ardent runner, he competed in races like the Steamboat Classic.
While he never met Kennedy, Moore is mindful of the contribution he and others made in WWII. “These men saved the world, men and women who absolutely were and remain the Greatest Generation,” he said.
