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| Tech Sergeant was a gunner who flew with the 351st Bombardment Group. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/153970935/kenneth-clyde-law https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flying_Fortresses_of_the_351st_Bomb_Group.jpg |
For Independence Day, let us remember these words from the third verse of America the Beautiful, written by Katharine Lee Bates in 1911:
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
Kenneth Clyde Law never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on July 4, 1920 in Illinois. His parents Ira and Gladys were also both born in Illinois. His father worked as a farmer. Kenneth had an older brother and an older sister. By 1940 Kenneth had completed four years of college and was was still living at home. He worked as a garage repair mechanic.
He volunteered for the Army Air Forces on August 5, 1941. He reached the rank of tech sergeant in the 511th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses. He was trained as a waist gunner. The 351st BG arrived in England in May 1943.
The target for August 6, 1944 was Berlin. The 351st BG lost five planes on that mission. One of them was B-17 43-37557, nicknamed Hubba Hubba, which was shot down by flak and crashed southwest of Potsdam. Sgt. Law was the only flyer from this plane that was killed when his parachute did not deploy. It was his sixth mission. The other eight men were captured by the Germans.
His cenotaph grave is at Linwood Cemetery, Galesburg, Illinois.
This is one of the final 100 stories (61) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.
Last year on this date I profiled Machinist Mate Robert Johnson, USS Swordfish. You can read about Robert here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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