Clyde Kenney was born in August 1924 in Cumberland, Maryland. His mother and father were divorced, and Kenney and his older sister were in the custody of their mother who tended bar for a living. Those were tough times, and Kenney spent most of his young life with his grandmother. Through the papers, he kept abreast of the progress of the war in Europe, and when he graduated high school in 1942, he tried to volunteer for the Army. Kenney was underweight and "immature," and they wouldn't take him. On his second attempt in 1943, he was accepted, and went to boot camp at Fort McClellan in Alabama. Afterward Kenney was sent to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois], and he thought he was "going over to fight the Japanese," but when the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] started, his division [Annotator's Note: Kenney was a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division] was redirected to the European Theater of Operations. He left the United States from Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] for England; however, about five days into the voyage across the Atlantic, the ship's propeller shaft broke. The ship was stranded for a while, with a destroyer circling to protect it from submarine attack. When the ship was once again underway, it steamed straight to La Havre, France, where the troops moved by train to the front lines.

He had had a few experiences with combat when Clyde Kenney's division [Annotator's Note: Kenney was a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division] arrived in Hurtgen Forest. There, he said, the Germans were shelling them every night, and he was "scared to death." He was still a "young kid," and wasn't ready for what he encountered. The soldiers cut down trees to cover their foxholes with logs for overhead protection. It was cold and wet. In the daytime, they "just stayed in place"; Kenney couldn't understand why the enemy didn't come after them, but they didn't. He had a few friends in his outfit, but didn't get too close to anyone; he said they were "liable to be killed the next day." Kenney was the runner for the company commander, and was usually in a foxhole with him. Eventually they marched up the highway to the town of Schmidt, Germany where they fought their toughest battle. Kenney remembers lying behind a low stone dividing wall and firing his rifle at the next-door neighbor's house. In time, the 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] moved through, attacked the tanks down the road, and the infantry "got a break." Kenney was wounded in the leg and groin when a mortar shell exploded in front of him. His feet were also affected by frostbite, and he spent about a month in hospital [Annotator's Note: this event took place later in the war]. By the time he got out the war was just about over. Kenney said he was "fighting to stay in the hospital to keep from going back to the war." Kenney mentioned that because he could type, he was transferred from Company K to Company M [Annotator's Note: Company M, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division], made a sergeant and served as the company clerk after the war ended.

A lot of the small towns along Clyde Kenney's march were "butchered," and Germany was "pulverized" during that period of time. During the time he was fighting in the area of the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s], his unit [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division] captured some of the enemy, including women. One soldier would be designated to take them in small groups to the rear. After Kenney was discharged from the hospital, he was sent back to the front at Kesternich, Germany. The Germans were in retreat, and when the 9th Armored Division was late to arrive, the 78th Infantry Division forged ahead across the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River]. Kenney said they ran across the bridge and were shooting at everybody they could. The Germans backed off when the Americans made their charge. There was one Messerschmitt fighter aircraft that came in to support the German resistance, and Kenney remembers the Americans firing at it with their rifles and a machine gun mounted on a jeep. He knew it was important that they get across the river, but didn't think there would be many of them left after the mission was over. He said he was "scared to death," and didn't know "what the Hell was going on," but he had a job to do, and he just kept firing. He recalled seeing a German soldier take off his helmet and jacket, throw it on the ground, and start running "toward Berlin". [Annotator's Note: Kenney chuckled at the memory.] The assault into the small villages past the Rhine was tough going, and Kenney recalls moving on into the woods.

Although Clyde Kenney liked the experience of being in the military, he didn't like being shot at. War "got to be a habit," but he never got used to seeing the carnage. When Kenney was wounded on the second day after he crossed the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River; this incident is covered in Clip titled Hurtgen Forest to Schmidt], he was transported by jeep to a plane that couldn't get off the ground because it was mired in mud. He was moved onto a troop train and transported to Liege, Belgium. Once the war was over and Kenney became the company clerk [Annotator's Note: Kenney originally served as an infantryman in Company K, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division then was made the company clerk of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 311th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division after he was released from the hospital] in Bremerhaven, and then Bremen, Germany, he took advantage of a "couple of furloughs" [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to travel to London, England; Paris, France and Switzerland. He enjoyed spending time with the ladies while he was on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. While he was in Germany, he was not allowed to fraternize with the locals, but he said, the people were friendly to the occupying soldiers. Kenney said military discipline was still "pretty good" after the war ended. Eventually, he had enough points to return to the United States, but he wasn't anxious to leave because although he had been dreadfully afraid during combat, his time in Europe after the war was enjoyable.

Clyde Kenney sailed back to Baltimore, Maryland and after he was discharged he went back home to Cumberland, Maryland. He said he thought about the war a lot, and always marveled that he got out alive. Kenney believed the war matured him; he went in as a kid and came out a man. He returned to working for the railroad, where he stayed until he retired.