Edward F. Kent was born in November 1917 and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He attended a one-room school and graduated. In 1936, he joined Headquarters Battery, 112th Field Artillery Regiment, a National Guard outfit. Kent had volunteered for the National Guard after a family friend, an Army colonel, suggested that he apply for an appointment to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York]. Unfortunately, he would not get the opportunity. In early 1941, Kent’s National Guard outfit was federalized, and he was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for a year of training. During this time, the 112th Field Artillery Regiment was transitioned from a mule-drawn artillery unit to a motorized artillery unit. The unit had just completed a series of maneuvers when they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Soon after the US entered the war, Kent volunteered for training in a pack artillery [Annotator’s Note: artillery designed to be portable by being broken down into separate loads] unit. In early 1942, Kent was sent from Fort Bragg to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for six months of training. In June, he was selected to be part of a cadre forming a pack artillery unit and sent to Fort Carson, Colorado. The unit being formed consisted of two units, the 601st and 602nd Field Artillery Battalions (pack). [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee asks to pause interview at 0:04:00.000.] As part of the formation and training of the new battalions, approximately 800 men and 800 mules were sent to Camp Hale, Colorado for cold weather and mountain training. By the end of the three-month training cycle there were only about 600 of each remaining. Kent’s job was to haul the gun around using a T-15 vehicle. His unit was shipped to Fort Ord, Washington for more training. After turning in his winter gear, the Army issued Kent lightweight equipment, and began conducting amphibious training off the coast of California. His unit then was reissued their winter weather gear, boarded a ship, and headed overseas.

Edward F. Kent headed to Kiska in the Aleutian Islands [Annotator’s Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska] with his unit [Annotator’s Note: 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)]. His ship landed in Dutch Harbor on Adak Island [Annotator’s Note: Adak Island, Alaska], and then invaded Kiska [Annotator’s Note: codenamed Operation Cottage, 15 August 1943] from the Bering Sea early in the morning. His unit was designated as a cannon company attached to a mountain infantry. He remarked that the invasions were well choreographed. Everyone knew where they were supposed to go. On the morning of the invasion, Kent woke up to find that the sea was very calm and still. It was an almost eerie feeling. He got ready and ate steak and eggs for breakfast. He slid down a rope to get in the boat that would take him to the Kiska beachhead. The beaches were very rocky, and there was no sand. Kent drove a T15 vehicle onto the rocky terrain. Not long after he landed, the vehicle lost its track. His unit was able to work together to put the track back on. As they advanced inland into a cove, the terrain became very steep, so they had to ditch the vehicles, and carried the gun in pieces to their designated area. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee asked to pause interview at 0:19:38.000. Video break at 0:20:23.000.] His job was to set up defensive forces on the island. The first day on the island was beautiful because the sun was out, and there was no wind. But as the afternoon wore on, fog set in, and rain began to fall. He never saw a clear day the rest of the time he was on the island. The allies in Italy had trouble advancing due to the mountainous terrain in Italy, so Kent’s unit was selected to go from Kiska to Europe. His unit used 75mm guns that could be carried by mules [Annotator’s Note: 75mm Pack Howitzer M1].

Edward F. Kent and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)] were selected to go to Italy after serving in Kiska [Annotator’s Note: Kiska, Alaska] for a few months to help advance the Allies through the mountainous terrain. In November 1943, his unit was sent back to Seattle [Annotator’s Note: Seattle, Washington]. On the voyage back to Seattle, they went through a horrible storm, and a liberty ship behind them broke in half. After eight days at sea, his ship was finally docked in Seattle, after the captain crashed into the dock. His unit was sent to Camp Roberts in California and received a 30-day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. Kent went home to Orlando [Annotator’s Note: Orlando, Florida] by train to see his wife. Five days after being home, he received a notice to report back to base. When he returned to base, Kent boarded another train and headed to the East Coast, making it his third time crossing the country in a short period. He got off the train at Newport News [Annotator’s Note: Newport News, Virginia] where he boarded a liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. His ship crossed the Atlantic with a large convoy zigzagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] for 30 days until the ship landed in Sicily [Annotator’s Note: Sicily, Italy] in March 1944. He stayed in Sicily one night before heading to Naples [Annotator’s Note: Naples, Italy]. His unit was given mules and began working their way inland. They were met with resistance as they moved through the countryside. His unit was never attached to a specific unit, but was given tasks to complete in the mountains for different infantry and Allied units, including some French Moroccan units. The French Moroccans were a “rough bunch,” but he got along with them fine. The Americans called them “goons,” and the French Moroccans called them “nice Americans.” They would tease the Germans to fire on them, and they were known to have a bad reputation of rape, thievery, and murder.

Edward F. Kent and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)] were selected for a special mission outside of Rome [Annotator’s Note: Rome, Italy]. As the Germans retreated from Rome, American troops followed them. A spotter plane found that the Germans were utilizing a road near a valley to move their troops across the country. Kent’s unit was given orders to go to a flattop mountain and set up a defense to block the road and capture German prisoners. It took his unit two days to get up to the mountaintop. As he looked over the cliffs, he saw thousands of Germans and equipment on the road. After they positioned their four guns, they realized that they did not have an adequate amount of ammunition to make a successful assault. Kent was ordered to go back down the mountain with mules to get more ammunition from the nearest supply dump. As they headed down, the sun was setting, and he could hear trucks on the nearby road. The mules began to act up for water. They came across a guard who almost shot at Kent, but he convinced him to step aside, or he would be run over by the mules. Kent found the ammo dump. They loaded up the ammo on the mules and gave them water to drink. He made it up back to the mountain and everything was quiet down below. When they woke up the next morning, they realized that all the Germans had left the area. [Annotator’s Note: Glitch at 0:48:26.000. Interviewee asked to pause interview at 0:48:46.000. Video break at 0:49:03.000.]

Edward F. Kent and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)] were outside of Rome [Annotator’s Note: Rome, Italy] when they ran out of food and lived on K Rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. Wherever his outfit went, they always had their own cooks and supplies. The mess cook killed a small ox and cooked it up for the outfit. Kent said that the meat was very chewy and he could not swallow it. His outfit was pulled off the front lines to give the mules a rest. He soon learned that the Army wanted several of the men in his outfit to volunteer to join a glider unit. Kent volunteered for the mission. He was given four men and a .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. His squad was shipped north of Rome for glider training. His glider held a jeep, a .50 caliber machine gun, and ammunition. He sat in the driver’s seat of the jeep and three other men were in the vehicle as well. His unit took off on the 15 August 1944 and headed into France. His glider was one of 36 that landed in a vineyard at Le Muy [Annotator’s Note: Le Muy, France]. He thought that he was going to hit a power line, but they were able to glide over it. They hit steel poles that held up the grapevines. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee asked to pause interview at 1:00:24.000. Interviewee asked a person by the name of Randy to explain what he saw at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] The Germans were shooting small arms fire, but it did not bother Kent. His squad removed all the supplies from the glider and began to move down a small trail. A fellow squad member saw a wire going across the trail and stopped Kent. They realized that it was a boobytrap. The next morning, they found a wounded German officer and turned him over to headquarters.

Edward F. Kent and his glider unit landed near a German outpost in Le Muy, France. Kent and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)] moved around in circles helping different infantry outfits. His unit then received orders to head towards the border of France and Italy to push the Germans back into Italy. With little luck capturing Germans, his unit received orders to draw fire with a machine gun in a valley nearby. The Germans never responded to their fire. Since it was getting cold, Kent and his squad found a small building with potatoes. They cooked the potatoes and while they were eating it, a Frenchman came into the building and began eating the cooked potatoes. Soon after, when they were leaving the building, the Frenchman saved Kent from a grenade boobytrap. Not long after that, his unit was given their mules again and had to retrain them because they were out of shape. Kent received news that his infant daughter was born, but had died. He received a 30-day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go home which was extended for an additional 22 days. He was about to board a ship in Newport News [Annotator’s Note: Newport News, Virginia] when Germany surrendered [Annotator’s Note: 8 May 1945], so he was sent to Fort McPherson, Georgia where he was discharged because he had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. After World War 2, Kent found work at various companies before deciding to enlist in the Army in Orlando [Annotator’s Note: Orlando, Florida]. He was shipped off to Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan] and stayed there for two years, and was then stationed on mainland Japan for three years. His wife and son lived with him in Japan. He retired from the Air Force in 1962.

Edward F. Kent was born in November 1917 and grew up with one older sister. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], his father worked for a nursery but went bankrupt in the late 1930s. After that, he worked at a state park as a guard. He joined the National Guard after a family friend, an Army colonel, suggested that he apply for an appointment to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York]. Unfortunately, he would not get the opportunity to go to West Point because he had physical disabilities and failed his physical exam. He joined the 112th Field Artillery Regiment, a National Guard outfit. His unit was a pack artillery unit whose guns and supplies were transported on mules. The guns weighed 1,365 pounds or more. The padding was soft, but weighed seven pounds. Each mule towed about 250-350 pounds and walked about 20 to 30 miles a day. One of Kent’s jobs was to make sure the mules were adequately packed, but not over packed. Kent’s National Guard outfit was federalized, and he was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for training. The unit had just completed a series of maneuvers when they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He did not know the location of Pearl Harbor, but he knew that America was going to war.

Edward F. Kent was assigned to the 602nd Field Artillery Battalion (Pack) and sent to Kiska [Annotator’s Note: Kiska, Alaska]. He was not surprised by the lack of resistance when they landed on the beach. He never fired a shot on Kiska, and there were very little casualties. The terrain was tundra, mushy and at times rocky. The weather conditions were cold, windy, and raining. It was often foggy and one could easily get lost, so they used ropes to guide them around. His unit caught salmon and fried them up. He was a little disappointed that there were no Japanese on Kiska because his unit had trained and prepared for combat, but he was relieved at the same time. To move his guns along the terrain, he had to take them apart and then put them together after they repositioned them. On he way back to Seattle [Annotator’s Note: Seattle Washington], his ship went through a very bad storm. Kent, being prone to seasickness, spent most of the time in his bunk trying to not get ill.

Edward F. Kent married his wife in November 1942 while he was at Camp Carson [Annotator’s Note: Camp Carson, Colorado]. While at Camp Hale [Annotator’s Note: Camp Hale, Colorado], he invited his wife up to stay with him in a guest house on base, but found out it had been taken, so his roommates picked up their bedrolls and moved to the barracks for the night, so that Kent and his wife could be alone in the sleeping quarters. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 1:41:52.000.] While he was at Camp Hale, his future wife was in Orlando [Annotator’s Note: Orlando, Florida]. When they decided to get married, Kent organized the event at the chapel on base. They were supposed to get married at two in the afternoon, but his fiancé’s train was delayed and did not get into the station until after eight at night. They both still wanted to have the ceremony that evening and found a church and minister that performed the marriage. They went to a small restaurant and had liver and onions in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After World War 2 ended, Kent remained in the service and went to Okinawa, Japan during the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. While Kent was serving in World War 2, his parents moved from Pennsylvania to Orlando, Florida for employment. When Kent went to visit them on leave, he met his wife. When he went to Italy, he sailed on a liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] managed by an English crew. The meals were terrible, and it felt like it took forever because they zigzagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] across the Atlantic. He does not recall having to deal with German bombers while he was in Italy. He did have some interaction with the local people in France. His unit had set up the machine gun and then sat around doing nothing. Some small kids came up a road and decided to stop and look at the machine gun and the jeep. Then all of a sudden the Germans began firing upon them. Kent took the kids to find cover. After the bombardment stopped, the kids ran off.

When Edward F. Kent went into combat in Europe, he carried a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. He believes that they had some assistance from the French Resistance while in combat in Europe. There was a time when he came across a Frenchman that saved his life, and he believed that he was part of the French resistance. His outfit started as a mule outfit, then changed to a mechanized outfit, back to a mule outfit, and finally to a glider outfit. He was in a specialized unit that was called to support various infantry outfits, and they had to be flexible. He was very proud to be part of this unit. In March 1945, he was notified that his infant daughter had died. He could only communicate with his wife through mail, which was infrequent. He left Europe and took a ship back to America to be with his wife. He was at Newport News [Annotator’s Note: Newport News, Virginia] on his way back to Europe when he heard that Germany had surrendered [Annotator’s Note: 8 May 1945]. He was in Orlando [Annotator’s Note: Orlando, Florida] working at a company when he first heard about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He did not believe it. After the World War 2, he went into the Air Force and took college courses. He decided to go back into the military because union workers were going on strike, and he needed a steady income.

Edward F. Kent would like to tell younger people to listen to what other people have to say. He believes that World War 2 changed his life, but is not sure how. He knows that he would have never met his wife if he did not go into the service. His most memorable experience of World War 2 was looking out of the jeep as it glided into France. He can remember the impact the glider made when they cashed into the ground. Kent believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. The worst thing that can happen is to forget events in our history. He was glad to see school groups at the Museum when he visited. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewer asks a person off camera if he recalled stories the interviewee told him in the past at 2:12:42.000.] When Kent went into the Air Force [Annotator’s Note: after being discharged from the Army], he oversaw an automotive shop. Three colonels bought race cars while he was stationed in New York. He attended several races and drove the race car to the race locations. Sometimes he tested the cars on airport runways. He spent two years on Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan] after the war.