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Contents

Acknowledgments, ix Introduction, xi chapter one The Early Years, 1 chapter two Army Aviator: World War I, 7 chapter three Preparation for Command: The Inter-War Years, 17 chapter four Taking Command: August 1942 to January 1943, 46 chapter five The Papuan Campaign: August 1942 to January 1943, 71 chapter six Moving Westward: January 1943 to June 1943, 97 chapter seven Isolating Rabaul: June 1943 to January 1944, 122 chapter eight Westward to Hollandia: January 1944 to October 1944, 154 chapter nine Return to the Philippines: October 1944 to December 1944, 177 chapter ten Luzon and Beyond: January 1945 to August 1945, 207 chapter eleven Conclusion, 231 Notes, 249 Bibliography, 313 Index, 329

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© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. viii MacArthur’s Airman Griffith Acknow.qxd:Griffith Acknow.qxd 8/17/10 12:58 PM Page ix

acknowledgments

Like any historian or writer who undertakes a project of this magnitude, I have incurred debts that I can never possibly repay except to offer my sin- cere and heartfelt thanks. I must begin by acknowledging the invaluable help and encouragement of Richard Kohn throughout the course of this work. He has been a patient mentor as well as an outstanding teacher, and he com- bines those two aspects of his life with being a committed citizen. I can think of no better role model. Gerhard Weinberg, Miles Fletcher, and Don Hig- ginbotham all suggested excellent revisions, and the work is better for their contributions. My special thanks to Tami Davis Biddle for reading several drafts and offering her extensive insights into the history of air power. Phil Meilinger and the faculty at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies deserve recognition for having the confidence to send me to graduate school. Professor Dave Mets has earned special appreciation for his teaching ability and his willingness to read the manuscript. To the entire school, past, pres- ent, and future, my thanks; I hope you will find this valuable. A grant from the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency allowed me to make several research trips to Maxwell Air Force Base to cull their archives, which proved very rewarding. The Air Force Institute of Tech- nology sponsored travel to Washington, D.C., and Norfolk, Virginia. At other times I relied on the hospitality of friends and family. My thanks to everyone who opened their home to me. For providing background information on George Kenney and the Ken- ney family I am indebted to James Kenney, who shared the considerable research he had done on the family history, and Dorothy Dodson, also kindly allowed me to search through a trunk full of family mementos of her uncle George Kenney. Numerous librarians and archivists assisted in finding documents and providing leads for other sources, but a few deserve special recognition. Cindy Battis at the Brookline Public Library went out of her way to search for details about Kenney’s youth. Special thanks for the assistance of Duane Reed at the United States Air Force Academy, Jim Zoebel at the MacArthur Memorial, and Evonee Kincaid at the Center for Air Force History. I am especially grateful to the many scholars who took time out from

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their own work to patiently answer my questions. Herman Wolk at the Cen- ter for Air Force History provided invaluable assistance on the Kenney Papers and gladly shared insights into the general’s career from his own research. An interview with Don Goldstein at the University of Pittsburgh was help- ful in giving me a different perspective on Kenney, while Richard Watson at Duke University kindly answered my questions about his work on the official Air Force history. Pete Faber and DeWitt Copp answered questions about the Air Corps between the wars, and Jim Titus kindly provided access to Martha Byrd’s manuscript on Ken Walker. Thanks to William Baldwin for leading me through the records of the Corps of Engineers and to Edward Drea and Stanley Falk for their comments on the manuscript. Two historians in Australia, David Horner and Alan Stephens, went above and beyond the call of duty in answering my inquires about sources “down under.” Last, but certainly not least, this book simply could not have been written without the support of my family. My parents provided my first role models and made certain that I had the background to carry this off, and I can never thank them enough. My brothers and their families have always been very supportive, but Bob and Greg deserve recognition for their special assistance in this project. Liz took time out from her own studies to read the manuscript and surely made it better. Dyanne, Megan, Kate, and Trey never became very interested in George Kenney, perhaps because he took so much of their father’s time, but they patiently endured my nights and weekends at the computer. For their continued support I am grateful. While I am thankful for all the help I have received, any errors must remain my responsibility alone. The views and opinions presented here are likewise mine and do not represent the position of the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or any of their subordinate agencies. Griffith Introduction.qxd:Griffith Introduction.qxd 8/17/10 12:59 PM Page xi

introduction

The United States battleship Missouri sat peacefully at anchor in Tokyo Bay on the cloudy morning of September 2, 1945, a scene in sharp contrast to the bloody four years of warfare in the Pacific. General George C. Kenney stepped aboard the mighty warship shortly after eight o’ clock that morning, taking his place in the front row of dignitaries gathered to witness the signing of the surrender documents that would officially end the war with Japan.1 His presence there was well deserved. As General Douglas MacAr- thur’s air commander in the Southwest Pacific theater since July 1942, George Kenney had contributed operational skill, intellectual flexibility, and technical innovations that had made air power a crucial part of the Allied victory. Kenney’s achievements have not gone unrecognized by historians. In his major study of America’s war in the Pacific, Eagle Against the Sun, Ronald Spector reports that “General George C. Kenney found a dispirited and dis- illusioned air organization, which he quickly overhauled and beat into life.”2 D. Clayton James, best known for his three-volume biography of MacArthur, credits Kenney’s influence in shaping MacArthur’s strategic thinking during the war.3 Geoffrey Perret, author of a recent popular narrative on the Army Air Forces in World War II, rates Kenney a “superb” commander.4 Although Kenney generally receives high marks, at least one student of the war in the Pacific argues that Kenney’s achievements have been overstated. In his study of Ennis C. Whitehead, Kenney’s deputy, historian Donald Goldstein main- tains that Whitehead, not Kenney, was the “driving force and genius behind the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific.”5 These opinions about Kenney’s contributions, however, are based on a very narrow range of sources. Since Kenney’s performance has never been examined in depth, these authors must draw most of their conclusions about his accomplishments from the official Air Force histories of World War II and Kenney’s own account of the war, published under the title General Ken- ney Reports. Relying on this limited array of sources has some obvious shortcomings. Written at the conclusion of the war, the official Air Force histories provide a wealth of detail and are useful starting points for any research on air war-

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fare in World War II, but they tend to focus on the tactical details of the air fighting and emphasize the decisiveness of air power in a given campaign. These studies downplay the limitations of air power and avoid detailed analysis or criticism of air commanders such as Kenney. In addition, some aspects of Kenney’s operations were classified and hence unavailable when the official histories were written, most notably his reliance on signals intelligence. Kenney’s own work is lively and engaging, offering insight into his personality as well as his ideas on warfare, but badly flawed. There are a few omissions that distort the record, and Kenney sometimes exaggerates his own influence in the war. In addition, his account must be assessed in light of the heated interservice debates occurring when the book was published, a factor that led him to emphasize the effectiveness of air power over the contributions from the other services. As historian David Horner put it, an “assessment of [Kenney’s] performance is both helped and hindered by his remarkable book.”6 No matter how interesting and useful the work is for its revelations into the nature of high command and the role of air power in the war, in the end it remains a memoir, exhibiting all the shortcomings and strengths of that genre. It should not be mistaken for a history of the war. The net result is an incomplete and often inaccurate picture of the effect of air power and of George Kenney’s leadership in a theater where air power was, in Spector’s assessment, “the dominant element.”7 The lack of an in-depth biographical study of Kenney points out the paucity of detailed studies on air leaders in general.8 Despite the importance of air power in warfare during the last half of the twentieth century and the amount of ink spilled by historians about the morality of air warfare and the motivations of air commanders, the number of studies about leading airmen remains surprisingly small.9 In a comprehensive survey of the biographies of air leaders, historian Philip Meilinger found that the works tended to focus on the lives of the few very public figures and that few were scholarly studies.10 A study of George Kenney covering his career both before and during World War II is one step toward understanding the perspective of airmen and the nature of leadership for an air commander. Moreover, focusing on Ken- ney provides one small corrective for understanding the complicated nature of air power, especially as it played out in the Southwest Pacific. Because of the many roles that airmen performed and the central position Kenney had in directing the air units, an analysis of his operations will provide a more com- plete picture of the war in the Southwest Pacific. This work focuses on George Kenney as a theater air commander. The first section details his personal and military background, the source of many of his ideas about air warfare. The remainder of the study examines and evalu- Griffith Introduction.qxd:Griffith Introduction.qxd 8/17/10 12:59 PM Page xiii

ates his record of command in World War II, employing air power both in an independent role and in operations with ground and naval forces. While I examined a variety of sources, like other historians who cover this period, I used Kenney’s own account both for the details it offers and for the glimpse it affords of how Kenney viewed the war. However, because of the problems with this memoir and a propensity for some writers to rely on it for more than Kenney’s impressions, I have attempted to correct the record and point out where his account of events is at odds with other sources. By virtue of his position, Kenney was involved primarily in planning future operations. His responsibility was the overall theater application of air power; this analysis will likewise attend to the theater level of operations. I have attempted to capture the many different aspects of command at that level, from combat operations and tactics to planning, intelligence, supply, and morale. Strategic decisions about the overall conduct of the war will be included both to provide the context for operations and to aid in determin- ing Kenney’s impact on those strategic decisions. Likewise, individual air engagements and bombing missions will be cited where appropriate, but not usually dissected in great detail. Readers hoping for a detailed discussion of air missions will have to look elsewhere. Kenney’s success in employing air power rested on his knowledge of modern warfare and a strong belief in the unique contribution of air power to military operations. The most important task for the air force, he believed, was to reduce, if not eliminate, the enemy’s ability to interfere with friendly operations. The first aim of an air commander was to gain the unimpeded use of the air space: in short, to control the air. This would allow friendly air and surface forces to pursue actions free from interference from the enemy. With air superiority established, aircraft could attack enemy ground troops far behind the front lines and bomb supply areas, roads, or even factories, thereby reducing the enemy’s ability to wage war. In Kenney’s opinion, aircraft were misused if they were employed only as substitutes for artillery, dedicated to bombing the enemy forces on the front lines. Although Kenney was dogmatic in his ideas about the purpose of air power, he was extremely flexible in their implementation. He was willing and able to change almost any aspect of his command in the pursuit of his aims. He junked unsuitable tactics, embraced innovative modifications to aircraft, and adapted his organization to the constraints and opportunities presented by a situation. The means, he believed, should always be adapted to the ends—whatever was necessary to get the job done. Indeed, flexibility and adaptation were the hallmarks of Kenney’s leadership. Another important factor in Kenney’s success was his personal dealings Griffith Introduction.qxd:Griffith Introduction.qxd 8/17/10 1:00 PM Page xiv

with other commanders. When Kenney arrived in the Southwest Pacific he quickly established a close personal and professional relationship with Doug- las MacArthur, the theater commander. Kenney related well to MacArthur on a personal level; he also brought to their relationship an impressive knowledge of air warfare, an area that MacArthur knew was important, but in which he had no real expertise. Likewise, Kenney recognized and took advantage of the talent and experience of his subordinates, especially Ennis Whitehead, Kenney’s deputy commander and the commander of the forward operational headquarters that Kenney established. During Kenney’s apprenticeship in the Army he crossed paths with many of the ground and air officers whom he would later serve with during the war. While Kenney had no difficulty getting along with his fellow Army officers, he harbored a deep dislike for naval officers, ironic considering the geography of the Southwest Pacific theater. Despite the requirements to coor- dinate air, ground, and sea operations, relations between the Navy and Ken- ney were never very good, and he made few efforts to improve them. In spite of antagonism and obstacles, including the constraints of weather, geography, strategy, and resources, Kenney succeeded in making air power contribute its maximum effectiveness in an environment that combined the fighting forces of different services and different nations. The story of George Kenney’s role in World War II will not explain every aspect of air warfare in the Southwest Pacific, but it will expand our understanding of how one airman faced the challenge of commanding an air force in war. Griffith 1.qxd:Griffith 1.qxd 8/17/10 1:01 PM Page 1

The Early Years

“From then on, I knew that was what I was going to do.”

George Kenney was born on August 6, 1889, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, the first child of Joseph Atwood Kenney and Anne Louise Churchill, but the lat- est in a long line of Kenneys in America. The family traces their heritage, through marriage, back to two members of the original Mayflower company—Stephen Hopkins and William Brewster.1 The first recorded evidence of the Kenney name in America came on September 24, 1662, when John Keayne, an innkeeper in Boston, bought a house and some land near the center of Quincy, Massachusetts.2 The family of George Kenney’s mother, Anna Louise Churchill, also included some of the earliest European settlers—the first Churchill came to New England in 1643.3 The Kenneys were primarily fishermen and merchants who remained in the Boston area until 1761, when the family migrated to Nova Scotia with a number of other English settlers. Although originally a French colony in North America, Nova Scotia was taken over by the British during the Seven Years’ War between France and England. In a bid to ensure British control of the island, French settlers were deported and the British governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, established a colonial assembly and began recruit- ing settlers from New England.4 The favorable terms offered to the potential settlers, combined with the enthusiastic reports on the attractive conditions in Nova Scotia by agents sent from New England to investigate the territory in 1759, spurred interest in the area. Although individual motives for moving varied among the settlers, for fishing families, like the Kenneys, who frequently stopped in Nova Scotia on their expeditions to the fishing grounds in the North Atlantic, the move simply changed a temporary way station into a permanent home.5 In 1761 Herman Kenney, a direct ancestor of George Kenney, settled in Barrington, Nova Scotia, and became the first magistrate of the town.6 By 1763 at least 5000 people had moved from New England to Nova Scotia; despite an influx of immigrants from other nations, the area along the southern coast became, in the words of historian George Rawlyk, a “New New England.”7

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In spite of this similarity, Nova Scotia did not experience the political changes of the New England colonies and, consequently, did not join with the rebels during the American Revolution. The political separation of Nova Scotia from Massachusetts that occurred after the American Revolution did little, however, to disrupt the social, cultural, and economic ties between the residents of southern Nova Scotia and those of New England.8 Like many other families, the Kenneys remained in Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War, but the family also maintained close ties to New En- gland. George Kenney’s father, Joseph Kenney, was born in Barrington, Nova Scotia, on November 25, 1862, the oldest child of James Colwell Kenney and Sarah Jane Crowell.9 Joe, as he was called, was a handsome young man with a striking singing voice; Edith Porter, a cousin of George Kenney, thought Joe had “one of the most beautiful voices” in the world.10 No doubt this singing talent helped attract the attention of Anne Louise Churchill, daughter of the famous sea captain George Washington Churchill. The two met in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where Joe had been hired as a singer for a church, and were married there on November 16, 1888.11 Although both Joe and Anne had long-standing family ties to Nova Sco- tia, Joe’s parents had moved to Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1882; and sometime around 1900 Joe and Anne Kenney followed, settling in Brookline, Massachusetts.12 Even after this move the couple traveled frequently between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. Although George Kenney was born in Yarmouth, his sister Gertrude, Joe and Anne’s second child, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1892; and the two youngest children in the family, Ruth and Arthur, were both born in Nova Scotia: Ruth in 1893, Arthur in 1894.13 Joe and Anne Kenney’s decision to relocate was probably inspired by economic necessity. Prosperity in the Canadian Maritime Provinces depended on exporting lumber and fish to the United States, but in 1886 an American tar- iff on fish effectively closed this market for Nova Scotia fishermen, forcing many of them to emigrate to the United States and find work on American vessels. While economic opportunities in Nova Scotia were decreasing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the opposite was true in the United States, where industrialization was expanding employment opportunities.14 The result was high unemployment in Nova Scotia, but ample opportunities in the United States. Boston became the “goal of ambitious youth.”15 Joe Kenney’s move to Boston effectively completed the circle of migra- tion back to the United States that had begun in 1761. The Kenneys were, at least according to political boundaries, Canadian citizens. Despite this for- mal definition of nationality, the Kenneys’ perception, formed by the close Griffith 1.qxd:Griffith 1.qxd 8/17/10 1:01 PM Page 3

ties to the United States and aided by the porous border between the United States and Canada, was that they were not Canadian.16 George Kenney claimed throughout his life that he was the son of American citizens who were vacationing in Nova Scotia when he was born.17 He was, in fact, very defensive about the circumstances of his birth. When a reporter who was curious about Kenney’s nationality asked if he was Canadian, the general snapped, “If a cat has kittens in the oven, you don’t call them biscuits.”18 A careful look at his family’s history reveals that George Kenney was mistaken. His claim to American citizenship reflected more the belief he had in his nationality than a strict interpretation of the true circumstances of his birth.19 George Kenney’s family moved to a working class section of Boston called Brookline, where his father worked as a carpenter and then as a driver for a plumbing company.20 To help the family make ends meet financially, George’s mother worked as a dressmaker in Boston and may have rented out rooms in their house at 10 Davis Avenue.21 For several years she traveled back to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and managed a vacation house in the sum- mer.22 George Kenney attended Pierce Grammar School in Brookline, and he graduated from Brookline High School in 1907.23 Although unmemorable as a scholar or athlete, he was nevertheless accepted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied civil engineering.24 In addition to his studies at MIT, George discovered that he had some talent as a writer. He worked on the school newspaper, The Tech, and was a member of the paper’s editorial board.25 Kenney also earned money for school by writ- ing for a commercial newspaper; he later developed a service that provided campus news to the Boston Journal, the Boston Record, and the Boston Advertiser.26 Sometime in 1909, during George’s second year at MIT, Joe Kenney left the family, an event that forced George, as the male head of the household, into the role of the primary economic supporter.27 The exact reasons for Joe Kenney’s disappearance remain murky. According to one source, Joe and two other men were accused of embezzling $20,000 from a company and left the area to avoid prosecution.28 Another relative, however, gave a more prosaic explanation: Joe left the family because he could no longer get along with his wife.29 Based on the lack of any available news accounts about the crime and on Joe’s job as a driver, it seems most likely that domestic strife was the reason he left home. Whatever the exact explanation for Joe’s disappearance, the episode un- doubtedly left its mark on George Kenney, although he never revealed any of his feelings. An unpublished paper he wrote late in life, entitled “Personali- ties,” provides a glimpse into the impact of the event. In the paper Kenney Griffith 1.qxd:Griffith 1.qxd 8/17/10 1:01 PM Page 4

attempted to define the most important characteristics of the significant or memorable people of his lifetime. Most of the people in the essay were public figures: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin and Eleanor Roo- sevelt, Henry Ford, and William Knudsen. Significantly, George Kenney made no mention of his father, but did write about his maternal grandfather as an exemplary “personality” and his childhood hero.30 Perhaps it is not surprising that George Kenney would have remembered his grandfather, George Churchill, so fondly. Not only was young Kenney his namesake, but following Joe Kenney’s disappearance, George Churchill was probably the closest father figure to the family. Kenney was also un- doubtedly drawn to his grandfather because of the sea captain’s heroic exploits. Probably the most dramatic incident occurred on a voyage in 1886 from Quebec to Glasgow, Scotland. During the trip the ship’s rudder was lost during a heavy storm, threatening to strand the boat in the North At- lantic. Churchill and his crew fashioned a makeshift rudder that allowed them to continue the voyage, but the heavy seas continued to tear at the ship. In the end, they created six replacement rudders and, after sixty-eight har- rowing days at sea, finally made it to port, earning the captain the nickname “Seven-rudder” Churchill as well as praise on both sides of the Atlantic.31 Given this standard, perhaps George Kenney tried, in some measure, to emu- late his grandfather’s exploits in his own life. In the year following his father’s disappearance, Kenney attended a flying competition sponsored by Harvard University and the city of Boston, an event that also had a profound impact on his life. The gathering, held in Sep- tember 1910, was the first large air competition of its kind in the United States. The contest, then called an air meet, lasted ten days and involved twenty-two aviators flying thirteen different kinds of aircraft. During the event aviators competed for prizes in various categories, including highest altitude, fastest and slowest speeds, and landing accuracy. Among the airmen invited was Claude Grahame-White of England, one of the “five leading aviators in the world,” according to the New York Times, and the aviator who would have the greatest impact on young George Kenney.32 Claude Grahame-White arrived in Boston already a well-known aero- naut. An upper-class Englishman who had helped build his own airplane and made his first flight with little or no instruction in 1909, Grahame-White also started the first flying school in England. He first attracted widespread public recognition during an attempt to capture the £10,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for the first flight from London to Manchester. Although he was unsuccessful in this endeavor, his efforts during the flight, aided by laudatory news accounts from friendly reporters as well as Grahame-White’s Griffith 1.qxd:Griffith 1.qxd 8/17/10 1:01 PM Page 5

own instincts for self-promotion, made him an air hero and celebrity in Great Britain.33 The Englishman quickly became a crowd favorite in Boston too. He flew every day during the competition, despite weather conditions that grounded other aviators, and won a number of prizes, including the award for the fastest speed around a designated course and the highest altitude reached during the meet. In addition, he was the only competitor who took the challenge offered by the Boston Globe to fly twice around the lighthouse in Boston harbor, a distance of thirty-three miles from the site of the meet in Cambridge.34 The manager of the air meet lauded Grahame-White’s partici- pation, calling him “the savior of the meet,” adding, “if it had not been for his willing and active work ...the meet would have fallen below par.”35 To be sure, Grahame-White was handsomely rewarded for his efforts and earned over $31,000 during the meet, including $10,000 for his flight around the Boston Light.36 Not surprisingly, the air meet drew thousands of Boston residents, including twenty-one-year-old George Kenney, who, years later, would remember two details about the competition. The first was Graham-White’s prize- winning flight out to the lighthouse in Boston Harbor.37 The other was more personal. Kenney helped the famous aviator with some menial task and was rewarded for his efforts with a short flight.38 He later recalled the experience as a monumental event in his life. “From then on,” he recounted, “I knew that was what I was going to do.”39 No doubt the widespread public fascination with aviation in this era helped fuel Kenney’s interest in aviation; shortly after his first flight with Grahame-White, Kenney and a few friends built their own airplane.40 They modeled their aircraft on the monoplane design used by the Frenchman Louis Blériot to fly across the English Channel in 1909 and flown by Grahame- White at the Boston air show in 1910. Apparently Kenney and the other young aviators had not quite mastered the knack of aircraft construction. The ten-horsepower 1903 Ford engine they used was not powerful enough to lift the airframe more than “four or five feet off the ground.”41 When Ken- ney tried to turn the aircraft it stalled, crashed, and sank into the Saugus River northeast of Boston, a humble beginning for a future combat pilot and Air Force general.42 Several years would pass before Kenney was able to pursue his dream of flying. Kenney would have graduated from MIT in 1911, but he left school that year, later claiming that he was “getting kind of bored.”43 While school may have seemed boring after the excitement of his first flights, family financial problems, resulting from his father’s disappearance, were probably a greater consideration in his decision to drop out.44 After leaving MIT George Kenney Griffith 1.qxd:Griffith 1.qxd 8/17/10 1:01 PM Page 6

worked at a number of different jobs. He moved to Quebec, Canada, and found employment as a surveyor for the Quebec Saguenay Railroad. Then in 1913 he moved back to Boston, perhaps to be closer to his siblings after his mother’s unexpected death from anesthesia administered during an opera- tion.45 He was hired by the Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation, one of the top construction firms in the country, to work on building the new MIT campus.46 In 1914 he returned to the railroads as a civil engineer, building a new bridge at New London, Connecticut, for the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. After that project ended, Kenney and Gordon Glazier, a close friend from high school, began their own general contracting firm— the Beaver Contracting and Engineering Corporation. They built roads, office buildings, and houses, and even participated in such major projects as the construction of the seawall at Winthrop, Massachusetts, and the bridge over the Squannacock River.47 Although the engineering and design work appealed to Kenney, he most enjoyed solving the problems that came up once a project started. He found the special challenges involved with hydraulic engineering—constructing special pilings and foundations to support a structure in swamps or on the wet ground near rivers—especially appealing because of the need for innovative solutions. As far as he was concerned, once those problems were solved, “well, it was just simple—pouring concrete.”48 Despite his being bitten by the aviation bug, there is no indication that Kenney did any more flying during this time. In addition to building up his own company, he supported his younger brother and sister after his father’s departure and his mother’s death, leaving him with little extra money for an expensive hobby such as flying. While missing out on flying, Kenney was gaining management and leadership experience as well as practical knowledge that helped augment his school work in engineering at MIT and gave him a background that was difficult to match. The construction work almost never went as planned, making improvisation and flexibility vital to com- pleting the projects.49 As the head of a small business, Kenney had to bring together the work of several different subcontractors, gaining an ability to react to current circumstances as well as to forecast for the future. His work experiences, and in particular owning his own company, in combination with the family responsibilities thrust on him at a relatively young age, gave Ken- ney a sense of maturity and knowledge of the practical world beyond many of his peers. Outside events, however, would soon bring big changes to Ken- ney’s life and give him the opportunity to realize his desire to fly.