My Night in Paris

As told to Keith by his father Edward Kenny

January 1945

I arrived in Paris, delivered supplies for allied officers staying at the Chateau Rothschild, and was directed to remain at the chateau until my new orders arrived (See previous post, Over There). My unit, the 404^th Fighter Group, was in Belgium and cut off by German panzers in the Battle of the Bulge.

I bathed with ample hot water and perfumed soap—neither of which I’d known during the depression—then slipped on my best uniform to join the other officers in the chateau ballroom.

Chateau Rothschild as it appears today. After the war, it was never reoccupied

Generals and admirals surrounded by senior staff officers and spike-heeled French ladies stood and talked under the high-vaulted ceiling. Red-uniformed Algerian staff brought trays of hors d’oeuvres and drinks, wine and champagne.

A tuxedoed, string quartet played in one corner of the ballroom. A lavish buffet on one wall offered assorted breads, cheeses and caviar, followed by sliced pork, duck, and salmon carved and served by the Algerian staff.

When none of the groups opened a space for me, I went to the bar for a beer. I selected an Alsatian brand over the caramel-dark concoction the bartender said the Germans preferred.

“Those hobnobs got in last week,” said a Midwest accent behind me. The Army Air Corps Captain had silver pilot’s wings on his jacket and a glass of dark beer in his hand.

I tipped my bottle toward the multi-starred uniforms and their girlfriends. “I guess you’re not with them?”

He shook his head. “I’m at Beauvais with the 322^nd Bomb Group. Came down to speed up supply … but this is useless. Only supply these desk jockeys worry about is whiskey and champagne. Heard they skedaddled out of Brussels soon as the panzers rolled over the border.”

“I just got in, escorted a dozen cases of Scotch here from England.”

“That’s explains how you ended up here.” He took a pull on his beer. “How about we grab a bite and I show you the town.”

Charlie flew the A-26 Marauder, medium bomber, and had been in the war since D-Day. He was also from Toledo and a Detroit Tiger fan, so we talked about Hank Greenberg, their first baseman, and agreed that Ty Cobb was a greater ball player than Babe Ruth.

Charlie’s favorite part of Paris was an area near Sacré-Cœur at the foot of Montmartre. He said it was called Place Pigalle and there was a metro stop. I later found out US servicemen since World War One had called it “Pig Alley,” the famous red light district. Even though it wasn’t my idea, I didn’t tell Phyl this story until years later.

It was close to midnight, but all the city lights were on. Paris is known as The City of Light. The street was jammed with servicemen of all ranks and all services, and in all states of intoxication. They stumbled about—in spite of the cutting winter wind—bottles in hand, shouting, singing, hanging on each other and on skimpily dressed women.

I looked on in silence as we walked. Charlie read my expression, laughed, and pointed to a narrow, open doorway down a short flight of steps.

In the dim light and blue tobacco smoke, I saw high-heeled, naked legs kicking from a row of stools. Charlie pushed me in. The bar on the narrow back wall provided most of the light. Candles on small round tables provided the rest.

We grabbed an empty table in the corner. A small Frenchman in a red-striped shirt took an empty bottle from the table and brought two glasses. Charlie ordered a bottle of Bordeaux and offered a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes in exchange.

Most of the customers were boisterous young Americans in want of decent bathing. A sultry woman sang a mournful French tune and leaned over a black piano player.

I shrank into the corner. Charlie patted my shoulder. “Relax, Ed, this may be the only R&R you get.” He shook a pack of Luckies at me until one emerged. I lit it off the table candle and took a draw. The waiter showed Charlie the Bordeaux label, poured our glasses half full, and left the bottle. My first night in Paris, I thought, sipping my wine and taking another draw on my cigarette.

“Hey you, flyboy,” a gruff voice blasted over the crowd. The place got quiet. I looked up. “Yah, you.” A beefy, infantry sergeant pointed his ham-like fist at me. Charlie backed away. The piano player stopped. The chanteuse shifted to lean on the piano, eyes curious.

“You’re a fighter pilot, aren’t ya?” He was Polish. I knew the accent.

“Yes,” I cleared my throat, “I am.” I hadn’t flown a minute in combat, but I was a certified fighter pilot.

“P-47?”

“Right.” Charlie shifted his chair further away. The big sergeant pushed his table back and crossed the room in four steps.

“This pilot,” he shouted back to the room then checked my nametag, “Lieutenant Kenny here, he saved my sorry ass.” He wrapped his ball-mitt-size fists around my upper arms, lifted me out of my seat, and set me on the bar. I’d leaned down since basic but still weighed 160 pounds and stood six feet tall.

Sergeant Pulaski pointed to the bar’s top shelf. “I want to buy Lieutenant Kenny a drink, the best in the place.” He then turned to the room. “I’m going to tell all of you our little story, and I want you to listen.”

Chairs rattled as they turned toward us. The bartender stepped onto a stool and brought down a dusty, black bottle. He wiped it with his apron then twisted off the cork and set and filled two glasses. The sergeant handed one to me and took the other.

“Me, my wife, my three kids, and all my friends here,” he waved his glass to the soldiers who raised their glasses, “we thank you and all P-47 pilots. God bless you.” He tossed it back. I did the same and coughed at the burn.

“Good, huh?” he growled and squeezed my arm.

“Reeeal smooth,” I said, hardly able to draw a breath.

The Sergeant leaned into the room and fixed each customer with his gaze. “You boys in the 1st Infantry, you know we stopped ’em at Elsenborn Ridge. That’s why them Nazzzi’s decided to go south through Bastogne.” All the soldiers nodded solemnly. “I was in town, in the rubble of the courtyard, cleanin’ up whatever we mighta missed. A shell exploded, splintering the stone wall behind me. A pillar fell, raining slabs of concrete that blocked the courtyard rear exit. At the entrance, stones and gravel slid from a buried Tiger tank. Its big ‘88’ cranked and ratcheted toward me while machinegun bullets rattled and ricocheted, keeping me pinned.” The Sergeant scanned the room and dropped his voice low. “I said my prayer, and I said goodbye to Maria as I watched through a crack in the stone.”

The Sergeant suddenly pointed to the ceiling at the back of the room and shouted, “There he was, high in the sky behind the Tiger, Lieutenant Kenny in his P-47.” The Sergeant’s hands and arms brought his words to life. “He winged over and swooped down like an eagle from heaven. I hardly breathed as I watched that sweet five-hundred-pounder drop away—watched it plunge into the Tiger’s engine compartment. Kaboom! I ducked. The turret bounced past me.” He turned to the bar and shook me with both hands.

Cheers went up. Other soldiers slapped my back. All evening, they bought Charlie and me drinks. We stumbled to the metro just before dawn.

Back at the chateau, Charlie thanked me for a great evening. He said this was his last night and wished me luck. By the time I got up for breakfast, he’d already left. I never heard what became of him.

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The Bonham Air Cadet Marching Band

As told to Keith Kenny by his father, Edward Kenny

Primary Flying School, Bonham, Texas, July 1943

I stood at attention two paces in front of the Commandant’s desk, the sergeant’s bark still ringing in my ears. “The Commandant! … His office! … On-the-double!” A trickle from my interrupted morning shower and shave ran down the back of my neck. I was nineteen, younger than most of the air cadets, and trembling in my newly pressed uniform.

Still catching my breath from the sprint up from the barracks, I ran through my mental checklist. Had he found a tin can or cigarette butt in the yard? Had I combed my hair after the shower? Aligned my belt and tie? I couldn’t remember. With my eyes forward and level and hands at my side, I couldn’t check.

The Commandant of Cadets stood hunched, the knuckles of his balled fists pressed onto his metal desk. His tan uniform was as angular and crisp as the creased folds of a paper airplane. His neckless square head was fixed to his shoulders, and his jaw muscles worked relentlessly. What was the infraction?

Suddenly, he jerked his head up and bored his burning blue eyes into mine. “Mister, I want a band out there … this Saturday … for the review. Any questions?”

“No sir,” I saluted, toed an about face and shot through the door. “A band?” I mouthed. “In five days?” I shook my head.

Army Air Force 302^nd Training Squadron and the Fairchild PT-19, Bonham Training Base, Texas

As the appointed cadet group commander, I had six squadrons to keep in line, each with its own squadron commander. “Men,” I said to the gathered commanders, trying to capture the Commandant’s bearing, “this Saturday I want a band out there … on the parade ground … for the review. Any questions?” I thought it sounded weak.

Six lean hard expressions dropped in unison. Heads shook. Everyone grumbled. “What! Impossible! Not another … !” What with flying schedules, classwork, PT, daily inspections, course study, and letter writing, we had no extra time.

Still, the grumbling passed in minutes, and we began working on a plan. Where would we find instruments? Who could play? Where would we practice? Could one of the schools or the local men’s club help? How much would it all cost? We fanned out to collect answers.

Next evening, as the bugler played taps back at the post, the band had its first practice in the gymnasium of St. Theresa’s Catholic School for Girls. Sister Barbara Graham opened the doors and patiently helped orchestrate our first rehearsal. The next few days, between flight training and classes, we worked to synchronize our music with field maneuvers. In the evening we played, and Bonham’s Air Cadet Marching Band slowly came together.

Mid-morning, that Saturday, the entire air cadet class assembled on the parade ground in full dress. Six squadrons of pressed uniforms, sparkling brass buttons, and mirror-polished shoes marched onto the field under a cloudless, blue, Texas sky, and wheeled to face the reviewing stand. Officials and senior officers occupied the stand’s central seats, tactical officers and instructors beside them. Civilian guests sat in bleachers on either side of the stand. In the steady breeze, the American flag snapped high above them and its cord and pulley slapped on the pole.

After all the dignitaries arrived, the Commandant took the high platform at the center of the stand. He stood tall, his five feet six inches drawn taut like a bow string from his door-wide shoulders to his diminished waist then down the lines of his diamond-cut uniform. At parade rest, he watched unmoving as the last of the cadet squadrons formed. Then he addressed the seated assembly and turned to the cadets on the field.

Six rectangular formations were lined up abreast, each with a squadron commander out front. In the center, ahead of the formations, I stood with my three-man staff facing the reviewing stand.

No band was in sight.

The Commandant nodded for me to begin. I faced about and barked, “Ree-PORTS!”

In sequence, each squadron commander down the line saluted and shouted, “All present and accounted for, SIR!” The adjutant read the orders of the day. Then I stepped forward.

“Sir!” Holding my salute, I directed my comments to the Commandant. “Sir, the parade is formed.”

The Commandant snapped to attention, saluted, and directed, “Pass in review!” A hush swept over the crowd. Official regulations required that a band lead the formations. There were rumors, but no one had heard any details about the band.

Pivoting left I commanded, “Sound Off!” Then waited. Silence ticked by. Then came a loud drumbeat, “Boom-boom.” It echoed off the barracks walls behind the reviewing stand. Another, “Boom-boom,” sounded from a big bass drum, this time followed by the “rattling-tat-tat” of a snare drum.

The drum major emerged first, high kicking, back leaning, waving and thrusting his oversized high-school baton. In his tall, fur busby, Cadet Jameson Jones was genuine world class. He had led his school band in the Orange Bowl parade and competed nationally as a top collegiate drum major. Jones high strutted, jamming his baton skyward on each downbeat, as proud and aloof as if leading 101 pieces in the Florida State band.

Behind Jones’ panache the talent diminished. For brass, we had a tuba, trumpet, and French horn; one clarinet made up the reeds section; then two drums—one snare and one bass. Seven stouthearted cadets marched and played, snapping their heads and instruments, left then right, in flawless unison, each simulating the motion of an entire section with bursting exuberance. The music was ragged but high spirited, and usually on key.

Keeping precise step, they marched with erect distinction across the field. As the band passed, each cadet squadron wheeled in formation and filed in behind. They paraded one hundred and fifty feet to the end of the field then executed two ninety-degree turns to align with the review stand. Marching back, they passed directly in front of the Commandant and the officials in the stand.

Sniggers, quiet and respectful at first, rippled through the crowd. The sniggers gave way to smirks, then loud laughter, then full guffaws. Laughter rocked the stands spreading down to the cadets marching in formation. On the high platform, the Commandant himself smirked and gripped the rail with both hands, shaking with laughter.

Only the drum major stood firm, discipline unbroken. To the crowd’s heightened amusement, Jones’ expression remained unrelenting stone. Passing the Commandant of Cadets, he jerked his head sharply about and crossed his chest with his baton in a formal salute. Stride steady, he marched past the reviewing stand punching his baton upward in constant time for the cadets to follow.

On reaching the far end of the bleachers, the drum major’s baton crossed his chest once again to salute a dark-clad figure standing alone. The six band members, as they passed, followed his salute with a head twist and a bow of their instruments. Sister Barbara pulled stiffly erect to receive the salute. I think only I saw her wipe two fingers beneath her eye.

The cadet squadrons followed in regular fashion, each saluting while passing the stand then marching off the field to return to barracks. As cadet group commander, I held fast at attention until the end, when the Commandant would pass his judgment. He double-timed down from the stand, stopped in front of me, and turned to face me. Following a good review, he normally declared the post open for the weekend. Everyone looked forward to getting a few hours away from the base.

I saluted. The Commandant returned my salute over a non-regulation face-splitting grin. “Mister … that was an excellent parade. Excellent!” He stifled a laugh then blurted, “From now on, I want the band at every review and parade. You will have open post until twenty hundred hours Sunday, any question?” Anticipating my, “No, sir!” he saluted, turned, and walked off.

In later years, I learned that the band continued until war’s end. It never exceeded six musicians and remained a perpetual curiosity to the military and to the locals. But not, I suspect, to Sister Barbara or to the seven stouthearted men of Bonham’s first Air Cadet Marching Band.