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Kenneth Carl Johnson

Duluth Denfield/Duluth Jr. College

HQ, 125th Field Artillery, MNG, Duluth; 90th Infantry Division, France

Kenneth Johnson, 1945

Narrative

PFC Ken Johnson began his military service when he and some high school buddies joined Duluth's HQ Co., 125th Field Artillery, Minnesota National Guard, for three years in the early 1930s. He earned a dollar for each Monday night drill, which he remembered was really good money for a kid in those years. His unit was the first to use Camp Ripley when it opened for summer field training in 1931.

He left the Guard after three years but was drafted into the Army in 1942. Following basic and advanced infantry training at Camp Blanding, Florida, he was assigned to the 90th Infantry Division. He landed with the 90th on Utah Beach, Normandy, on D-Day + 2 and fought his way inland through the embattled French countryside during the summer of 1944. Intense combat eventually landed him in a hospital in England. Upon recovery, he returned to France with reassignment to a quartermaster company. He was stationed in Reims when Germany surrendered in May 1945.

Following his discharge he returned to Duluth, a city he loved and the only place he ever wanted to live. His goal was to put the war behind him, raise his family, and get on with his life—which he did—but he had experienced terrible things and the war never really left him. Like so many fellow vets of that era, he was reluctant to talk much about it. After the war he became a firefighter for the City of Duluth and, following mandatory retirement at age 55, went right back to work as a firefighter for 10 more years at the Duluth Airbase. He was also an accomplished dance band drummer. He died in 1991 at the age of 77.