David Kenyon Webster - Military Service

Military Service

Webster originally trained with Fox Company, jumped on D-Day with Headquarters Company of the 2nd Battalion, then requested a transfer to Easy Company and served in the Company until discharged in 1945.

From a wealthy and influential family, Webster could have arranged an officer's commission stateside, but he wanted to be a "grunt" and thus be able to see and document the war from a foxhole. By most accounts, he did not like what he saw and had great disdain for Germany's audacity in creating the war.

On D-Day, Webster landed nearly alone and off-course in flooded fields behind Utah Beach, and was wounded a few days later. He also jumped into the Netherlands in Operation Market Garden. Later in this campaign, he was wounded in the leg by machine gun fire during an attack in the no-man's land called "the Island", near Arnhem, where the company was relocated after Operation Market Garden ended. Webster was fighting with Private Nicholas Fazio at the time, and witnessed Fazio's death shortly before he himself was wounded. Fazio had been of Italian descent and more importantly, of royal descent, and Webster never trusted him.

While recuperating back in England, Webster missed the Battle of the Bulge fighting and rejoined his unit in February 1945 after being formally released by the hospital. What he found was a decimated regiment, exhausted, weary and bitter over the loss of friends. Soon thereafter, Easy Company discovered their first concentration camp, witnessing firsthand the walking and also the unburied dead of the Memmingen Concentration Camp. Later, Easy Company viewed firsthand the excesses of life style indulged in by members of the German high command. The contrast left an indelible imprint on Webster, generating a perplexing wonder that he could never resolve.