Kenneth Dougal Mc DOUGALL

Parents : William & Anne Amelia Mc DOUGALL

Siblings : Lesley, Duncan, Angus & Janet

 CEMTERY TEMPORARY of  Draguignan N°3519

Story of Cemetery Temporary 

Map of Rhône American Cemetery

FIRST SPECIAL SERVICE FORCE 3-1

Kenneth immigrated to the USA in 1920 with his family when his father took a post at Harvard University. After taking a year off to travel the family later settled in Durham, North Carolina, where his father had a professorial post at Duke University. Kenneth, like his father, was an intellectual plus he had a great love of nature and the outdoors. After high school he continued his studies in Scotland to be a veterinarian, but being the 1930s there wasn’t a lot of work available so he joined a Naturalist to study bird life along the coast of Scotland. While in Scotland he received news from home saying that his father was dying of cancer. He returned home and met his future finance, Pearl Yarbrough, who was a nurse looking after his father at the time.

After his father passed away in 1938 he decided to stay and help his mom, and at the same time applied to get a PhD in zoology. When Britain entered the war he felt a moral obligation to go over and fight, but because he was an overseas national, he was not able to join the British forces. He continued with his studies and seeing Pearl, but when the U.S. entered the war he still felt that moral obligation to fight so he became a U.S. citizen and enlisted in the Army.

He first did his training in Colorado in the Aspen Detachment, 87th Regiment, to train in mountain fighting, but before heading off to war Ken had proposed, by letter, to Pearl.

He was first deployed to North Africa in 1943 and was in replacement depots. After North Africa he left the replacement depots to teach mountain warfare training in Feb 1944 in southern Italy with his good friend, Bill Merritt. Then in March he was assigned to the First Special Service Forces (a highly skilled combat unit) at Anzio beach to carry out night patrols.

On Aug 15 1944 the First Special Service Forces had orders to seize and secure the Iles d’Hyeres, 25 miles east of Toulon, to capture German artillery batteries. Ken arrived on the island of Port-Cros at about 1:30am.

The FSSF then moved eastward along the coast towards the Italian boarder. On September 14th Ken was given orders to take his platoon to flush out hiding Germans from a ridge up in the mountains behind Menton, France. Ken and his men where zigzagging their way up a trail at 4:00am when Ken gave the order to halt. Ken moved ahead to scout out the situation, but as his order to halt was traveling down the line one of Ken’s men at the back stood up yelling “German” and shot Ken who died instantly. In that moment not only was Ken’s life lost but all of his hopes and dreams for the future.

In July 2013, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded, collectively, to the First Special Service Force (FSSF) in recognition of its superior service during World War II. On February 3, 2015 surviving FSSF Veterans were in Washington DC to accept this momentous recognition on behalf of their fellow Forcemen who could not be there.