SERGEANT ALFRED W. KINSMAN, 31015229 KIA

Sergeant ALFRED W. Kinsman United States Army Killed in Action. He was born on May 7, 1919 the son of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred O. Kinsman, of 6 South Maple Ave., Haverhill Massachusetts and he had 1 brother. Alfred was the husband of Mrs. Elizabeth Kinsman, of 25 Lamoille Ave. Haverhill Massachusetts. Sergeant Kinsman graduated from Haverhill High School in 1936 and was a member of the Philomathian Club. He then attended Webb Institute, in New York City, and Boston University from which he graduated in 1940. Sergeant Kinsman enlisted in the Army on February 11, 1941, at the age of 21. At the time of his enlistment he was 5 foot 9 inches tall he weighed 125 pounds and had brown eyes and black hair. He was assigned to a coast artillery unit at Fort McKinley, Maine. He attended gunnery school at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and took a specialized course at M. I. T. Sergeant Kinsman shipped overseas in August, 1944, and served in The 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. The 258th saw action in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Their main mission was to identify the location of enemy artillery using the “sound and flash” technique (sound ranging and flash spotting. On December 17, 1944, members of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion were traveling from Aachen, Germany to the Ardennes in Belgium when 120 of them were captured by Joachim Peiper’s 1st SS Panzer Division at Baugnez. The members of the 285th Field Artillery were lined up in a nearby field and mowed down with machine gun fire in what became known as the Malmedy massacre. Sergeant Kinsman was 1 of the 84 POW’s to be murdered in the massacre. He was killed December 17, 1944, at Malemedy, Belgium, at the age of 25. He is buried in a United States cemetery (Henri Chappelle) , Belgium. He was awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, Purple Heart Medal, World War Two Victory Medal,  American Campaign Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, Good Conduct Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign.

1- Haverhill Massachusetts – Haverhill  in World War Two

2- https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=466&mtch=69&cat=GP23&tf=F&sc=11675,11660,11679,11667,11669,11676,11672,11673&bc=sl,fd&cl_11673=400&op_11673=null&nfo_11673=V,3,1900&rpp=50&pg=1&rid=1683&rlst=1280,1383,1387,1389,1440,1460,1558,1560,1627,1683