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Slain Alum’s Artifacts Come Home To VMI
The VMI Museum recently received a donation of several items belonging to a former student who was killed during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Lt. Benjamin Kearfott, a member of the VMI class of 1943, was one of the commanding officers of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division. He was in the first landing craft to reach Omaha Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944, and was killed along with most of the men in the boat, including several of the Bedford Boys.
THIS PHOTO of Kearfott, and a letter he wrote to VMI in December of 1940 requesting a statement from the Institute confirming he had attended the previous year so he could receive his commission as a second lieutenant, are also part of the museum’s collection. (Joseph Haney photo)
“They were the tip of the spear,” said Col. Keith Gibson, director of the VMI Museum System. “It’s not just like these guys were there on June 6. He was in landing craft 1015. That was the very lead landing craft from the sea. There had already been guys dropped behind enemy lines, but in terms of guys who were coming in from the channel, LCA 1015 was the lead boat.
“No one really knows what happened, how these guys perished,” he continued. “It could have been a mortar or artillery shell, it could have been wellplaced machine gun raking fire from two sides, but everybody but one person was virtually killed instantly on that landing craft.”
Kearfott was born in Martinsville on Nov. 7, 1919. He grew up working in his family’s drugstore and entered VMI in 1939. He left the school in 1940 to join the National Guard and was assigned to Company H of the 116th Infantry. In 1942, he married Mary Thebo Jennings of Lynchburg. He was transferred to Company A shortly before the Normandy invasion.
He was one of three VMI cadets killed in action on D-Day. Lt. Freeling Colt, who had parachuted into France with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, was a member of the class of 1938, and Navy Coxswain Arnold Ewell, of the class of 1946, was in command of one of the landing craft during the invasion. All three were killed before 9 that morning.
Kearfott is buried in France, and it was after a visit to his grave in Normandy that VMI alum Col. Dick Rankin decided to track down his family, connecting with a nephew of Kearfott’s – also named Benjamin – who lives in New York. Rankin met with him and arranged for the donation of three of Lt. Kearfott’s possessions to the Institute: his burial flag, a patch for the 29th Infantry Division, and his Purple Heart. Appropriately, the items arrived at VMI on June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
“Museums best serve their collections and their history when they try to get the artifacts in the right place,” he said. “This is the right place for this flag. It has its strongest message, one could argue, here, where it can be a symbol to those who might be called on for similar service in the future.”
VMI has numerous medals from alumni on display in its Hall of Valor, each individual getting a container for their medals. Some, Gibson noted, are full of medals while others contain a lone Purple Heart.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh look at this case. It just has a Purple Heart,’” he said. “It ‘just’ has a Purple Heart. This Purple Heart has a value of one human life. His war, from the time he left that ship to the time he died, was, maybe, like three hours. That’s his entire war. That’s the only medal he had the opportunity to earn, to receive. So, sometimes, just that Purple Heart is the entire story.”
The items will be part of the museum’s permanent collection and will be used “in a variety of different ways,” Gibson noted. They will be available for cadets doing history research, or used in some “thematic or commemorative displays.”
“We try to be mindful of the calendar, and if some special day is coming up and we have things that relate to that, we make that connection,” Gibson said. “This could become the thing that links us inextricably with June 6.”
