Why This Ranger Base Is Named For Gabriel Kinney

By John Mullen | Orange Beach News

When Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Kinney was working at U.S. Steel in Birmingham. The terror of that day seemed distant and unconcerning. Roughly one year later, Kinney, like thousands of young Americans, decided he wanted to be a pilot. The line was long, the slots, limited. He was sent to the infantry instead.

After basic training Kinney was prepared for overseas service and eventually boarded a Norwegian freighter filled with American soldiers headed to New Caledonia, 700 miles east of Australia. The unaccompanied and undefended ship made the cross-Pacific trip by zig zagging back and forth to avoid enemy attacks.

After a stop in New Caledonia, Kinney and F company, 35th regiment of the 25th Infantry were sent to Guadalcanal. It was August,1943. The bulk of the hard fighting was over, Kinney says, but his unit was sent to “mop up,” handling raids by small groups of enemy soldiers here and there. 

The next month the unit, now combat experienced, was asked to volunteer for a hazardous mission, a request that came directly from President Roosevelt. Their mission: to capture Myitkyina Airfield, the only all-weather airfield in Northern Burma.

Kinney says he doesn’t have a good reason, if any, for volunteering. “At the time it seemed like a good thing to do,” he says.

The secret mission operated under the code name GALAHAD but quickly became known as Merrill’s Marauders, named after the group’s leader, Brigadier General Frank Merrill.

Over 3,000 men were sent to covert training operations in Central India before the group began the grueling march up Ledo Road, a dense, jungle laden trek through the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains and into Burma. They were accompanied by no tanks or other heavy equipment. Weapons, food and supplies were carried on their backs or on donkeys.

The men walked for four months, 1,000 miles and fought in five major battles and 30 minor engagements against the elite Japanese 18th Division. It became the longest uninterrupted instance of jungle combat in U.S. history, matched only by the First Marine Division in Guadalcanal. As they moved along the route, they disrupted enemy supply and communication lines. But they also succumbed to disease, starvation, injury and death.

Kinney says he lost count of how many times he was beaten, scratched, and shot. “Everyone was wounded more than once,” he says.

By the time the Marauder’s reached the airfield, there were 200 men left to take their prize, including Kinney.

The Marauder’s were heroes. The unit was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, six Distinguished Service Crosses, four Legions of Merit, 44 Silver Stars, and a Bronze Star for every member. Thirty have been inducted into the prestigious Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

But in the press back home, Kinney says the unit was given the unfair characterization of being “renegades and misfits,” a description Kinney calls incorrect and hurtful.

“I was 23 and I was oldest in my platoon,” he says. “The rest were 23 – 16. We were kids not misfits.”

In 2016, 72 years after that victory, a handful of Merrill’s Marauders veterans marched again, up and down the corridors of Capitol Hill in an effort to sway members of Congress to award the unit the Congressional Gold Medal.

On Saturday, February 5th of 2022, Kinney celebrated his 101st birthday surrounded not only by fellow Rangers but his wife, kids and numerous grand and great-grand kids at the Flora-Bama Ranger Base meeting.

The United States Army's Infantry School officially established the Ranger Department in December 1951. but the first use of Rangers goes back to pre-1800's..

Who Qualifies?

The Ranger Family

The U.S. Army Ranger Association has been asked to weigh in on the question of who qualifies to use the title U.S. Army Ranger. Those who study Ranger history will know that this until-now good natured barracks debate has flared in one form or another for at least seventy years.  The short answer to this question is that anyone who graduated from the U.S. Army's Ranger School or who served in a Ranger-designated unit qualifies.