1LT Arnold B. Kruvant
First Lieutenant Arnold Burton Kruvant of Headquarters Company, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion (PFAB), 101st Airborne Division, was born in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, to Harry and Fannie (Bulkin) Kruvant on March 23, 1918. Arnold had one older sister and brother, named Ethel and Norman.
Arnold attended East Orange High School, founded in 1891, one of two operating secondary schools in the East Orange School District of New Jersey. Dionne Warwick is a notable alumnus of this school. In the 1936 yearbook, he mentioned his ambition to play All-American football and that he spent his leisure time sleeping. Arnold then attended Cornell University, New York, graduating in architectural engineering in 1940.
On June 15, 1941, Arnold married Sylvia Estella Weintrob in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Their marriage was blessed with a son, named Lawrence Alan, born at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach, Florida, on October 25, 1943. Lieutenant Kruvant was deployed overseas in England at the time.
During WWII, the Miami Herald carried a V-mail picture plan open to all mothers in Miami and its vicinity who had babies whose fathers hadn’t seen them because of foreign duty. Lieutenant Kruvant received a picture of his son, Lawrence, while in England through the V-Mail plan.
Probably before his marriage, Arnold had enlisted for the U.S. Army and was a Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, home of the original of the 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion. He was eventually transferred to the 377th PFAB. He became their S-3 (the branch handling plans, operations, and training), and jumped with the 377th in Normandy on D-Day, despite having never participated in any jump training.
Some people tend to glorify war, but many soldiers who have actually experienced the horrors of war look back differently on their combat time.
In his 1879 speech, General William T. Sherman, an American Civil War veteran, said of his war recollections:
War is at best barbarism…Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
Lieutenant Kruvant was a victim of that barbarism, as recalled by several of the 321st officers who knew about his final moments.
Horribly, Kruvant’s body was bayonetted to death by his enemy while hung up in his parachute harness, dangling from a tree just off the ground. As his widow was well-known and liked by the men of the 321st, it was decided she would not be told of her husband’s gruesome death.
Another Screaming Eagle had soared to the ultimate height. 🦅
According to Gary Dettore, author of the 321st WWII chronicle, it is a mystery why his body was never positively identified. For that reason, Lieutenant Arnold Kruvant is remembered at the Tablets of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-Sur-Mer, France.
Happy Birthday in Heaven, Sir. May you rest in peace.
Lest we forget! 🇺🇸