LTCOL CHARLES W. KAIL, USMC
Lucky Bag Yearbook
From the 1923 Lucky Bag:
Charles William Kail
OF course you have heard people tell about the Cosmopolitan character of Navy Folk, but little did we realize Plebe summer that we had one of the most polished of these in our very midst. Being a Navy Junior accounts for it.
Plebe year he was in great demand because of his side splitting antics, chief among them being his demonstration of all the new dance steps, with the aid of a chair, for the approval of the Upper Classes. He has persistently refused, however, to be snared by the wiles of any charming “femme” but on occasion he does “give the girls a treat.”
“Art old Tart” will tell you that he is some boy when it comes to out-maneuvering the “All-Academics.” He points with pride to the notches on his “slipstick” indicating the number of times he has staged an old Navy comeback by checking up a “cuatro” on one of these September Exams.
“Say Waiter, just one bottle—do I look like a camel?”
“What? You don’t grasp it—drop around to the room.”
Loss
Charles was lost when the Japanese “Hell Ship” he was aboard, Arisan Maru, was sunk by an American submarine on October 24, 1944.
Prior to his capture, he was with the HQ Company of the 4th Marines.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Born in Washington, D. C., Charles lived with his mother Margaret in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1910.
On October 19, 1926 he married Flora K. Kutscher in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In December 1929 he and his wife sailed from Corinto, Nicaragua, to New York City.
In 1930 he was at Annapolis, and their daughter Norma Louise was born in Maryland in 1931.
In January 1933 he sailed back to Norfolk. In 1935 the family lived in Annapolis, and in January 1938 his wife and daughter sailed from New York City to Los Angeles. In 1940 the family lived in San Diego.
Flora died in San Diego in February 1951. Their daughter was now Mrs. Norma Louise Shroble.
Charles father was Navy Commander Arthur Clifton Kail of Seattle, Washington; his mother was Margaret. His brother Johnston Seymour became a naval aviator and was in Brazil and Uruguay in 1944 and 1945. His father died in October 1953.
His wife was listed as next of kin. He is listed at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Prisoner of War Medal
From Hall of Valor:
Major Charles W. Kail (MCSN: 0-3850), United States Marine Corps, was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Corregidor, Philippine Islands, on 6 May 1942, and was held as a Prisoner of War until his death while still in captivity.
General Orders: NARA Database: Records of World War II Prisoners of War, created, 1942 - 1947
Service: Marine Corps
Rank: Major
Navy Directories & Officer Registers
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together, or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
July 1923
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Charles is one of 24 members of the Class of 1923 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
