Cresson Kearny

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Cresson Henry Kearny (pronounced "Carney") was born on January 7, 1914 in San Antonio, Texas and died on December 18, 2003, in in Montrose, Colorado.[1] His wife was May Willacy Eskridge Kearny. He wrote several survival related books based primarily on research performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Kearney attended Texas Military Institute in the 1930s, where he became the commanding officer of the cadet corps, a champion runner and rifle shot, and valedictorian of his class.[2]

Kearny earned degree in civil engineering at Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 1937. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to earn two degrees in geology at Oxford. During the Munich crisis he acted as a courier for an underground group helping anti-Nazis escape from Czechoslovakia.[3]

Following graduation from Oxford, Kearny joined a Royal Geographic Society expedition in the Peruvian Andes. He then worked as an exploration geologist for Standard Oil in the Orinoco jungles of Venezuela.[4]

In 1940 Kearny went on active duty as an infantry reserve lieutenant. Kearny was soon assigned to Panama as the Jungle Experiment Officer of the Panama Mobile Force. In that capacity he was able to improve or invent, and then field test, much of the specialized jungle equipment and rations used by U.S. infantrymen in World War II. Adoption of the machete as standard jungle equipment by the US Army is credited to Kearny.[5] He was promoted to major and awarded the Legion of Merit.[6]

In 1943, he married May Willacy Eskridge of San Antonio.[7]

Kearny volunteered for duty with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where he served as a demolition specialist in southern China.[8]

In 1961 he took a position doing civil defense research with the Hudson Institute. In 1964 he joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory civil defense project.

In a New York Times obituary, his daughter Stephanie commented: "Throughout his life he believed in being prepared for trouble."[9]

Kearny's most notable works is Nuclear War Survival Skills (NWSS). It describes civil defense research to determine the methods for ordinary citizens to build effective expedient shelters in a short period of time. It includes "MacGyver-like" plans for air pumps (KAP), radiation meter (KFM) and blast doors designed to be published in a newspaper prior to an attack. This book is in the public domain and is available for purchase, as well as free download online, from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

His other works include Jungle Snafus ... and Remedies and Will Civil Defense Work?

Contents

[edit] Bibliography

  • Jungle Snafus ... and Remedies ISBN 0-942487-01-X
  • Nuclear War Survival Skills ISBN 1-884067-10-7
  • The KFM, A Homemade Yet Accurate and Dependable Fallout Meter (Co-author) ORNL-5040, January 1978

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cresson Kearny, Expert on Nuclear Survival, Dies at 89 - New York Times
  2. ^ Page Title
  3. ^ About the Author - Nuclear War Survival Skills
  4. ^ Cresson Kearny - Homeland Civil Defense
  5. ^ Page Title
  6. ^ About the Author - Nuclear War Survival Skills
  7. ^ Cresson Kearny, Expert on Nuclear Survival, Dies at 89 - New York Times
  8. ^ About the Author - Nuclear War Survival Skills
  9. ^ Cresson Kearny, Expert on Nuclear Survival, Dies at 89 - New York Times


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