A wife and fourteen-month-old son awaited a husband and father who never returned.

Kenneth Anthony Hickey was born on June 16, 1920, in Hollister, California, to Edward and Mary Hickey. In 1931 he and his brother Terrance moved to Santa Cruz with their parents. His sister Patricia was later added to the Hickey family. In Santa Cruz Ken attended Mission Hill Junior High School where he met Lela Borden who became his childhood sweetheart. At Santa Cruz High School Hickey excelled scholastically, was a star athlete and a student body leader. Throughout high school his romance with Lela Borden continued.

Following his high school graduation in 1937, Ken and Lela both enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. During his three years at UCB, he worked part time as a warehouseman and stock clerk. In 1942 Ken and Lela were married.

In April 1942, Kenneth Hickey enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet program and was sent to Santa Ana, California, for cadet training. Additional training assignments followed and upon completion of flight school at Mather Field in Sacramento in August 1943, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. In 1943, their son Kenneth was born.

In November 1943, Hickey bid his wife and nine-month old son goodbye and navigated his B-17 to England as a member of the 338th Bomb Group of the US 8th Air Force. On March 8, 1944, Second Lieutenant Kenneth Anthony Hickey flew off on his eighteenth bombing mission over Germany. He did not return from that mission.

His remains were later recovered, returned to the US and buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California in 1950.

(NARA2; USDVA; SCHSC Pg. 11, SCSn March 29, 1944 1:2, SCR April 7, 1944-1)