Frederic Richard Kilner

Born in 1892, Frederic Richard Kilner is known for Battery E in France: 149th Field Artillery, Rainbow (42nd) Division, first published in Chicago in 1919. The book was written as a record of Battery E’s wartime service and was intended especially for the men of the unit, preserving dates, places, and the texture of daily life in the American Expeditionary Forces.

Kilner’s writing is valued for its firsthand point of view. Rather than offering a broad, official history, he focused on the experiences of a single artillery battery—training, movement, combat, and the friendships that held the men together. That close perspective gives the book much of its lasting appeal.

Available sources confirm his authorship and birth year, and also show his connection to another historical work, Kenilworth, First Fifty Years. Beyond that, biographical details about his later life are not easy to verify, so the surviving books remain the clearest introduction to him.