During the heavy fighting at Soissons in World War I, the regimental commander, Colonel Hamilton A. Smith, was mortally wounded.[3] Kenner voluntarily went to the front lines under heavy machine-gun fire in the hope of helping him.[4] Finding Colonel Smith was deceased, he recovered his Smith's body and returned to his own lines. For this action, Kenner was decorated for gallantry with the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).
At the December 1941 beginning of WWII for the USA, Kenner was Chief Surgeon of the Armored Force, based at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He went overseas in September 1942 to become Deputy Chief Surgeon, Allied Force Headquarters for the Operation Torch invasion of North Africa, and remained in that Theater. In early 1944 he came to England, to became the Chief Surgeon at SHAEF, and in May 1945 the Chief Surgeon, European Theater of Operations, relieving MG Paul Ramsey Hawley, who came home to direct the Medical Section of the Veterans Administration.
Major general Kenner retired on June 30, 1949, and stayed in Washington, D.C., area with his wife, Raymonde Minard Kenner (1896–1959) until his death on November 12, 1959, at the age of 69 years. On April 16, 1962, the army hospital at Fort Lee, Virginia (now Kenner Army Health Clinic) was named in his honor.[5]
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 15 (1919)
Action Date: 22-July-1918
Name: Albert Walton Kenner
Service: Army
Rank: Major
Regiment: 26th Infantry Regiment (Attached)
Division: 1st Division, American Expeditionary Forces
Citation: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Major (Medical Corps) Albert W. Kenner, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 26th Infantry Regiment (Attached), 1st Division, A.E.F., near Soissons, France, 22 July 1918. Learning that his regimental commander had been mortally wounded, Major Kenner voluntarily went through machine-gun fire beyond the front lines in the hope of helping him. Finding his colonel dead, he recovered the body, in spite of the danger to which such action subjected him.[4]