David Kenyon Webster (2 June 1922 – disappeared 9 September 1961, presumed dead)[1] was an American soldier, journalist, and author.

[citation needed] On D-Day, Webster landed nearly alone and off-course in flooded fields behind Utah Beach, and was wounded a few days later.

During an attack in the no-man's land called "the Island" (also referred to as "The Crossroads"), he was wounded in the leg by machine gun fire.

[4]: 201 [5]: 220  What he found was a regiment decimated by combat in the Battle of the Bulge, exhausted, weary, and bitter over his absence and the loss of friends.

Author Stephen Ambrose wrote of Webster: "He had long ago made it a rule of his Army life never to do anything voluntarily.

[5]: 301  During those years he worked on his wartime memoirs and occasionally approached magazines with article proposals related to his war service, but he never attempted to publish a full treatment of his experiences in the 101st Airborne Division.

[5]: 301 [7][8] On 9 September 1961, Webster embarked on a fishing trip in a twelve-foot (3.7 m) sailboat, leaving in the morning and planning to come back in the afternoon.

Except for a few short stories in magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Webster's wartime diary and thoughts remained unpublished at the time of his death.

Entitled Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, it presented Webster's first-hand account of life as an Airborne infantryman.