Brig. Gen. William B. Kunzig, a career Army officer who was a key planner for the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II and whose last posting was at the Presidio, died Thursday at his San Francisco home. He was 98.

Gen. Kunzig died of the effects of prostate cancer, said his son, Bing Kunzig, and will be buried in the cemetery of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Last year, the general was the only member of his class of 1932 to come back to the military school for the 75th class reunion.

Gen. Kunzig was born in the Philippines, the son of Army Brig. Gen. Louis A. Kunzig, and was raised on Army posts all over the world.

Gen. Kunzig entered West Point in 1929, took up fencing there and became a national champion. His son said Gen. Kunzig fenced internationally for 25 years and was a fencing judge at the Olympic Games in 1964, 1968 and 1972.

Gen. Kunzig was schooled as an infantry officer and was ordered to England during World War II. He was instrumental in the training of Army Rangers then and wrote their training manual, his son said. It was a unit of Rangers, elite infantry troops, that climbed the cliffs at Normandy's Pointe du Hoc under withering enemy gunfire on D-Day in 1944.

Gen. Kunzig wrote in a personal journal in 1993 that he "was in charge of running all the battalion and regimental landing exercises for all of the units that made the assault landings in Normandy and some that did not."

Gen. Kunzig landed on the Normandy beaches on June 11, 1944, five days after D-Day, and was assigned to the operations and planning staff of Gen. Omar Bradley's 1st Army as the Allies pushed east across Europe, chasing the armies of the Third Reich.

After the war, Gen. Kunzig had assignments at Army posts in Japan, South Korea and Germany. In 1959, he was promoted to brigadier general and was assistant division commander of the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan.

His final assignment was as chief of staff for the 6th Army when it was still at San Francisco's Presidio. The 6th Army was deactivated in 1994.

Gen. Kunzig retired from the Army in 1962, settling in San Francisco and going into the business of leasing and managing residential hotels that housed long-term tenants. He worked until he was 96, when "we finally convinced him to stop," Bing Kunzig said.

Gen. Kunzig is survived by his wife, Vivian Kunzig, and his son, William Bing Kunzig of Laguna Niguel (Orange County).

Funeral services at West Point are pending.

San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - Saturday, May 3, 2008

William Bing Kunzig, Sr, photo from collection of Jonathan Wolfson

William Bing Kunzig, Sr, Photo Courtesy of William Bing Kunzig, Jr

William Bing Kunzig (1910)