from a 1931 news paper Armistice day is a day of elevens World war hostilities ceased on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. To that series may be added one more eleven. The story of 11 American soldiers for whom the armistice came to late. On the afternoon of November 12 an afternoon that was crisp and dry as if in mockery of the gloomy wet days of the last fighting. Surviving members of the third battalion of the One hundred and third infantry gathered around an open grave on the slopes of the Cote de Caures in the Meuse-Argoone region. In it shoulder to shoulder as they had fought lay the bodies of 11 American Soldiers covered by an American flag. The previous day their comrades of the One Hundred and Third had found the bodies of the little group for whom the Armistice came to late. Its commander, Lieut. Herbert Peart was sitting beside a tree, a bullet through his head. In one hand was a pencil. In the other was a piece of paper on which was written Captain Cabot: 7:10 a.m. Am held up by machine gun fire on left. Have located four of them. Also on the right- There the message ended in a scrawl. About him lay the bodies of his 10 men. The roster of their names is typical of the cosmopolitan make-up of the A.E.F. They were the following: Corp. Leon LeBonville. Privates Charles Worth, Frank Klavikowski, J. McGiven, John Elliott, F. R. Snow, Albert O. Abraham, Charles W. Bargiall, William Whitney and Moses W Neptune. They had died fighting together only a few hours before the Armistice was signed and a few hours after that event they were buried together in the same grave.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 06:12:44 +0000
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