George Dilboy
George was born in the Ottoman Empire on the 5th of February, 1896. He joined his father, who emigrated to the US in 1908, later in 1910, at the age of fourteen. For two years George lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, before traveling to Greece in 1912 to volunteer to fight in the Greek Army during the first Balkan War. He stayed there and also fought in the second Balkan War but then returned to Somerville and went to school. Not one to apparently sit still, George once again left to volunteer to fight in the US Army during the Mexican Border War from 1916 to 1917. He once again answered the call of duty when the US entered World War 1 and he was a member of the 26th Division when he arrived in France and it was his actions several months after arriving, that George would display actions that would earn him the Medal of Honor. The citation reads:
After his platoon had gained its objective along a railroad embankment, Pfc. Dilboy, accompanying his platoon leader to reconnoiter the ground beyond, was suddenly fired upon by an enemy machine gun from 100 yards. From a standing position on the railroad track, fully exposed to view, he opened fire at once, but failing to silence the gun, rushed forward with his bayonet fixed, through a wheat field toward the gun emplacement, falling within 25 yards of the gun with his right leg nearly severed above the knee and with several bullet holes in his body. With undaunted courage he continued to fire into the emplacement from a prone position, killing 2 of the enemy and dispersing the rest of the crew.
Five months after his death, the Commanding General of the Northeastern Department presented the Medal of Honor to George's father. He was originally buried at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France but it was requested that he be buried at his birth town. Reportedly, 17,000 mourners were present when his flag draped coffin moved through the streets to the church to lay before the high alter. However, Turkish troops seized the town and not only ransacked the church and stole the American flag from the coffin, but desecrated his grave and his coffin overturned. President Harding dispatched the USS Litchfield to Turkey in September of 1922 in order to recover the remains of George and demanded a formal apology from the Turkish government, which he did receive. His casket was once again draped in the American flag and delivered by a Turkish guard of honor to the American landing party, and brought back to the States. On the 12th of November, 1923, George was given a full military honors burial and went on to be honored by three US Presidents. President Wilson had signed the Medal of Honor authorization, President Harding aided with bringing him back to the States, and President Coolidge was present at the final burial.
Today, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 529 in Somerville and Dilboy Field and Stadium are named in his honor. There is also a monument in front of Somerville's City Hall and one in front of the Hines Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Illinois, both dedicated in his honor. George Dilboy is buried in Arlington National Cemetery: Section 18, Site 4574. He was twenty-two years old when died.
