America’s Foreign Legion: Immigrant Soldiers in the Great War

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This work provides an account detailing the important part played by made by immigrant soldiers in the First World War. Included is their valuable contribution to the eventual Allied victory. The story centers on my Great Uncle Matthew Guerra who immigrated to America from Monte Sant Angelo, Italy, at approximately age 12. He joined his sister Lucia (my grandmother) and her husband Antonio Palumbo in Worcester, MA, where he attended a school for recent immigrants. At about age 20 or 21, Matthew relocated to the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he found employment at the Remington Arms/Union Metallic Cartridge Company (U.M.C.) Remington was a major manufacturer of cartridge ammunition for the war. Guerra was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1918. He completed his basic training at Camp Devens in Ayer, MA, before shipping out overseas to France. There he joined the 58th Infantry Regiment of 4th Ivy Division. He participated in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives.

Wounded by shrapnel in the Bois de Fays (woods) on October 4, 1918, Matteo passed away in a field hospital on the 7th from complications due to uncontrolled infection. He was 22 years old. Unable to contact the family, he was laid to rest in the Meuse Argonne American Cemetery in France.