Click to enlarge. See back of photograph. Birthplace: Newhall, CA Date of Birth: 6-25-1890 Service: Army of the United States Rank: Corporal ID No: 2285457 Specialty: Machine gun company Length of Service: Unit: Co. D Machine Gun Bat. 347, 91st Infantry Division Start Tour: Incident Date: ~Late September 1918 Location: Epinonville, France Casualty Date: 04/27/1919 Casualty Reason: Gunshot wound Casualty Detail: Died in surgery Location: Camp Kearny, San Diego County Age at Loss: 28 Remains: Grand View Memorial Park and Crematory, Glendale, CA (Section M, Lot 162, Grave 13)

CPL Edward Guy North was born in Newhall on April 25, 1890, to Edward North (Sr.), a native of Minnesota, and Mary E. (Young) North, originally from England. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1911 and attended the University of Nevada. Unmarried and working in a silver mine in the hills above Tonopah, Nevada, he enlisted in the Army at Tonopah on June 5, 1917, and was assigned to the 91st Infantry Division at Camp Lewis, Washington State. The 91st was nicknamed the Wild West Division because it was comprised of soldiers from California and other Western states.

Soldiers with the 91st in a captured dugout in Very, France, during the Argonne offensive. Shortly after this photo was taken, two of these men were killed. Los Angeles Times photo. Click to enlarge.

The date of his injury is not recorded, but we know he was manning a machine gun turret at Epinonville, France, when he had his leg shattered by a bullet during the battle of Montfaucon. Thus, we know it was between September 26, 1918, when General Pershing ordered the attack on the German fort at Montfaucon, and October 4, 1918, when the poorly trained and inexperienced 91st Division was relieved by the battle-hardened 32nd Division. The 91st had never before seen front-line action.

The fact that CPL North was wounded at Epinonville suggests he was shot between September 26, when the 91st Division was ordered to take the towns of Epinonville and Eclisfontaine, and September 28, when the 91st finally held Epinonville after being repelled the first two days.

The battle of Montfaucon was part of the 47-day Argonne offensive, which drove the Germans out of France and ended with the armistice on November 11. The Argonne offensive was the costliest fighting, in terms of lives lost, in U.S. military history (including the Civil War). It left 26,277 Americans dead, and wounded another 95,786 out of the 1.2 million who saw action.

CPL North was shipped stateside to recover from his gunshot wound. It took several months for him to arrive at his parents' home in Boyle Heights. In April 1919 he went in for surgery at the Army hospital at Camp Kearny in San Diego and never came out. His official cause of death was his battle wound.

Further reading: "Meuse-Argonne, 26 September - 11 November 1918" by Richard S. Faulkner, U.S. Army, 2018.

Click to enlarge. For Argonne Hero. Los Angeles Soldier is Victim of Surgical Shock; Funeral Today. Los Angeles Times | April 9, 1919. Funeral services for Corp. Edward G. North, Company D., Machine Gun Battalion 347, Ninety-first Division, who died at Camp Kearny, Monday, from surgical shock, will be conducted today in private. Corp. North, who was the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward North, 414 South Cummings street, and grandson of former Judge North of San Bernardino, had his leg broken by an explosive bullet during the Argonne drive, and infection followed. He returned here only last week on a casual train from the East, and was operated on at Camp Kearny, with his mother present. The young man was born in Newhall in 1890 and was a graduate of Los Angeles High School and of the University of Nevada. He enlisted shortly after the declaration of war.