Ww1 Named Purple Heart 4th Division 47th Inf Wwi

Purple Heart Awarded to Fred Marinelli and is officially engraved to the reverse. of the Heart and is numbered to the edge 60793 and was produced by BB&B in excellent condition. Fred Marinelli was a resident of Chicago Illinois who served with Company M, 47th Infantry, 4th Division. Excellent. World War I: On 19 November 1917, about seven months after American entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, the War Department directed the organization of the 4th Division at Camp Greene, North Carolina, around a cadre of Regular Army troops that had been stationed at Camp Greene, the Presidio of Monterey, California, Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and other posts. It was at Camp Greene where the division originally adopted its distinctive insignia of four ivy leaves. The ivy leaf came from the Roman numerals for four (IV) and signified their motto "Steadfast and Loyal." On 10 December 1917, Major General George H. Cameron assumed command. At the end of December, with 13,000 men, systematic training began. During and subsequent to the latter part of February 1918, men who had been inducted from all sections of the United States are sent to the division, while from 1–21 March, drafts aggregating 10,000 men from Camps Custer, Michigan, Camp Grant, Illinois, Camp Lewis, Washington, Camp Pike, Arkansas, and Camp Travis, Texas, completed the division. The division sailed overseas from late April to early June 1918. Organization: Headquarters, 4th Division 7th Infantry Brigade 39th Infantry Regiment (formed with a cadre from the 30th Infantry) 47th Infantry Regiment (formed with a cadre from the 9th Infantry) 11th Machine Gun Battalion 8th Infantry Brigade 58th Infantry Regiment (formed with a cadre from the 4th Infantry) 59th Infantry Regiment (formed with a cadre from the 4th Infantry) 12th Machine Gun Battalion 4th Field Artillery Brigade 13th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm) (formed with a cadre from the 5th Field Artillery) 16th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) (formed with a cadre from the 8th Field Artillery) 77th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) (formed from the 19th Cavalry) 4th Trench Mortar Battery 4th Engineer Regiment 10th Machine Gun Battalion 8th Field Signal Battalion Headquarters Troop, 4th Division 4th Train Headquarters and Military Police 4th Ammunition Train 4th Supply Train 4th Engineer Train 4th Sanitary Train 19th, 21st, 28th, and 33rd Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals St. Mihiel Offensive: For the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, the division moved into an area south of Verdun as part of the First United States Army. General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) on the Western Front, had gotten the French and British to agree that the AEF would fight under its own organizational elements. One of the first missions assigned to the AEF was the reduction of the Saint-Mihiel salient. The 4th Division, assigned to V Corps, was on the western face of the salient. The plan was for V Corps to push generally southeast and to meet IV Corps who was pushing northwest, thereby trapping the Germans in the St. Mihiel area. The 59th Infantry Regiment moved into an area previously occupied by the French, deploying along a nine kilometer front. On 12 September, the first patrols were sent forward by the 59th. The 4th Division attack began on 14 September with the 8th Brigade capturing the town of Manheulles. All along the front, the American forces pressed forward and closed the St. Mihiel salient. Occupation duty: Under the terms of the Armistice, Germany was to evacuate all territory west of the Rhine. American troops were to relocate to the center section of this previously German-occupied area all the way to the Koblenz bridgehead on the Rhine. The 4th marched into Germany, covering 330 miles in 15 days where it was widely dispersed over an area with Bad Bertrich as division headquarters. The division established training for the men as well as sports and educational activities. In April 1919 the division moved to a new occupation area further north on the Rhine. The division went north to Ahrweiler, Germany, in the Rheinland-Pfalz area. In July the division returned to France and the last detachment sailed for the United States on 31 July 1919.