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Ira N Mitchell    Infantry
Private - Communications Runner 
WORLD WAR I 
DOB:  Nov 8, 1893
Dates of Service  July 1918 - May 1919
Combat Tour:     Spring of 1919 Metz, France
IRA MITCHELL on the left
UNITS
Co K,327th Inf Reg,
82nd Infantry Division

The 327th Infantry Regiment of the 164th Infantry Brigade was organized in the Regular Army as part of the 82nd Infantry Division on 17 September 1917 at Fort Gordon, Georgia. After training rapidly, the Division embarked to northern France, arriving in early spring, 1918. The 327th Infantry moved on line at the end of summer making it one of the first American units to see combat at St. Mihiel. This was the first operation in World War I conducted entirely by American forces. The Regiment then occupied defensive positions on the Lorraine Front in eastern France.

The final allied offensive, in November, found the 327th Infantry engaging in the great Meuse – Argonne offensive before any other unit in the Division. The 327th Infantry Regiment took a prominent part in the operation leading the flank attack on the Foret de Argonne and the attack north of Sommerance.

The 327th was the first unit of the American Expeditionary Force to reach and pierce the formidable Kriemhilde Stellung (the Ger-man’s third and final defensive line on the Western Front). With the termination of the “war to end all wars” the Regiment was demobilized on 25 May 1919, and the reconstituted in the organized reserves in December 1921. It remained in this status until the outbreak of World War II

Ira was considered a runner, which is equivalent to a helicopter pilot in Vietnam or a B29 Tail Gunner in WWII..In other words their survival rate was normally very short.  Ira was the Grandfather of Vets Terry and Gerald Mitchell

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