WV Supreme Court to mull final resting place for slain WWI Medal of Honor recipient
A legal battle over whether the remains of a World War I Medal of Honor recipient murdered in Mason County in 1935 by the son of a Confederate general should be reburied in a place of honor at the new Donel C. Kinnard Memorial Veterans Cemetery near Institute or left in peace in the remote, barely accessible plot where he has rested for the past 81 years moves to the state Supreme Court on Feb. 15.
The story begins in Bois de Cheppy, a forest in northeastern France, on Sept. 26, 1918, the opening day of the Allies’ decisive Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a 47-day, all-out struggle that concluded with the armistice that brought World War I to an end. Among the 1.2 million American troops taking part in the offensive was 20-year-old 1st Sgt. Chester Howard West, who served in an automatic rifle company of the 363rd Infantry Regiment, part of the U.S. Army’s 91st “Wild West” Division.
As West’s company approached German lines in a thick morning fog, it came under fire from a machine gun nest from which two German gunners were firing with great accuracy and effectiveness, halting the Americans’ forward movement. Anxious to get his pinned-down troops out of harm’s way and moving deeper into German-held territory, West, acting alone, “at once dashed through the fire and, attacking the nest, killed two of the gunners, one of whom was an officer,” according to West’s Medal of Honor citation.
“This prompt and decisive hand-to-hand encounter on his part enabled his company to advance farther without the loss of a man,” the citation reads.
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Chester Howard West as he appeared as a U.S. Army sergeant during World War I. West was awarded the Medal of Honor.