Private, Co B, 309th Infantry, 78th Division.
Killed in action near Grandpré, France , October 19, 1918. Age 24.
Town: Oakfield
Burial: Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Plot C Row 6 Grave 29, Romagne, France
Note: Because he was a recent immigrant from Italy who undoubtedly experienced language difficulties, and whose name apparently was often misspelled, there is uncertainty over this Genesee County soldier’s actual name. Each of the three published County Honor Roll Lists on which he appears spells his name differently: Ferdinando Desmone (List 1), Fiordinande Disimorne (List 2) and Ferdinand Denimons (List 4). Still other name variations are found on the 1915 NY State Census and on a 1913 immigration arrival record (see text below). His draft registration card is indexed online (Ancestry.com’s WWI Draft Registration Cards) under “Disimone”, yet another surname variation. The draft registration card itself, however, appears to use still another name variant, Fiordinando Disimorne. Further confusion is reflected in postwar correspondence in his Burial Case File that gives the surname Desimone as that of the soldier’s father and sister.
Despite the name variations, the cited sources share enough matching information (birth date and place, age, occupation, relatives, etc) to indicate that they likely all refer to the same individual. For practical purposes, the updated list and text here use the name Fiordinando Disimorne, the version that appears in most official sources: his draft registration card, the NY Roll of Honor, History of the Seventy-Eighth Division, the ABMC database, and the majority of government documents in his Burial Case File.
Fiordinando Disimorne was born on May 31, 1894, in Aquila, in south central Italy’s Abruzzo region. He immigrated to the United States in 1913, at the age of 19, arriving at the Port of New York (Ellis Island) as a steerage passenger aboard La Touraine on September 29. Listed as Ferdinando De Simone, he’s shown on the ship’s manifest to be bound for “Oakfield, Conn.” Correspondence with the Connecticut State Archives, however, suggests that this was likely another case of language difficulty; the archives’ sources indicate that there is not and never was an Oakfield in the state of Connecticut. The ship’s manifest lists his father as Pietro De Simone of Aquila (confused in some documents, including his NYSS, with another Pietro Desimone, of Oakfield, who in one Burial Case File letter identifies himself as a “distant relative”). The manifest also indicates that Fiordinando intended to join his uncle, Angelo Desimone, in Oakfield. The 1915 NY State Census shows him, listed as Ferdin O Desmone, living on Macomber Road in Oakfield (Genesee County), New York, in the household of Angelo Desmone. The census gives his occupation as gypsum miner, the same as listed on his draft registration card. According to the November 21, 1918 Batavia Daily News, he worked for the Niagara Gypsum Company.
As a member of Genesee County’s fifth draft contingent, Disimorne was inducted in Batavia on April 3, 1918, and left the next day for Camp Dix, home of the 78th Division. About six weeks later, on May 20, 1918, he was sent overseas as a member of Company B of the division’s 309th Infantry. By the middle of June, the entire 78th Division was in France. Less than five years earlier, Disimorne had left France, boarding La Touraine at Le Havre, to come to the United States.
There are some discrepancies regarding the date of Private Disimorne’s death. County List 2 gives the date as February 12, 1918, and the November 21, 1918 Batavia Daily News and County List 1 give it as October 9, 1918. However, all official sources, including the NY Roll of Honor and all pertinent Burial Case File documents, state that Disimorne was killed in action on October 19, 1918. This is almost certainly accurate. On that day, the 309th Infantry was attacking enemy positions in the Bois des Loges, a heavily defended square mile of underbrush and ravines northeast of Grandpré. “On the 19th,” reads History of the Seventy-Eighth Division, “the 1st Battalion, 309th Infantry [which included Company B] . . . advanced twice almost to the northern edge of the woods but was driven back with heavy losses. The enemy was keeping up an incessant fire with machine guns . . . and was also sending over great numbers of high explosives, shrapnel, and gas shells.”
Private Disimorne was among five Genesee County members of Company B, 309th Infantry, who died in the war as a result of the fighting at the Bois des Loges.
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November 21, 1918 Batavia Daily News p6 c6
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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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[reply written on back of above letter]
Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Fiordinando Disimorne headstone, Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Plot C Row 6 Grave 29, Romagne, France
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Fiordinando Disimorne Sources:
– County Lists 1, 2, 4
– April 4, 1918 BD p1 c4
– Nov 21, 1918 BD p6 c6*
– “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival,” SS La Touraine arriving in New York from Havre 29 Sep 1913, pages 420-421, list unnumbered, line # 0017, Ferdinando De Simone, age 19, accessed online at http://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/passenger
– “New York State Census, 1915.” Online index and images, Ancestry.com. Entry for Ferdin O Desmone, age 20, citing Census Records, Oakfield, A.D. 01, E.D. 01, Genesee, New York; page number 48, line 49.
– Roll of Honor (NY State), p 65
– WWI database, American Battle Monuments Commission website (www.abmc.gov/search/wwi.php)
– World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Ancestry.com)
– Email correspondence 22 July 2013, Carolyn Picciano, Library Specialist, History and Genealogy Unit, Connecticut State Library re: Oakfield as state place name
– 78th Division, Summary of Operations in the World War, pp 27-29
– History of the Seventy-Eighth Division, pp 37-39, 111-113, 223
– BCF
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Click for Key to Source Abbreviations. See the Bibliography for complete title, author, and publisher information, with links to online access when available.