George Abraham Levenson

George Abraham “Abe” Levenson was born on 26 August or September 1895 in Pittsburgh, Alleghany, Pennsylvania, to Louis Levenson (1873-1950) and his first wife, Tillie Altman (1872-1930). Louis Levenson immigrated from Kovno, Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania) around 1889, Tillie Altman Levenson may have also immigrated around the same time from the Russian Empire. In the 1910s, the family lived on Scott St. in Pittsburgh, then, 10 Shomin St.; George worked as a stock boy in his teens.

Levenson enlisted in the U.S. Army on 3 January 1918; he was assigned initially to 6^th Co., 2^nd Training Battalion, 155^th Depot Brigade until 12 January, then 2^nd Co., Camp Lee Replacement Detachment. Pvt Levenson left Hoboken, New Jersey on 27 February 1918 with the Camp Lee Replacement Company. On 20 March, he was assigned to Co. K, 163^rd Infantry (Montana National Guard), 41^st Division, then finally to Co. G, 167^th Infantry Regiment (Alabama National Guard), 42^nd Division on 6 April.

Pvt Levenson served in the Lorraine, Champagne, Aisne; Toul, Verdun, Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, and Argonne sectors. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions near Croix Rouge Farm, France on 27 July 1918;

“The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private Abe Levenson (ASN: 173052), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company G, 167th Infantry Regiment, 42d Division, A.E.F., near Croix Rouge Farm, northeast of Chateau-Thierry, France, 27 July 1918. When his company was in action near Hill 212, Private Levenson was posted as lookout while his company was entrenching. He observed the enemy bringing forward machine guns through the wheat fields to place them in position. Waiting until they were within close range, he exposed himself to heavy machine-gun and artillery fire and succeeded in killing or disabling the crew of two machine guns, thus saving his company from heavy casualties.”

He also received an unknown level of the French Croix de Guerre and a Purple Heart.

Pvt Levenson was promoted to Corporal on 2 September 1918; he was severely wounded on 7 November in the Argonne Forest from a shot through the neck. Details regarding his injury- the extent, treatment, and potential lifetime effects- are unknown.

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“…He had been posted as a lookout while his company was entrenching, when he noticed that the enemy was bringing forward machine guns through the wheat fields to train them upon his fellow Americans battling for possession of the famous Hill 212. He had his choice of running back to tell the captain of the approaching danger, or of taking those machine guns single-handed. He lay behind a stump until the machine guns wheeled into range, then he charged the astonished Boches alone, firing from his hip as he ran.

German artillery played him and he was exposed to the guns of an entire battery. But he dashed up to the two machine guns, bayoneted one man, shot another and clubbed a third and fourth, causing the five others to flee. His commanding officer told him that his act probably saved his company from heavy casualties, and the medal was pinned on him at the head of his comrades last week.’

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“I was as close as I am to you when I killed the last one, said George Levenson, as he finished arranging boxes of strawberries and tomatoes and turned to answer the reporter’s question. That statement, like an electric shock, closed the gap between 1918 and 1928, between a wheat field northeast of Chateau Thierry and the fruit market at 711 Homewood Ave., of which Levenson is one of the proprietors.

The desperate episode which won Levenson the Distinguished Service Cross occurred on July 27 of that wild summer when the allied armies and those of Germany locked in a death grapple before the great German retreat…The Pittsburgher had lived through the defense against the last German drive, when enemy attack and American counter-attack mingled in a never-to-be-forgotten chaos of war at its worst. ‘The world seemed to come to an end’ Levenson said. Before the drive, the Pittsburgh soldier and a trench mate had labored for days digging a cave-like dugout into the hillside. They had lugged railroad ties for a mile or more to form the sides and roof of their bomb-proof cave. Other men of the company had laughed at them, but Levenson and his friend had gone on working.

When the German barrage came, one of the most terrific in the history of the war, the dugout sheltered 11 men, while soldiers died up and down the trench, to the right and left, as weaker shelters were blown in by the storm of steel. The Germans came on, one gray wave after another, and the Americans clambered up through old French trenches to meet the enemy. It was close and awful work, with hand grenades and rifles. Levenson remembers the look of the German tanks as they came lumbering to the attack, like unearthly monsters. He can still hear the thunder of the French’75’s’ rushing in to stop the tanks. Now and then a shell struck square on a tank and the men within its steel walls died swiftly. It was a nightmare of destruction.

As one mad, hot day gave way to another, Levenson’s outfit, composed mainly of men from Alabama, was hurled against the ridges beyond Chateau Thierry. Near Croix Rouge farm, close to Hill 212, the advance was halted by the picked troops of the Prussian guard. The Americans dug in beneath the crest of the hill, and Levenson was one of a patrol sent forward into the wheat to investigate the machine guns which were causing the command so many casualties. The patrol was forced back, but Levenson remained at his outpost, hidden by the wheat. ‘I saw the German machine gun, concealed by the bank of a road at the edge of the field, and firing on our men’ Levenson said.

‘I crawled around to one side, behind the machine gun, got my sights on one of the crew, and fired. I got him, but they couldn’t tell where the shot came from…I moved over to the other side and fired again. I got a second man. I started to crawl up on the third man. He saw me towards the last. I saw him draw his revolver. I jumped to my feet and ran for him. You know out there it was either your life or the other fellow’s. I don’t know why he didn’t get me when he fired. He must have been dumbfounded. I was as close as you and I are when I shot him. A fellow doesn’t know what he’s doing when he’s out there, you know. I had killed the crew of the machine gun. That is, there were five of them, but two got away. They had been carrying ammunition’. After that, Levenson located another machine gun nest, went back to where the Americans had dug in, and led them forward in an attack which ‘cleaned up’ the second machine gun crew.

The Pittsburgh soldier was shot through the neck in the Argonne Forest. One machine gun nest had been destroyed, when a burst of fire swept the Americans from the rear. A German machine gunner posted on a platform built across the wide spreading branches of a tree shot Levenson. He lost consciousness, but dragged himself back through the trees to a first-aid station after he recovered his senses. A surgeon looked at the wound and concluded that Levenson was so sure to die that some of the other men who had more chance for recovery should be given ambulance room first. The Pittsburgher heard that cheering news as he lay at the station. A chaplain prevailed on the surgeon to send Levenson back at once. That was on Nov. 7 near Thelon. Levenson was aged 24 then. His relatives received a report that he was dead, but he came back to the United States with both the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre.”

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Cpl Levenson returned to the United States with a Sick and Wounded company aboard the U.S. Army Transport Ship Siboney on 3 January 1919. Levenson was Honorably Discharged at Camp Meade, Maryland on 5 March.

Levenson returned to Pittsburgh and lived with his parents and siblings, working as a clerk at a fruit store. At some point in the mid-1920s, Levenson married Betty Silverblatt (1896-?); the couple had one child, Marshall Leroy (1925-2009). The family lived at 70151 Monticello St., where Levenson operated his own retail produce store, potentially located at 1101 Lang Ave. In the 1950s, the family lived at 223 Lincoln Ave. in Bellevue, Pennsylvania. Little else is known of Levenson’s adult life; by the 1960s, the family had relocated to California, where he operated “food stores in Wilkinsburg, Homewood and on the Northside”.

Levenson died on 1 January 1964 in Los Angeles of an unknown cause, it is unknown where he is buried.