Lieutenant Colonel James Shannon, Meuse-Argonne

In October nineteen eighteen, Lieutenant Colonel James A. Shannon was killed in action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, one of the largest and deadliest battles in American military history. Shannon commanded the one hundred twelfth Infantry Regiment, part of the Twenty-Eighth Division, the Pennsylvania National Guard unit known as the Keystone Division.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive involved more than one million American troops and lasted forty-seven days, ultimately breaking the German lines and helping end the First World War. Shannon is remembered here in Centre County, the region that sent him to serve.