His Medal of Honor
Citation reads:
Rank and
Organization: Captain, U.S. Army, 356th Infantry, 89th Division.
Place and Date: Near Le Champy Bas, France, 3 November 1918.
Entered Service At: Denver, Colo. Birth: Eureka Springs, Ark.
G.O. No.: 20, W.D., 1919
Citation:
Born in Eureka
Springs, Arkansas, Marcellus Chiles served in the U.S. Army with
the 356th Infantry, 89th Division. Captain Chiles earned
the Medal of Honor for heroism near Le Champy Bas, France,
during intense assaults upon enemy position. When his
battalion, of which he had just taken command, was halted by
machine gun fire, he picked up the rifle of a dead soldier and
led the advance across a stream, waist deep, in the face of
machine gun fire. Upon reaching the opposite bank he was
seriously wounded in the abdomen by a sniper, but before
permitting himself to be evacuated he made complete arrangements
for turning over his command to the next senior officer.
Chiles died shortly after reaching the hospital. He was
twenty-three years old at the time of his death.
Next to the citation
at the MacArthur Museum of Military History is the following
information:
Fourteen of the
thirty-three Americans who received Medal of Honor posthumously
during World War I are buried in France, including Arkansas
natives Oscar Miller and Marcellus Chiles. They are both buried
at the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in Romagne Meuse. (Photo from the
Allison Collection)
Information &
photograph from the
MacArthur Museum
of Military History
