County hosts ceremony to honor 40 residents who died on same day during WWI
Goshen. The soldiers died during the Battle of Hindenburg Line in Northern France.
| 02 Oct 2023 | 10:39
Mario Acosta of Chester and John Cronin of Newburgh are part of the East Coast Dough Boys, a WWI reenactment group. (
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L-R: Andrew Komonchak of Bloomingburg, Orange County Executive Steven M. Neuhaus, Major Jacob Morris, Veterans Service Agency Director Christian Farrell and Dave Andryshak, superintendent of the VSA Cemetery.
Mario Acosta of Chester, Orange County Historian Johanna Porr, and John Cronin of Newburgh.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus and the county’s Veterans Service Agency (VSA) hosted a ceremony on Friday, Sept. 29, to honor the 40 county residents who died more than 100 years ago on the same day during World War I.
The 40 Orange County residents served in Companies E and L of the 107th Regiment of the 27th Division and were killed in action during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line in Northern France.
The event included the unveiling of a new memorial monument enshrined with the names of those residents. Major Jacob Morris, a history instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, served as the guest speaker.
“The Battle of the Hindenburg Line is one of the most famous engagements that occurred during World War I,” Neuhaus said. “We will never forget the sacrifices that these 40 soldiers made in defense of the freedoms we all enjoy every day in America and here in Orange County.”
After a 56-hour-long attack, allied forces breached the Hindenburg Line, the last line of German defenses, on Sept. 29, 1918. The Hindenburg Line was a heavily fortified zone running several miles behind the active front between the north coast of France and Belgium. By September 1918, the Hindenburg Line consisted of six defensive lines approximately 6,000 yards deep, equipped with lengths of barbed wire, concrete emplacements and firing positions. Breaking through the Hindenburg Line helped the U.S. and its allies win WWI, which ended on November 11, 1918.
“The U.S. Military Academy’s Department of History is grateful for the opportunity to join in honoring Orange County’s fallen,” Morris said. “These American soldiers perished serving their country and, even 105 years later, we remember their sacrifice.”