Courier Electronic Edition: Obits for 081502

Courier Electronic Edition: Obits for 081502: “Harold Hobkirk [son of Ross Tait Hobkirk]

BLUFFTON — Private graveside services for Harold R. Hobkirk, 84, of Bluffton, will be held at Maple Grove Cemetery, Bluffton.

No visitation will be held.

Mr. Hobkirk died at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2002, at Mennonite Memorial Home, Bluffton.

He was born May 30, 1918, in Marlboro, Mass. to Ross T. and Helen (Lee) Hobkirk. He married Julianna Kardos on Aug. 18, 1951, and she died April 14, 2001.

Mr. Hobkirk retired as a mechanical engineer in the steel industry.

He graduated from Marlboro (Mass.) High School, and earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940.

He was a former member of Elks Lodge 75, Findlay; and Thomas Lodge of Masons, Palmer, Mass.

Memorials may be made to Mennonite Memorial Home.”

327th Infantry Regiment History

This relates to my third cousin twice removed Ross Tait Hobkirk, Company E, 327 Infantry, 82nd Infantry, who was killed at St. Mihiel September 13, 1918;

327th Infantry Regiment History: “The 327th Infantry Regiment of the 164th Infantry Brigade was organized in the Regular Army as part of the 82nd Infantry Divison on 17 September, 1917 at Fort Gordon, Georgia.  After training rapidly, the Division embarked to northern France, arriving in early spring, 1918.  The 327th Infantry moved on line at the end of summer making it one of the first American units to see combat at St. Mihiel. This was the first operation in World War I conducted entirely by American forces.  The Regiment then occupied defensives positions on the Lorraine Front in eastern France.  The final allied offensive, in November, found the 327th Infantry engaging in the great Meuse-Argonne offensive before any other unit in the Division.  The 327th Infantry Regiment took a prominent part in the operation leading the flank attack north of Sommerance.  The 327th was the first unit of the American Expeditionary Force to reach and pierce the formidable Kriemhilde Stellung (the German’s third and final defensive line on the Western Front). With the termination of the ‘war to end all wars,’ the Regiment was demobilized on 25 May 1919, and then reconstituted in the organized reserves in December 1921.  It remained in this status until the outbreak of World War II.”