Lest We Forget
Remembering Our Fallen Soldiers on Memorial Day
Chel Lamanna
Chel Lamanna’s temporary gravesite in Limey, France.
Chel Lamanna, possibly on his final leave in Sea Isle City.
While Memorial Day marks the traditional opening of the summer season at the Jersey Shore, it is not a day to be celebrated. It is a solemn holiday that is to be observed. This Memorial Day, it is important to remember all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives so we may remain free. Close to home, three area residents left their homes or jobs in Sea Isle City to fight on foreign shores for our freedom, and did not return. Unfortunately, today, for the most part these heroes are largely forgotten.
WILLIAM M. SMITH
Cpl. William McMullin Smith was born June 1, 1896. Not much is known about his early years, but his name and those of his father Joseph, mother Emma, and siblings Laura Mae and Margaret, appear on 1910 census documents as Sea Isle City residents. By the 1915 New Jersey census, William had been joined by another sister, Josephine, born in 1911.
What is known is that upon entering the Army, Smith was assigned to Company G of the 315 Infantry Battalion of the 79th Division. Shipped overseas to France, he died of wounds sustained during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. This was the final push against Germany that led to the Armistice being signed on Nov. 11, 1918.
The Meuse-Argonne offensive was the second-deadliest battle in U.S. history, claiming 26,277 American lives among 350,000 casualties. Smith was wounded in action on Oct. 31, 1918 near Verdun. He was taken to Field Evacuation Hospital #15 at Glorieux, Meuse, where he died that day. The 22-year-old was interred at the American Military Cemetery at Glorieux, Meuse on Nov. 1, 1918. He died merely 11 days before the Armistice was signed, ending the war.
The later part of the decade of the 1910s was not kind to the Smith family. Smith’s father had died in August 1918 while he was serving in France. Less than three months after William Smith died that October, his oldest sister, Laura Mae, succumbed to the Spanish flu pandemic in January 1919. These losses devastated the family.
Through the efforts of William’s friend Hutcheson Gilmore, his body was eventually repatriated and interred in a family plot at Fernwood Cemetery in Lansdowne, Pa. At a solemn recognition ceremony on July 24, 1921, Smith’s remains, along with those of nine other Philadelphia-area victims of World War I, were reinterred. His pallbearers were members of his army unit. Mourners included other World War I veterans, and members of the Pennsylvania American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars. Due to the series of tragedies that consumed the Smith family, his grave, along with those of other family members, was not marked.
Smith’s grave went unmarked and unnoticed for almost 100 years. In the spring of 2018, Joseph Truax, a veterans’ advocate and a total stranger to the family, tracked down Smith’s grand-nephew Harold Van Artsdalen in an effort to secure a headstone. The process was started in June 2018 at the veterans’ office in Rio Grande, and eventually in December 2019, Smith was recognized with a headstone on his grave.
Longtime Sea Isle City residents might remember Smith’s sister Margaret “Marge” Van Artsdalen, worked as a clerk in City Hall for many years. A resident of 47th Street, she died June 1, 1987, exactly 91 years after the birth of her brother.
James Revelle’s grave marker in Goshen.
JAMES REVELLE
Pvt. James Revelle was born June 14, 1924. He was 18 when he was drafted. A resident of Shore Road in Ocean View, he had attended Middle Township High School. As was not uncommon at that time, Revelle had left school and was working for Harry Fehrle, a contractor in Sea Isle City. Drafted in February 1943, he was immediately inducted into the Army in Newark. That would be the last he would ever see of his family.
After training, Revelle did not have an opportunity to visit his parents Howard and Madeline, brother Howard, or sister Anna, as he was not granted a furlough to visit home. Instead, he was immediately shipped to Italy.
In a letter to his family dated Oct. 25, 1943, Revelle indicated that all was well, and that he was healthy and in good spirits. The letter was received and read by his family, comforted by the fact that things were going as well as could be expected. But in an ironic twist, about three hours after receiving his uplifting letter, a telegram was received by his parents from the War Department indicating that he had been killed.
Revelle was 19 and had served eight months in the Army when he perished in action on Oct. 26, 1943 near Salerno, Italy. His body was repatriated to the United States, and he was reinterred at St. Elizabeth’s Cemetery in Goshen, a community within Middle Township.
Chel Lamanna’s grave marker after his remains were repatriated to Goshen.
CELESTINO B. “CHEL” LAMANNA
Capt. Chel Lamanna grew up in Sea Isle City. Born April 4, 1916, he was the son of Louis and Mary Lamanna. The Lamanna family home was on 44th Street. Along with his brothers Peter, Vincent and Louis, he attended Sea Isle City Public School and Ocean City High School, with Chel graduating in the class of 1933.
With America’s involvement in World War II brewing on the horizon, Lamanna enlisted in the Army on Feb. 13, 1941. He earned the rank of sergeant on Feb. 1, 1942, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on Dec. 5, 1942. In 1944, he earned the rank of captain.
On June 12, 1945 while getting equipment for his men near Commercy, France, he perished in a jeep accident. Thrown from his jeep, he apparently died instantly. Although the U.S. Army files list his death as “DNB,” or died of non-battle injuries, his nephew Vince Lamanna Jr. said there was speculation that the jeep actually hit a mine that had not been removed. He was interred at the temporary American Military Cemetery near Limey, France. He was 29.
Upon hearing of Lamanna’s death, Sea Isle City resident and family friend Tom Traverscio, who was also stationed in France with the Army, went to the site where Lamanna was killed. In an effort to bring some closure to the Lamanna’s family, he photographed his grave marker. Along with the photo he wrote:
“Chel died June 12th – Tuesday
June 13th buried
June 14th Mass said.
1945 died in France, buried in Limey. Pictures taken Sept 23rd by Thomas Traverscio.”
Lamanna’s remains were later returned to the United States, and he was reinterred at St. Elizabeth’s Cemetery in Goshen. He left behind a widow, Virginia (Ginnie), and a 6-month-old daughter, Eileen.
Both Ginnie and Eileen remained in Sea Isle, with Ginnie operating the Boardwalk Gift Shop, first on Sea Isle’s boardwalk, and then after the March 1962 storm, on the Promenade. She died in 1985. Eileen worked with her mother at the Boardwalk Gift Shop, and later became the secretary for St. Joseph Parish, retiring in 2014. The parish office is located directly across the street where her father grew up. Eileen died on June 20, 2020.
Lamanna’s mother became active in the American Gold Star Mothers organization, and was also the president of the Sea Isle City American Legion Auxiliary when the charter was granted in the 1950. In May 1961, Lamanna’s older brother Vincent was elected mayor of Sea Isle City, becoming the community’s first Italian-American mayor.
American Legion posts are named after veterans who have been killed while serving our country. Upon receiving their charter in 1946, the now-defunct Sea Isle City American Legion Post 340 took the name of these three veterans. From its founding until it was disbanded in 2002, the post was known as Smith-Lamanna-Revelle Post 340.
Please take a break from the celebration of the opening of the summer season this Memorial Day weekend and remember these three men, heroes in every sense of the word. They paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may be free.