Remembering Fallen Heroes on Veteran's Day: ‘Holy Cross Grad, Chaplain Last US officer Killed in WWI’

On November 11, 1918, the War to End All Wars finally concluded, but not without claiming the life of a heroic Holy Cross graduate. Struck by one of the last German artillery shells fired in the war, Rev. William Francis Davitt, former captain of the College of the Holy Cross football team and former curate at St. John’s Church in Worcester, whose bravery under fire in saving the lives of 40 of his men had earned him the French Croix de Guerre, became the last American officer to die in the First World War.

In total, World War I claimed the lives of 353 Worcester servicemen, and 24 Holy Cross graduates. Among them was Rev. Davitt, of the Class of 1907. His name lives on at the college today, in the awards given each year to the outstanding offensive and defensive players on the football team and atop the list of war dead commemorated at St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.

Read the full article at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.