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In 2005, one of the most important films of its time was released in theaters. It was called “the three burials of Melkiades Estrada”.
According to the script, Estrada, an illegal Mexican immigrant, is accidentally killed by Norton, a US border police officer, and authorities “bury” the case. Perkins, a friend of the deceased, kidnaps Norton, unearths Estrada, and crosses the Mexican border to bury him in his village.
Melkiades Estrada lived a difficult life and not even his death offered him the peace he sought. Do you think that only happens in movies? By analogy, one could say that the death of Estrada and especially what followed has much in common with the story of a Greek-American, born in Smyrna.
The story of World War I hero George Dilvoi, who died on the battlefield but needed three burials to rest. His story is tough. And even he is involved in it Kemal Ataturk.
A Smyrnaean who immigrated to the US
George Dilvois was born in Alatsata, Izmir, on February 5, 1896. When little George was only 12 years old, his father emigrated to the United States and settled in Somerville, Massachusetts. His goal was to find a good job and create the conditions to welcome the rest of his family. He worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital and gradually began to go to U.S all members of your family.
Little George arrived there in January 1910. But he did not stay in the United States for many years. In 1912 he returned to Greece to fight as a volunteer in the Balkan Wars. He then returned to the United States to finish school. After graduating, he worked for a time and then voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army.
He participated in the 1916-1917 Border War with Mexico and in the fall of 1917 he was promoted to the 26th Infantry Division of the Western Front of the United States Army. First World War..
World War I, battle and death
George Dilboy, as the Americans called him, served at the front of the 103rd Infantry Regiment of the United States 26th Division. France. In July 1918, shortly before the end of the Great War, the Dilboy unit was ordered to occupy the train station in the town of Boures in northern France, during the Second Battle of the Marne against the Germans.
Dilbois, who was always known for his bravery in battle, was reported to have attempted to seize a German machine gun together with some of his fellow soldiers. There he was seriously injured. However, before taking his last breath, he managed to kill two German machine guns in which he fired as many grenades as he had and facilitate the occupation of his comrades in arms while the other two machine guns rushed to disappear.
Dilboy’s sacrifice did not go unnoticed, and the commander of the United States Expeditionary Force, General John Persing, classified Dilboy as “one of the ten greatest heroes who died on the battlefields of France and he demonstrated heroism and bravery. supernatural “.
In a letter to the father of the deceased, Antonios Dilvoi, General George Brigadier stated: “A descendant of the tribe of Xenophon and Leonidas has demonstrated his right to speak on an equal footing with these heroic souls. Under states of submission and faith in his adoptive homeland (America) overthrew the present, displaying those heroic qualities of its Greek ancestors, from whom it comes “….
On January 19, 1919, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
The three burials of a war hero
Dilboys was originally buried with military honors at the Allied Cemetery in Argonne, France.
In 1921, however, and while his family had returned from the USA and moved to Alatsata in Smyrna, asked the United States government to mediate so that the hero’s bones are transported from France to Izmir to be buried in their particular homeland.
The family’s request was accepted and after the exhumation, Dilboy’s coffin, which was wrapped with the star, first reached Chios with an American destroyer and from there went on to Smyrna. The second burial took place on July 10, 1922, and it is said that the carriage with the coffin to Alatsata was accompanied by more than 15,000 people.
In the dramatic events of 1922, when the Turks entered Alatsata, they destroyed everything in front of them while they did not hesitate to desecrate Dilboy’s grave and remove the American flag. As expected, this provoked a strong reaction from the US diplomatic mission, which asked for explanations. The subject of the desecration of the tomb reached the United States Congress, while then-President of the United States, Warren Harding, demanded and received an official apology from the Kemal Ataturk government.
After all the procedures, the Kemalist regime allowed the Americans to collect Dilboy’s body and transport it to the United States. For this reason an American ship arrived in Izmir and transported it to the United States.
George Dilboy’s third and final burial took place in the Arlington Military Cemetery. The then President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, was also present to honor the hero of the First World War.
Another element that makes Dilboy’s story even more dramatic has to do with the Medal of Honor that was awarded to him after his death. This had ended up in the hands of her sister, who after the destruction of Smyrna remained permanently in Crete. During Second World War, the Nazis ransacked his house and took the Dilboy medal.
A few years after the end of the war, Dilboy’s stolen medal was found. In April 1999, by order of the then President of the United States, the medal was awarded at all costs to his nephew George Rozakis.
George Dilvois was honored by a total of four American presidents. By Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Bill clinton. Public buildings have been named after him, and statues have been erected in the United States. In Greece there are streets with his name, in Nea Smyrni, in Byron, Chios and Heraklion of Crete and a statue of him in the homonymous square of Nea Erithraia.
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