| NAME: George Arnold Bell |
NICKNAME: — |
SERVICE NUMBER: 952834 |
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| HOME OF RECORD: Rossiter, PA |
NEXT OF KIN: Parents, Ralph & Hilda Bell |
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| DATE OF BIRTH: 12/30/1925 |
SERVICE DATES: 3/30/1944 – 7/5/1946 |
DATE OF DEATH: 12/30/1986 |
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| CAMPAIGN | UNIT | MOS | RATE | RESULT | |||
| None Served | B/1/24 | 604 | PFC | ||||
| INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS: — |
LAST KNOWN RANK: Private First Class |
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George Arnold Bell was the oldest son of Ralph and Hilda Bell, residents of rural Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
Bell’s draft notice arrived in early 1944, summoning him to Pittsburgh to join the Marine Corps. Several weeks of boot camp followed, and then an assignment to Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia. Bell may have looked longingly at the smart uniforms of the newly-made officers at the school, but it was not to be; as a lowly boot private, he worked in the base mess hall. Bell did receive a promotion to private first class that summer, and in October 1944 he and a handful of other messmen transferred to a Schools Training Battalion to learn to fight as infantrymen.
Long months of practice came to an end in March, 1945; PFC Bell was assigned to the 59th Replacement Draft and headed overseas on April 1. He got as far as Camp Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, where he joined Baker Company, 24th Marines as a machine gunner. The war ended before Bell got to see any combat; he spent the rest of his time in the Corps with the 17th Service Battalion, and was honorably discharged in July, 1946.
Bell returned to Indiana County after the war. He died in 1986, on his fifty-ninth birthday.