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Show AMERICAN .LEGION iCopy for Thin l.)uprtmttnt Supplied by tha American I.fKlon Nwa Hrvlce.) CHERISH WORLD WAR RELIC Pillar From Altar of Church In Ruined Village of Belleau at National Headquarters. One of the most treasured of the many World war relics being patliered at the American Legion's national headquarters, Indianapolis, Ind., Is that just received from the battlefields of France. It is n pillar from the altar of a church which once stood In the ruined vlllaKe of Ilelleau, adjacent the famed wood of that name, near Chateau-Thierry. The wooden pillar bears honorable scars, those suffered when scores of German hlgh-exploslve shells crashed Into the little church. One shell frag- ff'fl J ?' ( Aft . r yl'M. ' j Belleau Church Pillar, ment all but tore the pillar In halves, but when the marines and the Infantry Infan-try had driven back the enemy and recaptured the town, far beneath the mass of stone and mortar the altar was found intact. Upon returning to their devastated home the French villagers looked upon the little altar as a good omen and set nbout to clear up their ruined church building. Later they removed one of the altar pillars, and after appropriate ap-propriate ceremonies, sent it to America Amer-ica as the gift of appreciation of the commune of Belleau to the Yankee regiments, through their organization of the Legion. The pillar is ctrefully preserved at the Legion's headquarters, headquar-ters, protected by the French and American flags. |