Herman Blise was born in USA. He served in the 343rd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division, as a Private during World War I. He died on October 2, 1918, and is now buried in the Magdalen Hill Cemetery, Winchester, City of Winchester, Hampshire, England.
From the Hampton Historical Society:
Herman Blise was born on 25th May 1895, the son of a mine foreman in Commonwealth, Wisconsin, a mining and lumbering town in Florence County, USA. The family moved to the small community of Iron Belt, Wisconsin, when he was a boy. Following America's entry into the war in 1917, he enlisted on 22nd July, 1918, and was assigned to Co. K., 343rd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division. Herman followed the well-worn route from enlistment to training to embarkation camp in the US to convoy voyage to the UK. After embarkation on 4th September 1918, his arrival in Liverpool was followed by a rail journey to Winchester and the march up hill to Morn Hill camp, which by 1917 had essentially been handed over to the Americans. An estimated 700,000 'doughboys' -- a popular term for American soldiers -- passed through Morn Hill on their way to France, via Southampton, but Herman never completed the journey. The close quarters of military life -- troopships, in particular -- were ideal disease incubators. Herman Blise became ill and died on 2nd October 1918, the cause of death listed as pneumonia. In all, 553 Americans died at Morn Hill, their bodies buried in the front portion of the civilian cemetery adjacent to the camp. After the war, most of the dead were returned to the United States but the Blise family decided that Herman should remain where he died. In a letter from the American Graves Registration Service to the cemetery's registrar, dated 1929, his brother, Robert Blise, acquired the title to the burial plot and payment was agreed to have it cared for in perpetuity. In 2012, military historian and former archivist at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Prof Mark D. Van Ells, placed a Wisconsin flag in front of his headstone -- just a little reminder of home for a Wisconsin soldier lying alone in foreign soil.