Charles Aitken Young was the son of William and Christine M. Young, and immigrated with his family to the U.S.A. when he was eleven years old. He became an oiler, working in the Smith & Dove factory. On August 3, 1917, he enlisted in Company B, 9th Infantry, Massachusetts National Guard, which became Company B, 101st Infantry, 26th ("Yankee") Division, U.S. Army. He went overseas on September 7, 1917. According to the book ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, IN THE WORLD WAR, "in the drive on Chateau Thierry in the... summer of 1918,... he received a wound in the left hand. Although he was sent at once to the hospital, blood poisoning soon set in, and... he died... the first fatality among Andover men in the American Expeditionary Force." Originally buried in France, in 1921 his remains were reinterred in Andover, Massachusetts. He had been "a member of the Grenfell Class of young men in the Free Church, and the class turned out in a body when Private Young, on June 21, 1921, was buried with full military honors.
Sources: ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, IN THE WORLD WAR ed. by Claude M. Fuess, pub. by the Town of Andover (The Andover Press, 1921), p. 46; THE GOLD STAR RECORD OF MASSACHUSETTS, Vol. 2, ed. by Eben Putnam (Boston: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1929), p. 90. Note: The Andover book says that Young died on Sept. 2, 1918, while the Massachusetts book says he died on Aug. 18, 1918.