Corporal George ‘Geo’ Collas

Corporal George Collas was born on Christmas Day, 1889, in the town of Koroneia, Greece. Koroneia is a beautiful town north of the gulf of Corinth, surrounded by hills and mountains. Certainly, it would have been a beautiful place to grow up. However, in 1907, Corporal Collas would leave Koroneia-whether to escape rising military tensions in Greece or to simply find work in the states is unknown-and travel by boat to North America, arriving in US or Canada that same year.

In 1914, Corporal Collas began a job as a seaman, operating on board a schooner called Pride, possibly in the Great Lakes region. Corporal Collas enlisted, possibly to expedite the process to gaining citizenship, on July 25, of 1918. It was there he became an American, being naturalized as a citizen there in September of 1918. Corporal Collas joined the Medical Department of the US army, which makes it likely that he probably trained at Camp Greenleaf, a training camp for medical personnel during world war 1 in Northern Georgia, less than 10 miles from downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Corporal Collas served in the Medical Department, and was assigned to US General Hospital #6. US General Hospital #6 was established at Fort McPherson, in Atlanta, Georgia. Corporal Collas worked here, helping care for wounded and sick service members, until he was discharged on March 17, 1919, around 4 months after the war ended. With his newfound citizenship, Corporal Collas left Georgia and travelled south to the Tampa Bay area.

Here he continued to work as a seaman, the way he had before, aboard another schooner affiliated with the City of Tarpon Springs. Corporal Collas continued living in Tampa, where eventually he left work as a seaman and began working as a cook, living on North Blvd, just a couple minutes from American Legion Post 111. Corporal Collas spent the remainder of his life in Tampa. He died not as a Greek, but as an American, the day before his birthday, on Christmas Eve, 1952.