In search of a naturalization certificate

One of the things I have been trying to find lately is the naturalization certificate for my great-grandfather, Carmelo Zappala.  Carmelo came to the U.S. in 1910, returned to Italy at some point, and then came back to America in 1914, staying for good.  His wife Lucia did not come to stay in America until 1924, with their children Maria (15), Mariano (10), and Cecilia (9).  From personal stories and immigration records, we know that Carmelo spent some time in Pennsylvania working in a coal mine, but we know little else about what he did while he earned enough money for his family to join him.  However, I recently found an intriguing clue in Lucia's passport application.

A part of the first page shows this information about Lucia and Carmelo:

So as of 1923, Carmelo lived principally in New York, where he is currently residing as a farm laborer.  In addition, we now see that he was naturalized in the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County at Camp Mead, Maryland, on 11 December 1918.

A part of the second page lists the documents Lucia used to certify her identity:

The first document is her husband's naturalization certificate, number 1159318.  This also shows Carmelo's current address is 56 Audubon Avenue, New York City.  Imagine that, farming in the borough of Manhattan!

From this information, it's clear that Carmelo received his citizenship for his service in the Army during World War I.  This was a fairly common practice, and special courts were convened at military bases for this purpose.

To locate Carmelo's naturalization papers, I first tried looking through the microfilms available at the Family History Library.  There are several indexes for Maryland naturalization records, including

• FHL US/CAN Film 1380489, 1797-1906 White, Joseph - Zyliez, Frank 1906-1915 A - Z 1915-1920 A - Z 1920-1925 A - Z 1926-1951 Aaber, Anders Evold - Azzolini, Isabella
• FHL US/CAN Film 1380496, 1918-1923 (Military World War I) Dachino, Leonardo - Zwalorwosky, Walter 

However, neither of these films contain an entry for Carmelo's record.  To find out more, I did some searching and found this discussion on Footnote:

Aliens serving in the US military did not gain citizenship through service
alone. The naturalization of soldiers was performed under certain provisions of
nationality law facilitating the naturalization of members of the US armed
forces. These provisions waived the Declaration of Intention requirement and
waived or reduced the residency requirement. Thus many soldiers filed petitions and
were naturalized the same day.

The expedited naturalization of soldiers could have been performed at
either a Federal, State or local court having jurisdiction over the soldier's military
base, or a judge from any of those courts might have held "naturalization court" at
the military base. In either case, one copy of the petition should be on file in the
court's records. Another copy was filed with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS), which holds duplicate copies of all naturalizations granted after
September 26, 1906.

The INS is now known as the USCIS; it stores the naturalization papers in Certificate Files, or C-Files, many of which were microfilmed in the 1950s.  Since I know the certificate number from Lucia's passport, I was able to make an online request for Carmelo's naturalization papers for $20.  The USCIS is currently processing requests it received in May 2010, so it could be a while before I hear back from them.  I'll post here when I get anything!