Alvin York

York served in Company G, 328th Infantry, 82nd Division. Deeply troubled by the conflict between his pacifism and his training for war, he spoke at length with his company commander, Captain Edward Courtney Bullock Danforth Jr. (1894–1974) of Augusta, Georgia, and his battalion commander, Major G. Edward Buxton of Providence, Rhode Island, a devout Christian himself. Biblical passages about violence ("He that hath no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one." "Render unto Caesar…" "…if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.") cited by Danforth persuaded York to reconsider the morality of his participation in the war. Granted a 10-day leave to visit home, he returned convinced that God meant for him to fight and would keep him safe, as committed to his new mission as he had been to pacifism.[14][16] He served with his division in the St. Mihiel Offensive.

328th Infantry Regiment line of advance in capture of Hill 223, October 7, 1918, 82nd Division, Argonne Forest, France. (World War I Signal Corps Collection)

In an October 8, 1918, attack that occurred during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, York's battalion aimed to capture German positions near Hill 223 (49.28558°N 4.95242°E / 49.28558; 4.95242) along the Decauville railroad north of Chatel-Chéhéry, France. His actions that day earned him the Medal of Honor.[17] He later recalled:

The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn't tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from… And I'm telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Our attack just faded out… And there we were, lying down, about halfway across [the valley] and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard.[18]

Under the command of Cpl. (Acting Sergeant) Bernard Early, four non-commissioned officers, including Acting Corporal York,[19] and thirteen privates were ordered to infiltrate the German lines to take out the machine guns. The group worked their way behind the Germans and overran the headquarters of a German unit, capturing a large group of German soldiers who were preparing a counter-attack against the U.S. troops. Early's men were contending with the prisoners when German machine gun fire suddenly peppered the area, killing six Americans and wounding three others. Several of the Americans returned fire while others guarded the prisoners. From his advantageous position, York fought the Germans.[3] York recalled:

And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush… As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharp shooting… All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn't want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had.[20]

Sergeant Alvin C. York by Frank Schoonover, 1919

During the assault, a German officer led several Germans to the scene of the fighting and ran into York who shot several of them with his pistol.[21]

Imperial German Army First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer, commanding the 120th Reserve Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered in English to surrender the unit to York who accepted.[22] At the end of the engagement, York and his seven men marched their German prisoners back to the American lines. Upon returning to his unit, York reported to his brigade commander, Brigadier General Julian Robert Lindsey, who remarked: "Well York, I hear you have captured the whole German army." York replied: "No sir. I got only 132."

York's actions silenced the German machine guns and were responsible for enabling the 328th Infantry to renew its attack to capture the Decauville Railroad.[23]

Sergeant Alvin C. York at the hill where his actions earned him the Medal of Honor (February 7, 1919)

York was promptly promoted to sergeant and received the Distinguished Service Cross. A few months later, an investigation by York's chain of command resulted in an upgrade of his Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor, which was presented by the commanding general of the American Expeditionary Forces, General John J. Pershing. The French Republic awarded him the Croix de Guerre, Medaille Militaire and Legion of Honor.

In addition to his French medals, Italy awarded York the Croce al Merito di Guerra and Montenegro decorated him with its War Medal.[2][24] He eventually received nearly 50 decorations.[2] York's Medal of Honor citation reads:[25]

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

In attempting to explain his actions during the 1919 investigation that resulted in the Medal of Honor, York told General Lindsey "A higher power than man guided and watched over me and told me what to do." Lindsey replied "York, you are right."[26]

Biographer David D. Lee (2000) wrote:

Initially York's exploit attracted little public attention, but on 26 April 1919, Saturday Evening Post correspondent George Pattullo published "The Second Elder Gives Battle," an account of the firefight that made York a national hero overnight. York's explanation that God had been with him during the fight meshed neatly with the popular attitude that American involvement in the war was truly a holy crusade, and he returned to the United States in the spring of 1919 amid a tumultuous public welcome and a flood of business offers from people eager to capitalize on the soldier's reputation.[27]

Biographer David Lee explored the reason Americans responded so favorably to his story:

York's Appalachian heritage was central to his popularity because the media portrayed him as the archetypical mountain man. At a time of domestic upheaval and international uncertainty, York's pioneer-like skill with a rifle, his homespun manner, and his fundamentalist piety endeared him to millions of Americans as a "contemporary ancestor" fresh from the backwoods of the southern mountains. As such, he seemed to affirm that the traditional virtues of the agrarian United States still had meaning in the new era. York represented not what Americans were but what they wanted to think they were. He lived in one of the most rural parts of the country when a majority of Americans lived in cities; he rejected riches when the tenor of the nation was crassly commercial; he was pious when secularism was on the rise. For millions of people, York was the incarnation of their romanticized understanding of the nation's past when men and women supposedly lived plainer, sterner, and more virtuous lives. Ironically, while York endured as a symbol of an older America, he spent most of his adult life working to bring roads, schools, and industrial development to the mountains, changes that were destroying the society he had come to represent.[27]

1919 newspaper coverage of Alvin York (left) with his mother and his wife, Gracie Williams

York cooperated with journalists in telling his life story twice in the 1920s. He allowed Nashville-born freelance journalist Sam Cowan to see his diary and submitted to interviews. The resulting 1922 biography focused on York's Appalachian background, describing his upbringing among the "purest Anglo-Saxons to be found today", emphasizing popular stereotypes without bringing the man to life.[48][49] A few years later, York contacted a publisher about an edition of his war diary, but the publisher wanted additional material to flesh out the story. Then Tom Skeyhill, an Australian-born veteran of the Gallipoli campaign,[50] visited York in Tennessee and the two became friends. On York's behalf, Skeyhill wrote an "autobiography" in the first person and was credited as the editor of Sergeant York: His Own Life Story and War Diary. With a preface by Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War in World War I, it presented a one-dimensional York supplemented with tales of life in the Tennessee mountains.[51] Reviews noted that York only promoted his life story in the interest of funding educational programs: "Perhaps York's bearing after his famous exploit in the Argonne best reveals his native greatness. ... He will not exploit himself except for his own people. All of which gives his book an appeal beyond its contents."[52]

The mountaineer persona Cowan and Skeyhill promoted reflected York's own beliefs. In a speech at the 1939 New York World's Fair, he said:

We, the descendants of the pioneer long hunters of the mountains, have been called Scotch-Irish and pure Anglo-Saxon, and that is complimentary, I reckon. But we want the world to know that we are Americans. The spiritual environment and our religious life in the mountains have made our spirit wholly American, and that true pioneer American spirit still exists in the Tennessee mountains. Even today, I want you all to know, with all the clamor of the world and its evil attractions, you still find in the little humble log cabins in the Tennessee mountains that old-fashioned family altar of prayer—the same that they used to have in grandma's and grandpa's day—which is the true spirit of the long hunters. We in the Tennessee mountains are not transplanted Europeans; every fiber in our body and every emotion in our hearts is American.[53]

For many years, York employed a secretary, Arthur S. Bushing, who wrote the lectures and speeches York delivered. Bushing prepared York's correspondence as well. Like the works of Cowan and Skeyhill, words commonly ascribed to York, though doubtless representing his thinking, were often composed by professional writers.[54] York had refused several times to authorize a film version of his life story.[55] Finally, in 1940, as York was looking to finance an interdenominational Bible school, he yielded to a persistent Hollywood producer and negotiated the contract himself.[56] In 1941 the movie Sergeant York, directed by Howard Hawks with Gary Cooper in the title role, told about his life and Medal of Honor action.[57] The screenplay included much fictitious material though it was based on York's Diary.[58][59] The marketing of the film included a visit by York to the White House where FDR praised the film.[60] Some of the response to the film divided along political lines, with advocates of preparedness and aid to Great Britain enthusiastic ("Hollywood's first solid contribution to the national defense", said Time) and isolationists calling it "propaganda" for the administration.[61][62] It received 11 Oscar nominations and won two, including the Academy Award for Best Actor for Cooper. It was the highest-grossing picture of 1941.[58][63] York's earnings from the film, about $150,000 in the first two years as well as later royalties, resulted in a decade-long battle with the Internal Revenue Service.[64] York eventually built part of his planned Bible school, which hosted 100 students until the late 1950s.[65]

York originally believed in the morality of America's intervention in World War I.[66] By the mid-1930s, he looked back more critically: "I can't see that we did any good. There's as much trouble now as there was when we were over there. I think the slogan 'A war to end war' is all wrong."[67] He fully endorsed American preparedness, but showed sympathy for isolationism by saying that he would fight only if war came to America.[68]

A consistent Democrat – "I'm a Democrat first, last, and all the time",[69] he said – in January 1941 he praised FDR's support for Great Britain and in an address at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day of that year he attacked isolationists and said that veterans understood that "liberty and freedom are so very precious that you do not fight and win them once and stop." They are "prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them!"[70] At times he was blunt: "I think any man who talks against the interests of his own country ought to be arrested and put in jail, not excepting senators and colonels." Everyone knew that the colonel in question was Charles Lindbergh.[71]

In the late 1940s he called for toughness in dealing with the Soviet Union and did not hesitate to recommend using the atomic bomb in a first strike: "If they can't find anyone else to push the button, I will."[72] He questioned the failure of United Nations forces to use the atomic bomb in Korea.[72] In the 1960s he criticized Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's plans to reduce the ranks of the National Guard and reserves: "Nothing would please Khrushchev better."[73]

Beginning soon after York's return to the United States at the end of the war, doubt and controversy periodically surfaced over whether the events detailed in his Medal of Honor documents had taken place as officially described, and whether other soldiers in York's unit should also have been recognized for their heroism.[83][84] Otis Merrithew (William Cutting) and Bernard Early were among those who argued against the official version.[85] Of the 17 American soldiers who were involved in York's Medal of Honor action, six were killed.[86] York received the Medal of Honor, and over the years, three of the others who lived through that day's fighting also received valor awards,[87] including the Distinguished Service Cross for Early in 1929,[88] and the Silver Star for Merrithew in 1965.[89] Considerable red tape hampered the other men's attempts to get recognized as well as conflicts of interest by those reviewing their files. Later in life Gen. Lindsey would have a change of heart and support the other men's claims for recognition, which were again blocked by military officials citing a 1929 cutoff date for recommendation. Historian James P. Gregory's 2023 book Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York and related academic lectures[90] has brought about new scrutiny on the subject and renewed calls for the men involved other than York to be honored.

York's record became the subject of controversy in Germany in 1928, after a Swedish journal published an article about York's exploits which some Germans felt impugned the honor of the German armed forces. In 1929, the Reichsarchiv investigated the claims made about York's battlefield exploits by reviewing military records and interviewing surviving German officers of the 2nd Württemberg Landwehr Division who had fought against York. [91] The German report, which was not published at the time, concluded that "York was a brave and fearless soldier" and that the official U.S. Army report on York's actions "corresponds with the facts," but also found that some of the details of York's first report from the battlefield had been "grossly exaggerated." In particular, the German investigators found that York's unit had likely captured fewer than 132 prisoners and 35 machine guns, as Germans records showed the loss of only 79 prisoners in the sector that day, and German officers reported there were less than 35 machine guns present. The German investigators shared their report with the U.S. Army, which did not take any action as the report confirmed York's role in valorously leading assaults on German positions and did not contradict any of the specific details of York's Medal of Honor citation.[92]

Near the Chatel-Chéhéry battlefield in 2010

In October 2006, United States Army Colonel Douglas Mastriano, head of the Sergeant York Discovery Expedition (SYDE), conducted research to locate the York battle site.[93] Among the Mastriano expedition's finds were 46 American rifle rounds.[94] In addition, his research located pieces of German ammunition and weaponry.[95] Without the official support of the French government, Mastriano excavated the site and bulldozed the area in order to build two monuments and a historic trail.[96] Mastriano's research has been strongly disputed by other historians who point out numerous errors in the history dissertation and subsequent book that he published on York.[97]

Another team led by Dr. Tom Nolan, head of the Sergeant York Project and a geographer at the R.O. Fullerton Laboratory for Spatial Technology at Middle Tennessee State University, placed the site 600 meters south of the location identified by Mastriano.[98][99] Nolan's research relied on contemporary army graves registration Forms, the 82nd Division's wartime history, and maps drawn by Colonel G. Edward Buxton Jr. and Captain Edward C. B. Danforth, both of whom walked the ground with York during the Medal of Honor investigation.[100]

Many places and monuments throughout the world have been named in honor of York, most notably his farm in Pall Mall, which is now open to visitors as the Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park.

Several government buildings have been named for York, including the Alvin C. York Veterans Hospital located in Murfreesboro.[101]

The Alvin C. York Institute was founded in 1926 as an agricultural high school by York and residents of Fentress County and continues to serve as Jamestown's high school.[102]

York Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City was named for York in 1928.[103]

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren used York as the model for characters in two of his novels, both explorations of the burden of fame faced by battlefield heroes in peacetime. In At Heaven's Gate (1943), a Tennessee mountaineer who was awarded the Medal of Honor in World War I returns from combat, becomes a state legislator, and then a bank president. Others exploit his decency and fame for their own selfish ends as the novel explores the real-life experience of an old-fashioned hero in a cynical world. In The Cave (1959), a similar hero from a similar background has aged and become an invalid. He struggles to maintain his identity as his real self diverges from the robust legend of his youth.[104]

A statue of York by sculptor Felix de Weldon was placed on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in 1968.[105]

In the 1980s, the United States Army named its DIVAD weapon system "Sergeant York"; the project was cancelled because of technical problems and cost overruns.[106]

In 1993, York was among 35 Medal of Honor recipients whose portraits were painted and biographies included in a boxed set of "Congressional Medal of Honor Trading Cards," issued by Eclipse Enterprises under license from the Medal of Honor Society. The text is by Kent DeLong, the paintings by Tom Simonton, and the set edited by Catherine Yronwode.[107]

On May 5, 2000, the United States Postal Service issued the "Distinguished Soldiers" stamps, one of which honored York.[108]

The riderless horse in the 2004 funeral procession of President Ronald Reagan was named Sergeant York.[109] Laura Cantrell's 2005 song "Old Downtown" talks about York in depth.[110]

In 2007, the 82nd Airborne Division's movie theater at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was named York Theater.[111]

The traveling American football trophy between UT Martin, Austin Peay, Tennessee State, and Tennessee Tech is called the Alvin C. York trophy.[112][113]

The U.S. Army ROTC's Sergeant York Award is presented to cadets who excel in the program and devote additional time and effort to maintaining and expanding it.[114]

A memorial to graduates of the East Tennessee State University ROTC program who have given their lives for their country carries a quotation from York.[115]

The Third Regiment of the Tennessee State Guard is named for York.[116]

The Association of the United States Army published a digital graphic novel about York in 2018.[117]

Swedish power metal band Sabaton's 2019 album The Great War contained a track titled "82nd All the Way" (What Sergeant York achieved that day, echoes from France to the USA, it's 82nd all the way!) , a tribute to York's Medal of Honor action.[118]

In the alternate history novel 1945 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, Alvin York is pitted against the well-known German commando Otto Skorzeny, who in the book's plot raids York's native Tennessee with the aim of destroying the American atomic bomb program in Oak Ridge National Laboratory. As depicted in the book, York - though no longer young - gives a very good account of himself, rallying local militias to fight the unexpected German attack.