On October 8, 1918, Alvin York made history in the Argonne Forest. No amount of training could have prepared him for what he faced that day.
"On October 8, 1918, after being pinned down in an attempt to capture a narrow-gauge railroad, York took his fateful walk into history. As the company sharp-shooter, he and 16 other soldiers under the command of Acting Sergeant Bernard Early were given the unenviable task of silencing the machine guns that halted the advance the day before. It was a cold, wet morning. Rain mixed with sleet added to the gloom of the fog that draped the landscape. As the soldiers worked their way around the hill, the men on the left flank stood exposed in the creek bottom. German machine gunners opened fire, wounding or killing nine Americans, including York's best friend Murray Savage. York was on the right flank beneath the crest of the hill in a natural depression, which he used to kill nine of the men who operated the guns. In the meantime, his comrades opened fire on the Germans, and in a few minutes 25 were dead. The Germans surrendered to what they thought was a superior force, and York and the American survivors escorted 132 prisoners to American forces at Varennes some 10 miles away."- Sergeant York Patriotic Foundation
"Deeds of daring were legion. It is not intended to discriminate in favor of those whose heroic services have been recognized. There were thousands of others who bore themselves with equal gallantry but whose deeds are known only by the victorious results they helped to achieve. However, as typifying the spirit of the rank and file of our great army, I would mention Lieutenant Samuel Woodfill, 5th Division, who attacked single-handed a series of German machine gun nests near Cunel and dispatched the crews of each in turn until reduced to the necessity of assaulting the last detachment with a pick; Sergeant Alvin C. York, of the 82nd Division, who stood off and captured 132 Germans after his patrol was literally surrounded and outnumbered ten to one; and Major Charles W. Whittlesey and his men of the 77th Division, who, when their battalion was cut off in the Argonne, refused to surrender and held out until finally relieved." - Pershing |
Source: christianheritagefellowship.com
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Alvin York never took credit for what happened in the Argonne Forest that day. He knew that God had protected him through the battle.
"Well, I had come through it all without even a hair of my head being harmed. It seemed sorter hard to believe that I done come through alive. Two men on both sides of me and two others right behind me were killed, and I hadn't been touched. I tried to figure it out how it come that everybody around me who was exposed done got picked off or wounded and that I alone come out unharmed. I have been trying to figure it out ever since. And the more I figure the more I am convinced that it wasn't no mere luck or jes an accident. It must have been something more and bigger than that." - York "There had to be something more than man power in that fight to save me. There can't no man in the world make me believe there weren't. And I'm a-telling you the hand of God must have been in that fight." - York |
"After the armistice Brigadier General Lindsay and some other generals and colonels takened me back to the Argonne Forest and went up the scene of the fight with me. They measured and examined the ground and asked me a whole heap of questions. Brigadier General Lindsay asked me to take him out like I did the captured German major. And I did. And then the General said to me: 'York, how did you do it?' I told the General that it was not man-power but hit was divine power that saved me. I told him that before I went to war I prayed to God and He done gave me my assurance that so long as I believed in Him not one hair of my head would be harmed; and even in front of them-there machine guns He knowed I believed in Him. The General put his arms around my shoulders and said very quietly: 'York, you are right.'" - York |
"I have got only one explanation to offer, and only one: without the help of God I jes couldn't have done it." - York
The Saturday Evening Post article, "The Second Elder Gives Battle", drew attention to Alvin York's act of bravery.
Source: The Saturday Evening Post
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"York's fame was largely the product of press attention, especially from the 'Saturday Evening Post'. In 1919 the 'Post' claimed a circulation in excess of two million, the largest in the world, and was probably the nation's most influential periodical. Under its editor, George Lorimer, the 'Post' 'reflected the United States to itself.' Lorimer favored stories that expressed in words the image of a patriotic, innocent, decent America that the young artist Norman Rockwell was beginning to portray on the cover of the magazine. When the war broke out, the prosperous 'Post' sent a veteran journalist named George Pattullo to Europe to cover the AEF. It was Pattulo who stumbled onto the York story, recognized its potential, and went to interview him on the battle site." - Lee "He spent three days withYork and his buddies, going over every foot of the terrain in the Argonne" - Lee "Pattullo's treatment of the story cast York in a heroic mold and laid the basis for the York legend. The title, 'The Second Elder Gives Battle,' suggested the characteristics of the Christian warrior that York came to personify. Pattullo discussed at length York's deep religious faith and how it had changed his life in 1915 and had given him deep doubts about the morality of soldiering." - Lee |