Alvin York: the reluctant hero of the Argonne

Alvin York did not want to fight at all. A devout backwoods Tennessean, he sought to be excused from World War I as a conscientious objector. Yet in the Argonne forest in 1918 he led an attack of extraordinary courage, and came home one of the most decorated and celebrated American soldiers of the war.¹

The conscientious objector

Born in a Tennessee valley in 1887, York was a crack shot who drank, gambled and brawled as a young man until a religious conversion at a revival made him a devoted member of a strict church that held convictions against violence and war. Drafted in 1917, he at first sought status as a conscientious objector. After long reflection and talks with his officers, he came to believe he could serve, and shipped to France with the infantry. A generation later Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist, refused even to carry a rifle and still won the Medal of Honor as a medic on Okinawa.²

His exact birth date was 13 December 1887. He grew up in Fentress County as one of eleven children in a family that scraped a living from subsistence farming and hunting around Pall Mall. His conversion came in 1914, after the death of a close friend, at a revival held by the Church of Christ in Christian Union. His draft notice arrived on 5 June 1917 from his pastor, Rosier Pile, and on his draft card York wrote "Dont [sic] want to fight." The review boards turned him down because they did not recognize his church as a legitimate sect. At Camp Gordon, Georgia, he joined Company G of the 328th Infantry, 82nd Division, and impressed as a marksman. His company and battalion commanders, Captain Edward Danforth and Major G. Edward Buxton, talked the Bible through with him. According to his biographer Douglas Mastriano, York was still not sure he could kill for his country, but he knew he could die for it, and that was enough.³

The Argonne

On 8 October 1918, during the great Meuse-Argonne Offensive, York's unit was pinned by German machine guns. In the fighting that followed he took charge of a small group of survivors and, using his marksmanship, silenced gun after gun. By the end his party had killed a number of the enemy and captured 132 German soldiers, a feat that won him the Medal of Honor.⁴

What happened on 8 October 1918?

Near Châtel-Chéhéry, seventeen Americans under Sergeant Bernard Early worked their way behind German lines and surprised a German unit, which began to surrender. Machine guns on the slope above then opened fire, killing or wounding nine of the Americans. Corporal York, a crack shot, fought back almost alone until a German officer surrendered his men: 132 prisoners in all.⁵

The 328th Infantry had entered the Argonne on 5 October and on the 8th was ordered to take Hills 223 and 240. Early's detachment was sent to deal with the machine guns and seize the narrow-gauge Decauville railroad, but according to the Tennessee Encyclopedia the men misread their French map and blundered into the German rear. When the guns on the hill opened fire, they killed York's closest friend in the unit, Murray Savage. Early was badly wounded, and Corporals Harry Parsons and William Cutting, now in charge, told York to silence the guns. A German officer emptied his pistol at York without hitting him, then gave up. York and seven men marched the prisoners back to the American lines: by the Medal of Honor citation, 4 officers and 128 men.⁶

How many Germans did Alvin York kill?

About 25 to 28, depending on the source. The National Park Service's National Register nomination for his farm and the biographer Douglas Mastriano both give 25; an Army biography says he was credited with 25 and later with 28. The Medal of Honor citation names no German dead, only the 4 officers and 128 men captured with "several guns."⁷

Popular accounts, including the same NPS nomination, add 35 machine guns put out of action. The American toll is reported differently too: the Tennessee Encyclopedia counts nine Americans killed, while the NPS nomination says nine were killed or wounded. York never claimed he had acted alone, yet only Early and Cutting were recognized, with the Distinguished Service Cross, in 1927. York himself was promoted to sergeant and received the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, Italian and Montenegrin awards and, in April 1919, the Medal of Honor. The NPS nomination cites the Allied commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, as calling the action "the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all armies of Europe."⁸

The reluctant celebrity

York returned a national hero, showered with honors he had not sought, and used his fame to support education and charity in his poor home region rather than enrich himself. His story reached a vast audience through the 1941 film Sergeant York. He died in 1964, remembered as a man who overcame his own doubts to perform one of the war's most remarkable acts of valor.⁹

After returning home in May 1919 he married Gracie Williams, whom he had met through his church. Nashville's Rotary Club and the Nashville Banner raised money for a farm and a house, built in 1922, though the Tennessee Encyclopedia notes that the gift came with a heavy mortgage. York turned down offers from Hollywood, Broadway and advertisers and spent the 1920s on speaking tours to raise money for a school for the children of Fentress County, the York Institute. In 1939 he became superintendent of the Cumberland Homesteads near Crossville. Producer Jesse L. Lasky, who had watched his welcome parade in New York, brought his story to the screen in July 1941, and Gary Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing him. During World War II York, rejected for reenlistment because of his age and weight, toured for war bonds and recruiting.¹⁰

How did Alvin York die?

York died on 2 September 1964, after a decade as an invalid: a stroke in 1954 had left him bedridden. His last years were also shadowed by a tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over his film earnings, settled after President John F. Kennedy intervened in 1961. He was buried with full military honors.¹¹

His grave is in the cemetery of the Wolf River Methodist Church, across the Wolf River from his farm. Today a Tennessee state historic site at Pall Mall preserves his 1922 house, the gristmill he acquired in 1943 and his grave, and the York farm is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.¹²

Why is Alvin York famous?

Because a reluctant soldier performed one of the most celebrated feats of World War I and then refused to cash in on it. The Tennessee Encyclopedia argues that he captured the imagination less for who he was than for what he symbolized: a humble, self-reliant, God-fearing patriot who acted only when provoked.¹³

Historian Dixon Wecter, quoted in the NPS nomination, saw him as the kind of hero Americans love most, the man of peace who leaves his trade just long enough to beat soldiers at their own game; for Robert McGaw his "modesty and his devotion to his people" "magnified the legend that he became." Thanks in part to the film, the US World War I Centennial Commission calls him the most famous American soldier of the war, and Mastriano holds up his initiative on 8 October as a model of what today's Army calls mission command. His fight was one episode of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, part of the Allied Hundred Days Offensive that ended with the Armistice and one of the greatest battles of World War I.¹⁴