How Sergeant York Became America’s Hero
More than a million Americans sailed to Europe in 1917 and 1918 to fight in the Great War. Only three of them, all well over 100 years old, are alive today. And of all who fought, just one emerged as the exemplary doughboy—Alvin York. On this date in 1918, York performed a feat of bravery and military skill that would amaze his countrymen, change his life, and etch his place in the history books. When all the participants in the epic conflict are gone, very soon, their stories preserved only in books, handed-down memories, and granite inscriptions, Alvin York’s name will live on.
In late September 1918, the Allies had begun a massive offensive intended to end the war before winter. During that campaign, a battalion of about 600 Americans was surrounded near the Argonne Forest in northeastern France. An attempt had to be made to relieve the force, which became known as the Lost Battalion. Corporal York’s unit, part of the 82nd Infantry Division, was ordered to push back the Germans and cut a rail line as part of the action. York and his companions had endured the trenches since June, but they had so far seen little action.
The attack began at 6 a.m., and the Americans soon learned what many already knew, that the introduction of the machine gun had swung the advantage in modern warfare strongly to the defender. Offense still relied on men charging into enemy fire.
The assault bogged down as the troops, crossing the 500-yard valley that separated them from the Germans, were raked by fire from the high ground. Sgt. Bernard Early broke off from the main attack and led three squads, including York’s, on an attempt to outflank the enemy machine guns.
The 17 men walked a mile and a half through the dense forest before they stumbled onto a rear position of the enemy. The Germans, their morale flagging after four years of war, promptly surrendered. Then chaos broke out. German machine gunners on a nearby hill turned their weapons around and fired down. The prisoners dropped to the ground to avoid the hail of bullets; nine Americans, including Early, were hit.
York, lying between the prisoners and the gunners, began to pick off any man who showed his head above the parapet. His background had something to do with what followed. He had been born in 1887 in a two-room log cabin in the hills of northern Tennessee and was a bona fide backwoodsman. His schooling had not extended past the third grade, but his skills had been honed in the hardscrabble struggle for subsistence. Hunting for food had made him a crack shot, and he had taken numerous prizes at turkey shoots back home.
His marksmanship served him well on the morning of October 8. He managed to kill more than 20 Germans, including five who rushed at him with fixed bayonets. A German lieutenant offered to surrender and blew a whistle to signal his men to lay down their arms.
York found himself behind enemy lines with several dozen prisoners. The lieutenant asked how many of his own men he had with him. “I have got plenty,” York answered, training his pistol on the man. In fact, only eight Americans remained.
Accustomed to maneuvering in deep woods, York guided his prisoners back toward American lines. On the way, he picked up additional Germans, who were startled to find the Americans at their backs. By the time he reached the U.S. position, York and his few companions were marshaling a parade of 132 enemy soldiers. His feat knocked the wind out of a planned German counterattack.
He spent several more weeks in combat and came close to being killed by an exploding shell. Having been promoted to sergeant, he was on furlough on November 11 when he heard the news that the war was over.
Rumors of his exploit circulated among the troops and caught the attention of George Pattullo, a correspondent for The Saturday Evening Post, the most influential publication in America. Pattullo’s story, “The Second Elder Gives Battle,” highlighted another facet of York’s civilian life. A hellraiser as a young man, York had converted to a fundamentalist Christian faith in 1914 and had applied for conscientious objector status. When the draft board rejected his claim, he reluctantly agreed to serve, but he insisted that he loathed killing.
Such a stance appealed to Americans, many of whom had themselves been ambivalent about the war. York was both a rustic reminiscent of Davy Crockett and a citizen soldier in the Minuteman tradition. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his deed.
Famous overnight, he was treated to a tickertape parade in New York. He was not smitten by the hoopla. He deliberately turned his back on a fortune in promotional offers—a rifle company offered him $1,000 to fire one shot from its product before a camera—because he didn’t feel he should make money off his service. “I didn’t go to war to make a heap. . . . I went over there to help make peace.” He soon returned to his widowed mother and married the girl he had left behind.
It was 20 years before he allowed his heroic actions that October morning to be rendered on film. Sergeant York, with Gary Cooper intoning York’s backwoods dialect, was a huge hit in 1941; the story took on fresh relevance as the nation itself, like York a generation before, pondered whether to go to war.
The movie had a happy ending, but York’s experience on returning from the war was, like that of many less celebrated veterans, difficult. The Nashville Rotary gave him a farm, but he had to go into debt to work it. A postwar collapse of agricultural prices made times difficult for all farmers, and he was plagued by financial problems for the rest of his life.
A devout idealist, he worked to improve conditions in his native Fentress County. He campaigned for better roads and particularly for educational opportunities for children. “I ain’t had much learning myself,” he said, “so I know what an awful handicap that is.” When he went on speaking tours to raise money for education, listeners pestered him for details about his war adventure. He answered, “I am trying to forget the war.”
Age and obesity kept him out of World War II, but he gave pep talks to troops and sold war bonds. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1954 and spent 10 years as an invalid before he died. In its obituary, The New York Times called him “the latter-day descendant of the American frontier, a plain-talking, no-nonsense sharpshooter.”