Part 23

"So he blew a little whistle and they quit shooting and came down and gave up. I had about 80 or 90 Germans there.

"They disarmed and we had another line of Germans to go through to get out. So I called for my men and one answered me from behind a big oak tree and the other men were on my right in the brush.

"So I said, 'Let's get these Germans out of here.' One of my men said, 'It's impossible.' So I said, 'No, let's get them out of here.'

"When my men said that this German major said, 'How many have you got?'

"And I said, 'I got a plenty,' and pointed my pistol at him all the time.

"In this battle I was using a rifle or a 45 Colt automatic pistol.

"So I lined the Germans up in a line of twos and I got between the ones in front and I had the German major before me. So I marched them right straight into those other machine guns, and I got them. When I got back to my Major's P. C. I had 132 prisoners.

"So you can see here in this case of mine where God helped me out. I had been living for God and working in church work sometime before I came to the army. I am a witness to the fact that God did help me out of that hard battle for the bushes were shot off all around me and I never got a scrach.

"So you can see that God will be with you if you will only trust Him, and I say He did save me."

"By this time," he wrote; "the Germans from on the hill was shooting at me. 'Well, I was giving them the best I had."

That best was the courage to stand his ground and fight it out with them, regardless of their number, for they were the defilers of civilization, murderers of men, the enemies of fair play who had shown no quarter to his pals who were slain unwarned while in the act of granting mercy to men in their power.

That best was the morale of the soldier who believes that justice is on his side and that the justness of God will shield him from harm.

And in physical qualities, it included a heart that was stout and a brain that was clear--a mind that did not weaken when all the hilltop above flashed in a hostile blaze, when the hillside rattled with the death drum-beat of machine gun-fire and while the very air around him was filled with darting lead. As he fought, his mind visualized the tactics of the enemy in the moves they made, and whether the attack upon him was with rifle or machine gun, hand-grenade or bayonet, he met it with an unfailing marksmanship that equalized the disparity in numbers.

Another passage in his direct and simple story shows the character of this man who came from a distant recess of the mountains with no code of ethics except a confidence in his fellow man.

Those of the Americans who were not killed or wounded in the first machine gun-fire had saved themselves as York had done. They had dived into the brush and lay flat upon the ground, behind trees, among the prisoners, protected by any obstruction they could find, and the stream of bullets passed over them.

York was at the left, beyond the edge of the thicket. The others were shut off by the underbrush from a view of the German machine guns that were firing on them. York had the open of the slope of the hill, and it fell to him to fight the fight. He wrote in his diary when he could find time, and the story was written in "fox-holes" in the Forest of Argonne, in the evenings after the American soldiers had dug in. Tho his records were for no one but himself, he had no thought that raised his performance of duty above that of his comrades:

"They killed 6 and wounded 3. That just left 8 and we got into it right. So we had a hard battle for a little while."

Yet, in the height of the fight, not a shot was fired but by York.

In their admiration for him and his remarkable achievement, so that the honor should rest where it belonged, the members of the American patrol who were the survivors of the fight made affidavits that accounted for all of them who were not killed or wounded, and showed the part each took. These affidavits are among the records of Lieut. Col. G. Edward Buxton, Jr., Official Historian of the Eighty-Second Division. At the time of the fight Sergeant York was still a Corporal.

From the affidavit by Private Patrick Donohue:

"During the shooting, I was guarding the mass of Germans taken prisoners and devoted my attention to watching them. When we first came in on the Germans, I fired a shot at them before they surrendered. Afterwards I was busy guarding the prisoners and did not shoot. I could only see Privates Wills, Sacina and Sok. They were also guarding prisoners as I was doing."

From the affidavit by Private Michael A. Sacina:

"I was guarding the prisoners with my rifle and bayonet on the right flank of the group of prisoners. I was so close to these prisoners that the machine gunners could not shoot at me without hitting their own men. This I think saved me from being hit. During the firing, I remained on guard watching these prisoners and unable to turn around and fire myself for this reason. I could not see any of the other men in my detachment. From this point I saw the German captain and had aimed my rifle at him when he blew his whistle for the Germans to stop firing. I saw Corporal York, who called out to us, and when we all joined him, I saw seven Americans beside myself. These were Corp. York, Privates Beardsley, Donohue, Wills, Sok, Johnson and Konatski."

From the affidavit by Private Percy Beardsley:

"I was at first near Corp. York, but soon after thought it would be better to take to cover behind a large tree about fifteen paces in rear of Corp. York. Privates Dymowski and Waring were on each side of me and both were killed by machine gun-fire. I saw Corp. York fire his pistol repeatedly in front of me. I saw Germans who had been hit fall down. I saw the German prisoners who were still in a bunch together waving their hands at the machine gunners on the hill as if motioning for them to go back. Finally the fire stopped and Corp. York told me to have the prisoners fall in columns of two's and take my place in the rear."

From the affidavit by Private George W. Wills:

"When the heavy firing from the machine guns commenced, I was guarding some of the German prisoners. During this time I saw only Privates Donohue, Sacina, Beardsley and Muzzi. Private Swanson was right near me when he was shot. I closed up very close to the Germans with my bayonet on my rifle and prevented some of them who tried to leave the bunch and get into the bushes from leaving. I knew my only chance was to keep them together and also keep them between me and the Germans who were shooting. I heard Corp. York several times shouting to the machine gunners on the hill to come down and surrender, but from where I stood I could not see Corp. York. I saw him, however, when the firing stopped and he told us to get along sides of the column. I formed those near me in columns of two's."

The report which the officers of the Eighty-Second Division made to General Headquarters contained these statements: