Part 24

"The part which Corporal York individually played in this attack (the capture of the Decauville Railroad) is difficult to estimate. Practically unassisted, he captured 132 Germans (three of whom were officers), took about 35 machine guns and killed no less than 25 of the enemy, later found by others on the scene of York's extraordinary exploit.

"The story has been carefully checked in every possible detail from Headquarters of this Division and is entirely substantiated.

"Altho Corporal York's statement tends to underestimate the desperate odds which he overcame, it has been decided to forward to higher authority the account given in his own words.

"The success of this assault had a far-reaching effect in relieving the enemy pressure against American forces in the heart of the Argonne Forest."

In decorating Sergeant York with the Croix de Guerre with Palm, Marshal Foch said to him:

"What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of Europe."

When the officers of York's regiment were securing the facts for their report to General Headquarters and were recording the stories of the survivors, York was questioned on his efforts to escape the onslaught of the machine guns:

"By this time, those of my men who were left had gotten behind trees, and the men sniped at the Boche. But there wasn't any tree for me, so I just sat in the mud and used my rifle, shooting at the machine gunners."

The officers recall his quaint and memorable answer to the inquiry on the tactics he used to defend himself against the Boche who were in the gun-pits, shooting at him from behind trees and crawling for him through the brush. His method was simple and effective:

"When I seed a German, I jes' tetched him off."

In the afternoon of October 8--York had brought in his prisoners by 10 o'clock in the morning--in the seventeenth hour of that day, the Eighty-Second Division cut the Decauville Railroad and drove the Germans from it. The pressure against the American forces in the heart of the Argonne Forest was not only relieved, but the advance of the division had aided in the relief of the "Lost Battalion" under the command of the late Col. Whittlesey, which had made its stand in another hollow of those hills only a short distance from the hillside where Sergeant York made his fight.

As the Eighty-Second Division swept up the three hills across the valley from Hill No. 223, the hill on the left--York's Hill--was found cleared of the enemy and there was only the wreckage of the battle that had been fought there.

York's fight occurred on the eighth day of the twenty-eight day and night battle of the Eighty-Second Division in the Argonne. They were in the forest fighting on, when the story went over the world that an American soldier had fought and captured a battalion of German machine gunners.

Even military men doubted its possibility, until the "All America" Division came out of the forest with the records they had made upon the scene, and with the clear exposition of the tactics and the remarkable bravery and generalship that made Sergeant York's achievement possible.

Alvin York faced a new experience. He found himself famous.

VII Two More Deeds of Distinction

Alvin was not prepared for the ovations that awaited him. The world gives generously to those who succeed in an extraordinary endeavor where the resource and ability of men are in competition. For intellectual achievement there is deference and wonder, for moral accomplishment there is approbation and love, but for physical courage there are all of these and an added admiration that bursts in such fervor of approval that men shout and toss their caps in air. It has been true, since the world began.

The first honors came to him from his soldier associates. Then the men of other regiments, and the regiments of other nations, wanted to see the American who single-handed had fought and forced a battalion of machine gunners to come to him. The people of France, too, were calling for him.

It was with a military yardstick the soldiers measured the deed, for they knew the fighting competency of a single machine gun and had seen the destructive power of the scythe-like sweep of a battalion of them. The civilian, in doubt and wonder, realized the magnitude of the achievement in visualizing the number of prisoners that had surrendered to one man.

The only contact Alvin York had had to the role of a man of prominence was to stand in line, at attention, as persons of importance passed before him. But when his regiment came out of the Argonne Forest, where its almost unbroken battle had lasted twenty-eight days, he was taken from the line and passed in review before the soldiers of other regiments. Under orders from headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force he traveled through the war zone. As a guest of honor he was sent to cities in southern France. In Paris he was received with impressive ceremonies by President Poincare and the government officials, It was during this period that many of the military awards were made to him, and brigade reviews were selected as the occasions for his decoration.

Against this background of enthusiasm, the tall, reserved, silent mountaineer, in natural repose, moved through the varying programs of a day. As all was new to him, he complied with almost childlike docility to the demands upon him, but he was ever watchful that his conduct should conform to that of those around him. If called upon to speak, he responded; and he stood before the cheering crowds in noticeable mental control. The few words he used did not misfire nor jam. They ended in a smile of real fellowship that beamed from a rugged face that was furrowed and tanned, and always with the quaint mountain phrase of appreciation, "I thank ye!" In the months he remained with the army in France he grew in personal popularity from his unaffected bearing.

The letters written home to his mother during this period show him basically unchanged.

These letters, usually two a week, were the same as those he had been writing all the while. In them were but few references to himself. Even in the privacy of his correspondence with his home, there was not a boastful thought over a thing that he had done, and only the vaguest reference to the homage paid to him, as tho it were all a part of a soldier's life. It was only through others that the mother learned of the honors given to her son in France.

At the beginning of each letter he quieted his mother's forebodings for him, and he turned to inquiries about home. Out of his pay of $30 a month as a private soldier he had assigned $25 of it to his mother. He wanted to know that the remittances had reached her. Two brothers had married and moved away. Henry, the eldest, was living in Idaho, and Albert in Kentucky. He wanted news of them. Two other married brothers, Joe and Sam, while still living in the valley, were not at the old home. He wanted every detail about their crops that told of their welfare.

His most valuable personal possession was two mules. Were George and Jim and Robert, the younger brothers, keeping those mules fat? How much of the farm were they preparing to "put in corn"? Corn was sure to be scarce and would be worth $2.50 by harvest time! Was Mrs. Embry Wright, his only married sister, staying with his mother to comfort her? Were Lilly and Lucy, his little sisters, still helping her with the hard work--of course they were! And in every letter there was an inquiry about the sweetheart he had left behind.

The mother, when each letter had been read, placed it upright on the board shelf which was the mantel of the family fireplace. When a new letter came she took down the old one and put it carefully away. So there was always "some news from Alvin" which was accessible to all the neighbors.

"Will" Wright, president of the Bank of Jamestown, received the first printed story that gave any description of the fight Alvin had "put up" in the Forest of Argonne, and Mr. Wright hurried to Mrs. York with it. With the family gathered around her in that hut in the mountains, and with tears running down her expectant face, she learned for the first time what her boy had done. She made Mr. Wright read the story--not once, but seven times.

America was ready for Sergeant York when among the returning soldiers his troop-ship touched port--the harbor of New York in May, 1919. The story of the man had run ahead--his fight in the forest, that had added to the cubic stature of the American soldier; the artlessness of his life and the genuineness of his character, which as yet showed no alloy; the modest, becoming acceptance of illustrious honors paid to him in France. The people saw in this simple, earnest mountaineer the type of American that had made America. They thought of him as coming from that stratum of clay that could be molded into a rail-splitter and, when the need arose, remodeled into the nation's leader. And quickly and unexpectedly, Sergeant York was destined to show by two other deeds, prompted by an inborn eminence, that the esteem was not misplaced.