Humpday History Highlight
By Wyatt Earp | October 9, 2008
I have been so busy this week, that I forgot the HHH. Although it is officially Thursday on the East Coast, I am using a story from Wednesday.
October 8, 1918 - Sergeant Alvin York Displays Heroics At Argonne
On this day in 1918, United States Corporal Alvin C. York reportedly kills over 20 German soldiers and captures an additional 132 at the head of a small detachment in the Argonne Forest near the Meuse River in France. The exploits later earned York the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Born in 1887 in a log cabin near the Tennessee-Kentucky border, York was the third of 11 children in a family supported by subsistence farming and hunting. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a fundamentalist Christian around 1915. Two years later, when the United States entered World War I, York was drafted into the U.S. Army. After being denied conscientious-objector status, York enlisted in the 82nd Infantry Division and in May 1918 arrived in France for active duty on the Western Front. He served in the successful Saint-Mihiel offensive in September of that year, was promoted to corporal and given command of his own squadron.
The events of October 8, 1918, took place as part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive—what was to be the final Allied push against German forces on the Western Front during World War I. York and his battalion were given the task of seizing German-held positions across a valley; after encountering difficulties, the small group of soldiers—numbering some 17 men—were fired upon by a German machine-gun nest at the top of a nearby hill. The gunners cut down nine men, including a superior officer, leaving York in charge of the squadron.
As York wrote in his diary of his subsequent actions: “[T]hose machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful…. I didn’t have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn’t even have time to kneel or lie down…. As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. In order to sight me or to swing their machine guns on me, the Germans had to show their heads above the trench, and every time I saw a head I just touched it off. All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn’t want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had.”
Several other American soldiers followed York’s lead and began firing; as they drew closer to the machine-gun nest, the German commander—thinking he had underestimated the size of the enemy squadron—surrendered his garrison of some 90 men. On the way back to the Allied lines, York and his squad took more prisoners, for a total of 132. Though Alvin York consistently played down his accomplishments of that day, he was given credit for killing more than 20 German soldiers. Promoted to the rank of sergeant, he remained on the front lines until November 1, 10 days before the armistice. In April 1919, York was awarded the highest American military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. (H/T - History.com)
World War I is not the most romanticized war, but the heroics displayed are amongst the greatest the world has ever seen. God Bless Sergeant York.
Topics: HHH |
October 9th, 2008 at 6:04 am
And it made for a damn good movie, too.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Ditto on the movie….
WWI was a bloody mess. Most of the heroics that took place on a daily basis went unrecognized in the medal dept.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:21 am
They don’t make them like that anymore.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
He was a real hero, and yes I have been to the Alvin C. York memorial grist mill. Highly recommended if you are touristing through Kentucky or Tennessee.
You think I’m kidding? Google it bitches!
October 9th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Now that’s what I call a hero, and Woody, I’ll google it, I’ll google it!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
GroovyVic - I haven’t seen it all the way through, but what I saw, I loved.
Admiral - They still do, but the MSM doesn’t acknowledge them.
Woody - A grist mill? Do they make gristle?
Morgan - Don’t make him come over there!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I googled it, I googled it! Next time I go to Tennessee, I’ll make a point of it.