The Church Elder and Champion Turkey-Shooter Who Killed 25 Germans and
Captured a Machine Gun Battalion
Six feet tall, weighing a trifle over two hundred pounds, brawny as
becomes a man whose time was divided between blacksmithing and farming,
clear-cut and strong of feature, kindly of disposition but positive and
resolute by the testimony of keen blue eyes and flaming red hair—that
is the general description of Alvin C. York, native of the Tennessee
Mountains, extraordinary hero of the Argonne Battle, and modest withal.
There is no story of the great war that reads more like an extravagant
fiction; but it is thoroughly attested, its truth unquestionably
established by official investigation and by the sworn statements of
fellow soldiers as one of the most amazing individual achievements in
the four years crowded with deeds of almost incredible heroism and
daring.
In a sentence: On Oct. 8, 1918, less than a year after he joined the
army, Alvin C. York, as Corporal York, Company G, 328th Infantry, 82d
Division, A. E. F., during operations in the Argonne sector, killed
twenty-five Germans, captured 132 prisoners, including a major and
several lieutenants, and put out of commission thirty-five machine
guns—and did it by his “lonesome,” subduing the machine gun battalion
with his rifle and automatic pistol.
Now, the thing that gives vivid additional interest to the thrilling
story is the fact that its hero was an elder of the Church of Christ
and Christian Union—a sect scrupulously opposed to any kind of fighting
and firm as conscientious objectors to war—and was one of the most
devout and earnest members of his home church, in Pall Mall, Tennessee.
And thereby hangs a romance!
He had been one of the young bucks of the region, a typical
mountaineer; a dead shot with rifle or pistol; champion of the
turkey-shooting matches; breezy, jovial, liberal of oath, free
with the demijohn, and not averse to a fight. He was one of eleven
children, having seven brothers and three sisters, and when his father
(blacksmith and farmer) died in 1911, Alvin, then twenty-four years
old, took on the two occupations as head of the family; the older
brothers married and went away. But in hours not demanded by smithy or
farm he followed the bent of his old habits for the next two or three
years, when, yielding to his mother’s entreaties, he gave up drinking
and settled into sobriety. The “girl of all the world” urged him
to join the church. So he waited a year, thinking the thing over.
Convinced that it was the right course to pursue, he joined the church
in 1915.
[Illustration:
© _Underwood and Underwood._