October 9, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Sgt. Alvin York— the reluctant World War I infantryman who became an American legend—has stood as a symbol of courage and sacrifice for over a century. The Tennessee mountaineer whose religious convictions at first kept him from fighting became the recipient of the Medal of Honor and nearly 50 other decorations for single handedly capturing (132) or killing (28) an entire German machine‐gun battalion. Here to tell the story is JD Phillips, who runs the popular YouTube channel, The Appalachian Storyteller.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Sergeant Alvin York, the reluctant World War One infantryman who
became an American legend, has stood as a symbol of
American courage and sacrifice for well over a century. The
(00:31):
Tennessee mountaineer, whose religious convictions had first kept him from fighting,
became the recipient of the Medal of Honor. And we're
telling you this story because on this day in history,
in nineteen eighteen, Alvin York made his name by capturing
one hundred and thirty two Germans. Here to tell a
story is j. D. Phillips, who runs the popular YouTube
(00:52):
channel The Appalachian Storyteller. JD will be telling the story
of Alvin York as Alvin himself, using York's own world
words from his autobiography, Sergeant York, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Truth be told. I couldn't tell you how long my
ancestors have called these mountains home. It's further back than
I could ever know. You see, they were the first
white people to ever set foot on this land, dating
back to my great great grandfather when he first arrived.
He lived in a cave near the Wolf River in
(01:26):
an area now known as pall Mall Valley in East Tennessee,
after somehow getting past the Cherokees, and since he was
the first white man here, he had the first choice
of the land. And that's how it came to be
that my family owns all the valley and most of
the mountains surrounding it. Like most mountain men back in
those days, my grandpa was a fighter. He left this
(01:49):
valley to go and fight in the Great Mexican War,
where he served with skill and honor. However, war can
kill a man even while his heart still beats, leaving
us so oldest man the equivalent of a dead man walking.
And when my Grandpap returned from Mexico, he was a
shadow of himself and he soon died. Now, my Grandpap
(02:11):
on my mama's side was also a fighter, a Northerner
who fought with the cavalry. After the war, he had
made enemies with rival clans. Now, back in those days,
there was no law to speak of, and every man
put on a pistol every morning, just as sure as
he put on his pants and his boots. When one
of those leaders of the rival clan died. Folks pointed
(02:33):
fingers at Grandpap, and even though there was no evidence,
they killed Grandpap, they hooked a mule to his body
and they drug him through the dirt streets of Jamestown,
and they shot his body to pieces as a warning
to anyone who might ever cross them. So you see,
my ancestors were all pioneers and soldiers, god fearing people,
(02:55):
like most mountain folk. I grew up in a one
room log cabin, the same one my father and his
father before him lived in. I sat in the same
spot where our ancestors first cleared the land, hewing the
logs with the broad axe. The walls were chinked with
horse hair, mud, and sticks, and the inside of the
(03:18):
cabin walls was covered in newspapers and pages of magazines
to help keep the bitter winter cold out. My paw
was a blacksmith, and his shop was located in the
very same cave where my great great Grandpap had spent
his first night when he first came into this valley.
Like many of my ancestors, it came before me. His
(03:39):
cave is where I cut my teeth as a blacksmith apprentice.
All work was a necessity of daily life. My father's
first love was hunting with his trusty muzzleoder. He spent
most of his days hunting and blacksmith and at night.
And Paul, he was the best shot I'd ever seen
in my life, and he taught me how to shoot.
He loved competing with other shooters. Paul would win every match.
(04:05):
A popular game back then was to tie a turkey
behind a log, and the marksmen will position themselves about
one hundred yards away and they would take turns shooting.
Each time the turkey would poke his head up from
behind the log, the winner would get ten cents and
get to keep the turkey. And Paul's advice to me
would always be just be accurate the first time. And
(04:28):
when you shoot a muzzle loader, well, we all learned
how to make each shot count. I love my paw.
I grew up with him, and I worked in the
blacksmith's shop with him. Like all mountain women, Ma Ma
was a hard worker and she loved the Lord, her
man and her children. Even though we didn't have much,
she did her best to raise me right, and Lord
(04:50):
knows that she had her hands full with eleven boys
and three girls. Even though I was the third oldest
of the boys, I was the biggest and the strongest
of all my brothers. All of us kids had a
hard time going to school, mainly because back in those days,
there were hardly any schools in these remote mountains, and
even if there was a school, it would be three
(05:12):
miles away through the rugged terrain on a road that
was barely more than an animal trail. Most folks needed
their kids at home helping with tending to the animals
and the crops, so school, how it was mostly an afterthought.
It only ran for about three months a year, but
when it was in session there would be one hundred
(05:33):
or so barefooted mountain children piled into a small one
room schoolhouse with primitive bench seating with no backs. By
the time I was in the third grade, my paw
he suddenly died. Life could never be the same, so
I quit school and I never went back. All totaled,
(05:56):
I had just nine months of schooling, and with me
being the biggest boy in the house, I was suddenly
task with somehow bringing money into the household to help
us survive. When I wasn't working on her farm or
in the blacksmith shop. Mama would hire me out to
(06:17):
work on neighboring farms for forty cents a day. And
by the time I was in my teens and with
my PAW's stern hand no longer around to guide me,
it wasn't long before I started getting into trouble and
developing a reputation for being a bit of a hell raiser.
Aul did her best to keep me in line, but
every day after work, I'd spend all night drinking and gambling. Now,
(06:41):
just because I'd quit school in third grade didn't mean
I couldn't read. Oh heck, I loved to read about
the outlaws like Frank and Jesse James. I admired the
way those boys could shoot, and I still loved to shoot,
just like my pau had taught me. I'd put a
target up on a tree, and I'd ride my horse
and around that tree, shooting it up. Before long, I
(07:04):
could shoot as well as my paw ever did, And
although I was working as much as possible, my downfall
proved to be the powerful combination the moonshine cards.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And you've been listening to J. D. Phillips, the Appalachian
storyteller using the words of Sergeant Yorke himself. When we
come back more of this remarkable story here on our
American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
(07:36):
and we do it all from the heart of the
South Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly can't do this show
without you. Our shows will always be free to listen to,
but they're not free to make. If you love what
you hear, consider making a tax deductible donation to our
American Stories. Go to our American Stories dot com. Give
a little, give a lot. That's our American Stories dot com.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with JD. Phillips,
the Appalachian Storyteller, telling the story of Alvin York In
Alvin Yorke's own words from his autobiography, Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Week after week, I would gamble all my money away
out all night drunk, and naturally that led to fist fighting.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I can't tell you how many grown men I thought
when I was a teen, but I can tell you this,
I never got whipped unless it was by my maw
night after night month after month. This went on for
nearly six years until I was in my early twenties.
Yet each time I'd stare at the bottom of another
empty bottle, I realized that no matter how much I drank,
(08:59):
it would never be able to feel the void inside
my soul. Folks around me were living their lives, but
I was stuck in a drunken stuber Constantly, I knew
I needed to change, but like so many great men
before me, I was a slave to the poison contained
in each sip of moonshine. The only person in my
life who hadn't given up on me was my mother.
(09:22):
There she was constantly telling me, son, you best go
easy down that road and get right with the Lord.
One night, my best friend was killed in a bar fight,
and I staggered home drunk from Nome. I got in
after midnight, and I found my mo sitting out waiting
(09:42):
for me. Ma, why aren't you in bed, I asked,
I can't. I can't never sleep for worrying about the
day that somebody's gonna come walking through that door and
telling me that you're dead, she said, And in that moment,
my mother's up and she looked deep into my eyes,
and she said, son, when are you going to become
(10:05):
a real man like your father and your grandfather's And
those words hid me hard, and I promised her that
night that I would never drink again. I would never smoke, chew, cuss,
or fight or gamble again. And so it was from
(10:27):
that moment on I never drank any whiskey, touched any cards,
or fought against any man. Mama saved my life that night.
Just like Paul in the Bible, the things I once
loved I now hate. One night there was a revival
and an evangelist from Indiana was preaching at the small
(10:49):
church down the road. His words spoke to me, and
for the first time I really listened. I mean, I
had grown up Methodists, but there was something different about
this preacher. And after the meeting, I spent many days
talking with him, and I respected the words that this
man spoke. He spoken away I had never heard before,
and I believe what he said, and he drew me
(11:10):
closer to God. He always spoke with the strict words
from the scriptures. It was far different than my Methodist upbringing.
He spoke of punishment for the wicked and a place
of happiness for those who lived for the Lord. And
before long I got saved in the Wolf Creek Church
of Christ, and eventually I became an elder in the church. Heck,
(11:31):
I had always had a good singing voice, and soon
I was leading the singing choir. Somehow I had turned
my entire life around from the road of destruction that
I was bound for. Now, even though we didn't have
many newspapers or major roads out in our little area,
the railroads were quickly being built, and they became the
(11:52):
primary source of how folks first got word of news
going on in the outside world. I was working on
the railroad and harrim And, Tennessee when I heard about
this great war that was going on. A few weeks later,
I got a postcard in the mail telling me to
go register just in case the government wanted me to
(12:14):
go fight in the war. There, I was a grown man,
thirty years old. I was driving still and blasting dynamite
and mountains, hoping to build the railroad for one dollar
and sixty cents a day. While I loved my country,
I was a devout Christian, and I'd swore off fightin
many years ago, and the very thought of killing a
(12:36):
man went against every fiber of my being. I simply
wrote on that postcard that I wouldn't go and fight
because it was against my religion, and I mailed it
back to him. Yet, a few months later, I got
an official letter notifying me that the Church of Christ
wasn't recognized by the government as an official religion. Therefore,
(12:57):
my request not to fight was denied, and I was
ordered to report to Jamestown, Tennessee, to be shipped off
to Army basic training in Atlanta, Georgia immediately. For the
next two nights, I wrestled deep within my soul on
what I should do. I couldn't find assurance in the
(13:17):
thought of fighting and killing foreign men whom I harbored
no ill will or hate for. Suddenly, on the third day,
I found myself standing on my Grandpa's favorite spot on
our farm. It was here that after two and a
half days, the voice of God spoke to my heart,
and he assured me that the calling was right and
(13:37):
that it was all right for me to go. And
God assured me that I would return to my family
without a single scratch upon my head. And while it
was very hard for my mother and my brothers and
my sisters to accept. Just like that, I left the
mountains of each Tennessee for the first time in my life,
bound for the unknown of the other side of the world.
(14:02):
Within a few days, I arrived at Camp Gordon after
several days of traveling on a train. I was exhausted.
The first morning, they made all the new recruits pick
up cigarette butts in the yards. I looked around, and
I saw nothing but sandy flatness. I never realized how
much I loved those mountains that I grew up in
until that moment. Before long, they assigned me to Coompany
(14:28):
G three hundred and twenty eighth Infantry, the eighty second Division.
Now this division was made up of men from every
state in America. There were rural folk and city folk,
all just blended together. Yet I was the only mountain
man in the entire company. The only thing we all
had in common was we were all poor, or, as
the drill sergeants kept telling us, the best that America
(14:50):
had to offer to defend freedom. They put me in
the bunks near a bunch of Italian and Greek men.
None of us could understand what the other fellow was
even saying. Every night was a sleepless night. I had
never been so homesick in my entire life. Before long,
they put a gun in my hand, and they seemed
proud at the quality of the weapon, all those city
(15:12):
boys being with pride. Most of them they had never
held a gun before me. My first thought was how
greasy it was. My paw taught me how to keep
a rifle as clean as a newborn baby, because back home,
our lives depended on these guns. First thing I did
was to take that thing and break it into a
million parts and clean it squeaky clean. The looks on
(15:34):
the drill sergeant's faces seemed like they had never seen
someone clean a gun like that before, and one of
them asked me how I knew how to do it,
and I replied, Sir, we make our own rifles back home.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Sir, we make our own rifles back home. Sir Alvin
Yorke said to his commanding officer at the time, what
a scene that must have been, Right, all these city
slickers holding a gun for the first time, and here's
Yorke looking at it with semi disgust, needing feeling the
urge to take it apart and clean it up, and
(16:07):
everybody just watching in amazement. What a beautiful, simple, sort
of hillbilly answer to a straight question. You're listening to J. D. Phillips,
who runs the popular YouTube channel, The Appalachian Storyteller, and
he's using Sergeant Yorke's own words from his autobiography, his
(16:27):
own life story and war diary, And my goodness, what
a story. Growing up in a one room log cabin,
the father of blacksmith, and a great shot when you
shoot a muzzleloader. His dad told him you make each
shot count. The boy they did. His dad dies when
he's in the third grade. He quits school and he
(16:49):
never goes back, only nine months of education. But he's
the oldest boy in the house. He has to hit
the streets, he has to hustle, and he's got this void.
He's lost his dad, and he just starts to drink.
He starts to gamble, and he just starts getting into trouble.
Then one night, his best friend gets killed. He goes
home and he sees his mom. She says to him, son,
(17:12):
when are you going to become a real man like
your father and grandfather? And those words cut through him.
The next thing you know, he was getting his life
in order. An evangelist, a traveling evangelist came through town,
and he rediscovered his faith and a spirit in him
and just gave up the bad things in his life
and started anew. Then came the call for the military.
(17:35):
He tried to get out of it, tried to claim
a religious exemption. It didn't happen, and then he heard
this sense and voice from God. The next thing you know,
he finds himself oversees ready for war. The story of
Alvin Yorke continues here on our American stories, and we
(18:08):
continue with our American stories and with the story of
Sergeant Alvin York as told by J. D. Phillips. Let's
pick up were JD last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Most of the new recruits were city boys, and I'll
tell you they couldn't hit nothing with those guns. Not
only would they miss the entire target, but they'd missed
the entire heel that the target was mounted on me.
I'd been shooting squirrels since I's five, and killing turkeys
at one hundred and fifty yards by the time I
was nine. Seems like all I remember doing in basic
(18:41):
training was shooting, but mostly hiking while carrying as much
weight as a man could possibly haul by himself days
of endless marching hikes and told that gun, I never
saw so many folks fall out from exhaustion it Before long,
I got a letter telling me that I've been assigned
(19:01):
to the front lines on the other side of the
world in France. Before long, I was on a train
to New York City, and a few days later Boston, Massachusetts.
An officer came through and he asked every man in
the company if they objected to going across the ocean
and fighting. When he asked me, I told him I
didn't object because I loved my country. However, to be honest,
(19:25):
I wasn't sure who was even in the right of
the wrong in this war. He simply replied to me
that blessed are the peace makers, and that we were
the peace makers. After hearing that, we all thought that
as soon as we got over there, we would be
keeping the peace. And I'll tell you right now nothing
could have been further from the truth. At four o'clock
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the next morning, we all loaded onto an old ship
and we started for France. This was the first time
I'd ever seen the ocean. Water. Everywhere I looked water,
and when I looked back towards America. All I saw
was water. While the Greeks and Italians and the Jews
withstood the voyage just fine, the rocking back and forth
(20:10):
of the ship kept me sick the entire time. We
went to sleep wearing our full gear and life preservers
twenty four seven, just in case we were attacked. I
had never wanted to go back to those mountains more
than I did in that moment. Sixteen days later, as
the sun was setting on the water behind us to
(20:31):
the west, we arrived in Liverpool, England. Within three days
we were on the move, traveling towards France. By now
I was making friends with all the other fellows in
the company. My three friends were named Corporal Murray Savage
and Sergeant Harry Parsons. They were both from Brooklyn, New York,
and then there was Lieutenant Stuart from Georgia. Anyway, we
(20:54):
arrived in France and the first thing they gave us
with gas masks. For the first month, it seemed that
all we would do was take a train to some
small town or village and higher round, until we would
suddenly get orders to board another train to some small
town or village and repeat the process. Finally, we got
orders to relieve the twenty six division boys in the
(21:16):
Montsect sector in Rambucourt. We'd moved during the middle of
the night, and we would stay there for the next
ten days. Apparently this is where the army would send
all the new troops for one final train in session
before sending them into no man's land. Tennessee started to
seem like something I had only dreamed in my mind,
and I started to question if it ever really existed
(21:39):
or if I would ever see it again. Occasionally, fire
would come in from artillery shells. Putting on gas masks
became second nature because of the constant gas shells, And
then there was the constant threat of snipers. Some of
us new meat. We would constantly be duck in our
(21:59):
heads as the sounds of bullets whizzed by. But after
a few boys were shot, we soon realized that it
was no use to duck, since no one ever hears
the bullet that hits them. At first, there was the
endless waiting in the trenches, and that seemed to be
the hard part for the Greeks and the Italians. They
wanted to go on the offensive every time one of
(22:19):
them would do something foolish like sneaking out of the
trench trying to get a better look at things. Some
one would die. And that was the trouble with my platoon.
Every one was so antsy and they couldn't sit still.
They wanted to attack and get the war over with me.
I spent most of my time reading a small bible
that I kept in my pocket. I must have read
(22:40):
that thing at least five times. We spent the next
two months constantly moving positions in the trenches. We never
knew what was the grand scheme of things. It was
a hurry up and wait and always do what you're told. Suddenly,
without warning, we were part of a big American offensive.
We captured a small town named Nory, and we kept
(23:01):
clawing our way forward. Our whole battalion found ourselves right
in the heart of the Saint Michael Drive, and suddenly
we were on the front lines. When the enemy launched
into an all out offensive. We began losing men immediately
(23:26):
to machine gun fire. Our biggest problem was we were
too anxious to get to the enemy, and we kept
pushing forward when we should have shown more patience. I'll
say this, though, those Greeks and Italians. They moved full
steam ahead, no matter what the cost was. After we
captured this town, we went house to house looking for
any prisoners or anything of value that we might use.
(23:49):
Most soldiers were looking for booze, and they quickly drank
any they had found. And while we were dug in here,
there was a huge grape vineyard in the distance. And
the longer we stayed dug in those trenches, the hungrier
we all got, and the better those grapes looked. Finally,
we couldn't stand it, so we all went into the vineyard,
unaware that there was a German observation balloon high above.
(24:13):
They unleashed an assault on us, and they killed several
more of our men. And once we made it back
to the trenches, the captain ordered us all to stay
out of those grapes. But I have to tell you
I was starving and man, I couldn't get those grapes
out of my mind. So that night I snuck back
into the vineyard as quiet as a mouse went. Suddenly,
(24:35):
on mortarshell exploded near by me. I started running for
my life when I ran into another man and we
both fell to the ground. I quickly realized that it
was the captain himself. Turns out he couldn't get those
grapes off his mind either. It seems like all of
us tried hard to find some humor to maintain our sanity,
(24:57):
constantly wearing gas masks for hour to day. Constant bombing,
sharpshooters and machine gun nests killed men every day, And
when a man was dead, dying, or badly injured, no
one came for him. They lay there beside you for
days at a time. Soon we had orders to move
(25:19):
to prepare for the Battle of Argone. We hiked for
miles through the woods that were shot up something terrible.
Even the ground was all tore up from the shelling.
By daybreak, we had made it to the main road
and aeroplanes were buzzing our heads while we crawled over
dead men and horses. All the while, shells were exploding
(25:40):
all around us. Somehow we made it to the side
of the road and some small holes that served as
makeshift bunkers. We weren't yet close enough for the machine
gun nests to reach us, but the constant shelling from
the aeroplanes was non stop, and I saw a lot
of men just blown to pieces. When the orders finally
(26:02):
came in, it was our job to take hell two
forty and he'll two twenty three by the next day.
And that day started with with a slow drizzle, but
that didn't stop the shells from falling.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And you've been listening to J. D. Phillips who runs
the popular YouTube channel, The Appalachian Storyteller, and he's telling
the story of Alvin York as Alvin himself, using Yorke's
own words from his autobiography Sergeant York, his own life
story and war diary. And my goodness, what a story
(26:39):
you're hearing, thinking little in the beginning of what was
to come, because well, he hadn't seen combat yet, being
moved from place to place within the United States, seeing
the ocean for the first time, meeting people from all
kinds of different ethnic backgrounds, thinking he was going to
go over there and quote, keep the peace, and as
(26:59):
he said, nothing could have been further from the truth
when he finally entered wheel combat. And my goodness, what
kind of combat those World War One vets faced. When
we come back more of the remarkable story of Sergeant
Alvin York here on our American Stories, and we continue
(27:37):
with our American stories and the story of Sergeant Alvin
York Let's pick up with J. D. Phillips. Where we
last left.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Off, our machine gun battalion was moving alongside on the
opposite side of the road, and we saw bomb after
bomb fall on them. The whole area looked like a
tornado or through it all day and all night long.
The machine gun nests flashed and fired non stop. Somehow,
(28:10):
in that moment, my mind traveled back home to the
other side of the world. I was standing on the
porch for a log cabin watching an old time thunderstorm
rolled across the mountains. All I had in this moment
was my faith in God. Somehow though, we mobilized with
(28:33):
orders to take Hill two twenty three. The orders were
who began to push at six a m. Just before sunrise,
take the hill and advance across the valley to the
mountains on the other side to try to take the railroad,
which was an important lifeline for the German army supplies.
By six ' ten we reached the top of the hill.
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The German machine guns were firing at us from both
sides and in the front of it. One by one.
I watched as my buddies were hit, and soon we
secured Hill two twenty three, and we set our eyes
towards the push towards the railroad. But the valley was
several hundred yards wide and machine gun nests dug in
on the opposite sides, with more guns perched on the
(29:17):
mountain planks in the ridges. To even try and run
across that valley seemed like suicide. The first wave of
American troops took off across the field.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Never cut down.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
The second wave came and suffered the exact same fate.
Almost every man was killed. Suddenly the order was given
to dig in. We were stopped dead in our tracks.
The artillery shells kept falling and thirty machine gun nests
kept firing non stop. We were trapped and they knew
exactly where we were. Somehow we had to get to
(29:53):
those machine guns that were located about three hundred yards
in front of us. We decided we would send a
small group to try to go around and somehow attacked
the guns from the back. So I was one of
seventeen men in ordered to carry out the surprise attack.
Now the valley it had lots of trees and brush
and hilly terrain for us to move stealthily and quickly,
(30:14):
and quietly we moved as our hearts were beating out
of our chest. Before long we had crossed over the
hill and positioned ourselves in a gully behind them. We
were now in no man's land, behind the enemy lines.
The brush was so thick we couldn't even see the Germans,
but the sound of the machine guns was a nightmare.
(30:38):
We kept moving until we crossed a small stream, when
suddenly we stumbled upon fifteen Germans who were eating their
breakfast in the middle of all this carnage. They jumped up,
and to our surprise, they threw their hands up and surrendered. Amazingly,
not one shot was fired. However, by now we'd been
spotted by the machine guns on top of the hill,
(31:00):
and they turned their guns around and started shooting at us.
They were only thirty yards away. Six of us were
killed instantly and three more wounded. That left only eight
of us. My friend Corporal Savage was among the dead.
All of my commanding officers were dead. That left me
in charge, and I was all alone out in the open.
(31:24):
The machine guns were cutting down the brush all around
me like a lawn more. All the while, the Germans
were yelling orders to one another, and I couldn't understand
anything they were saying. I didn't know where my other
seven men were, but most of them were holding guns
on the German prisoners. I knew that the Germans would
have to pop their heads up to see where I
was and point their machine gun at me, and some
(31:45):
calm came over me like a rush of hot water.
As I laid there in the grass, I began to
fire back at the machine gun nest I never blinked,
and every time I saw a German pop his head
up from behind those sand bags, it was like I
was shooting turk tied behind a log back in the mountains,
except those German heads were much bigger than turkey heads,
(32:06):
and there was no way I could miss anytime one
of them is so much as moved, I fired, and
I never missed the mark. It all went on for
nearly five minutes, nearly thirty machine guns firing all around me.
I emptied several clips, and the barrel of my gun
was red hot. Suddenly, six Germans jumped up out of
a nearby trench about twenty five yards away, and they
(32:28):
charged me with bayonets attached to their rifles. They were
screaming and running full speed. I only had about a
half a clip left of my rifle, so I pulled
out my pistol and I shot every one of them.
I immediately returned to firing with my rifle at those
machine guns. By now I had killed over twenty of
them before a German major appeared with his hands up
(32:51):
out of the trench in front of me, yelling English, English,
and I replied, no American, and he yelled, if you'll
stop firing, I'll make them surrender. I quickly pointed my
rifle at him, and I said, if you don't make
them surrender, I'll blow your head off. The major began
blowing a whistle, and one by one they came down
(33:12):
with their hands up, and he threw down their guns
and their belts. One man was taking off his belt
when he threw a hand grenade at me, and it
exploded in the air right in front of me. Somehow
I wasn't hurt, and I killed him instantly, Seeing that
every man on the hill surrendered, nearly one hundred of them.
And as I stood and looked around me, every tree,
(33:35):
every bush, and every bit of grass was gone. Every
area except the spot where I hid during the assault
had been shot up. There I stood without a hair
harmed on my head. God had truly kept me from.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Harm, all told Mountain boy from East Tennessee, Alvin York
had captured one hundred and thirty two German soldiers and one.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Of the greatest battles of World War One. He returned
home to America, held as the greatest war hero in history.
For his actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
A Hollywood movie was made about him.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Now supposed in these yeh cartridges is a flock of
wild turkey's a flying across the ridge, coming this way,
see right at me. Now, which one of them would
you shoot?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Question?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I'd take a crack at all of them and trust
to luck. But he wouldn't have no luck that way.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Push it?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Oh, well, then I picked the monument. So what the monument?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
The guy out in front?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Well, that ain't right either. If you want to get
more than one turkey, I wish one has got the
most mean of them. Yeah, what's the answer. Well, if
you shoot this one here, the leader, the rest of
them will see him drop and fly off. See so
you drawed down on the last turkey yet and then
the next one, see kind of coming from that to front.
(35:01):
Then the rest of them won't know there's being hit.
And if, of course, they might flare off some when
the shooting starts. But if a feller's got himself a
repeating rifle, he's got a good chance of getting the
whole flock. He sounds all right, Take he's sure, he's
dumb animals.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Seems you picked up a good bet down the hills.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Alan.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Anybody that's done any hunt knows.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That in every consumer product in America wanted his endorsement.
Yet Alvin turned his back on all of the fame
and he returned home to his farm in Tennessee. He
dedicated the remainder of his life establishing schools and educational
opportunities for the mountain children of East Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to J. D.
Phillips who runs the popular YouTube channel The Appalachian Storyteller,
And of course pick up if you care to Alvin
York's autobiography, Sergeant Yorke, his own life story and war diary,
(36:08):
and again a special thanks to J. D. Phillips for
playing the part of Alvin and reading from and performing
parts of his remarkable life story. And what a story
it was. The description of those battlefield scenes are remarkable,
those machine gun nests, the flashing lights from those machine
guns going day and night, and all the while memories
(36:31):
rekindled about home. And yet there they were with a mission,
and Alvin said, all I had in these moments was
my faith in God. Then what he was known for
that remarkable battle in which essentially he captured over one
hundred and thirty Germans almost single handedly, and all because
(36:52):
of that crack shooting that he learned in the hill
country of Tennessee turkey hunting. As he put it, the
heads of the Germans were a lot bigger than those
turkey heads. And when he came back home, every consumer
product company in the world wanted his image, wanted his likeness,
wanted his endorsement. But he turned his back on fame.
(37:16):
Sergeant Alvin York did returned home to his farm in
Tennessee and spent his adult life working on educational opportunity
for the East Tennessee Mountain kids who had grown up
just like him. The story of Alvin York, who made
his name on this day in history in nineteen eighteen
when he captured one hundred and thirty two Germans. Here
(37:39):
on our American stories.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
This doesn't best dec
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Sergeant Alvin York, the reluctant World War One infantryman who
became an American legend, has stood as a symbol of
American courage and sacrifice for well over a century. The
(00:31):
Tennessee mountaineer, whose religious convictions had first kept him from fighting,
became the recipient of the Medal of Honor. And we're
telling you this story because on this day in history,
in nineteen eighteen, Alvin York made his name by capturing
one hundred and thirty two Germans. Here to tell a
story is j. D. Phillips, who runs the popular YouTube
(00:52):
channel The Appalachian Storyteller. JD will be telling the story
of Alvin York as Alvin himself, using York's own world
words from his autobiography, Sergeant York, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Truth be told. I couldn't tell you how long my
ancestors have called these mountains home. It's further back than
I could ever know. You see, they were the first
white people to ever set foot on this land, dating
back to my great great grandfather when he first arrived.
He lived in a cave near the Wolf River in
(01:26):
an area now known as pall Mall Valley in East Tennessee,
after somehow getting past the Cherokees, and since he was
the first white man here, he had the first choice
of the land. And that's how it came to be
that my family owns all the valley and most of
the mountains surrounding it. Like most mountain men back in
those days, my grandpa was a fighter. He left this
(01:49):
valley to go and fight in the Great Mexican War,
where he served with skill and honor. However, war can
kill a man even while his heart still beats, leaving
us so oldest man the equivalent of a dead man walking.
And when my Grandpap returned from Mexico, he was a
shadow of himself and he soon died. Now, my Grandpap
(02:11):
on my mama's side was also a fighter, a Northerner
who fought with the cavalry. After the war, he had
made enemies with rival clans. Now, back in those days,
there was no law to speak of, and every man
put on a pistol every morning, just as sure as
he put on his pants and his boots. When one
of those leaders of the rival clan died. Folks pointed
(02:33):
fingers at Grandpap, and even though there was no evidence,
they killed Grandpap, they hooked a mule to his body
and they drug him through the dirt streets of Jamestown,
and they shot his body to pieces as a warning
to anyone who might ever cross them. So you see,
my ancestors were all pioneers and soldiers, god fearing people,
(02:55):
like most mountain folk. I grew up in a one
room log cabin, the same one my father and his
father before him lived in. I sat in the same
spot where our ancestors first cleared the land, hewing the
logs with the broad axe. The walls were chinked with
horse hair, mud, and sticks, and the inside of the
(03:18):
cabin walls was covered in newspapers and pages of magazines
to help keep the bitter winter cold out. My paw
was a blacksmith, and his shop was located in the
very same cave where my great great Grandpap had spent
his first night when he first came into this valley.
Like many of my ancestors, it came before me. His
(03:39):
cave is where I cut my teeth as a blacksmith apprentice.
All work was a necessity of daily life. My father's
first love was hunting with his trusty muzzleoder. He spent
most of his days hunting and blacksmith and at night.
And Paul, he was the best shot I'd ever seen
in my life, and he taught me how to shoot.
He loved competing with other shooters. Paul would win every match.
(04:05):
A popular game back then was to tie a turkey
behind a log, and the marksmen will position themselves about
one hundred yards away and they would take turns shooting.
Each time the turkey would poke his head up from
behind the log, the winner would get ten cents and
get to keep the turkey. And Paul's advice to me
would always be just be accurate the first time. And
(04:28):
when you shoot a muzzle loader, well, we all learned
how to make each shot count. I love my paw.
I grew up with him, and I worked in the
blacksmith's shop with him. Like all mountain women, Ma Ma
was a hard worker and she loved the Lord, her
man and her children. Even though we didn't have much,
she did her best to raise me right, and Lord
(04:50):
knows that she had her hands full with eleven boys
and three girls. Even though I was the third oldest
of the boys, I was the biggest and the strongest
of all my brothers. All of us kids had a
hard time going to school, mainly because back in those days,
there were hardly any schools in these remote mountains, and
even if there was a school, it would be three
(05:12):
miles away through the rugged terrain on a road that
was barely more than an animal trail. Most folks needed
their kids at home helping with tending to the animals
and the crops, so school, how it was mostly an afterthought.
It only ran for about three months a year, but
when it was in session there would be one hundred
(05:33):
or so barefooted mountain children piled into a small one
room schoolhouse with primitive bench seating with no backs. By
the time I was in the third grade, my paw
he suddenly died. Life could never be the same, so
I quit school and I never went back. All totaled,
(05:56):
I had just nine months of schooling, and with me
being the biggest boy in the house, I was suddenly
task with somehow bringing money into the household to help
us survive. When I wasn't working on her farm or
in the blacksmith shop. Mama would hire me out to
(06:17):
work on neighboring farms for forty cents a day. And
by the time I was in my teens and with
my PAW's stern hand no longer around to guide me,
it wasn't long before I started getting into trouble and
developing a reputation for being a bit of a hell raiser.
Aul did her best to keep me in line, but
every day after work, I'd spend all night drinking and gambling. Now,
(06:41):
just because I'd quit school in third grade didn't mean
I couldn't read. Oh heck, I loved to read about
the outlaws like Frank and Jesse James. I admired the
way those boys could shoot, and I still loved to shoot,
just like my pau had taught me. I'd put a
target up on a tree, and I'd ride my horse
and around that tree, shooting it up. Before long, I
(07:04):
could shoot as well as my paw ever did, And
although I was working as much as possible, my downfall
proved to be the powerful combination the moonshine cards.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And you've been listening to J. D. Phillips, the Appalachian
storyteller using the words of Sergeant Yorke himself. When we
come back more of this remarkable story here on our
American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
(07:36):
and we do it all from the heart of the
South Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly can't do this show
without you. Our shows will always be free to listen to,
but they're not free to make. If you love what
you hear, consider making a tax deductible donation to our
American Stories. Go to our American Stories dot com. Give
a little, give a lot. That's our American Stories dot com.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with JD. Phillips,
the Appalachian Storyteller, telling the story of Alvin York In
Alvin Yorke's own words from his autobiography, Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Week after week, I would gamble all my money away
out all night drunk, and naturally that led to fist fighting.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I can't tell you how many grown men I thought
when I was a teen, but I can tell you this,
I never got whipped unless it was by my maw
night after night month after month. This went on for
nearly six years until I was in my early twenties.
Yet each time I'd stare at the bottom of another
empty bottle, I realized that no matter how much I drank,
(08:59):
it would never be able to feel the void inside
my soul. Folks around me were living their lives, but
I was stuck in a drunken stuber Constantly, I knew
I needed to change, but like so many great men
before me, I was a slave to the poison contained
in each sip of moonshine. The only person in my
life who hadn't given up on me was my mother.
(09:22):
There she was constantly telling me, son, you best go
easy down that road and get right with the Lord.
One night, my best friend was killed in a bar fight,
and I staggered home drunk from Nome. I got in
after midnight, and I found my mo sitting out waiting
(09:42):
for me. Ma, why aren't you in bed, I asked,
I can't. I can't never sleep for worrying about the
day that somebody's gonna come walking through that door and
telling me that you're dead, she said, And in that moment,
my mother's up and she looked deep into my eyes,
and she said, son, when are you going to become
(10:05):
a real man like your father and your grandfather's And
those words hid me hard, and I promised her that
night that I would never drink again. I would never smoke, chew, cuss,
or fight or gamble again. And so it was from
(10:27):
that moment on I never drank any whiskey, touched any cards,
or fought against any man. Mama saved my life that night.
Just like Paul in the Bible, the things I once
loved I now hate. One night there was a revival
and an evangelist from Indiana was preaching at the small
(10:49):
church down the road. His words spoke to me, and
for the first time I really listened. I mean, I
had grown up Methodists, but there was something different about
this preacher. And after the meeting, I spent many days
talking with him, and I respected the words that this
man spoke. He spoken away I had never heard before,
and I believe what he said, and he drew me
(11:10):
closer to God. He always spoke with the strict words
from the scriptures. It was far different than my Methodist upbringing.
He spoke of punishment for the wicked and a place
of happiness for those who lived for the Lord. And
before long I got saved in the Wolf Creek Church
of Christ, and eventually I became an elder in the church. Heck,
(11:31):
I had always had a good singing voice, and soon
I was leading the singing choir. Somehow I had turned
my entire life around from the road of destruction that
I was bound for. Now, even though we didn't have
many newspapers or major roads out in our little area,
the railroads were quickly being built, and they became the
(11:52):
primary source of how folks first got word of news
going on in the outside world. I was working on
the railroad and harrim And, Tennessee when I heard about
this great war that was going on. A few weeks later,
I got a postcard in the mail telling me to
go register just in case the government wanted me to
(12:14):
go fight in the war. There, I was a grown man,
thirty years old. I was driving still and blasting dynamite
and mountains, hoping to build the railroad for one dollar
and sixty cents a day. While I loved my country,
I was a devout Christian, and I'd swore off fightin
many years ago, and the very thought of killing a
(12:36):
man went against every fiber of my being. I simply
wrote on that postcard that I wouldn't go and fight
because it was against my religion, and I mailed it
back to him. Yet, a few months later, I got
an official letter notifying me that the Church of Christ
wasn't recognized by the government as an official religion. Therefore,
(12:57):
my request not to fight was denied, and I was
ordered to report to Jamestown, Tennessee, to be shipped off
to Army basic training in Atlanta, Georgia immediately. For the
next two nights, I wrestled deep within my soul on
what I should do. I couldn't find assurance in the
(13:17):
thought of fighting and killing foreign men whom I harbored
no ill will or hate for. Suddenly, on the third day,
I found myself standing on my Grandpa's favorite spot on
our farm. It was here that after two and a
half days, the voice of God spoke to my heart,
and he assured me that the calling was right and
(13:37):
that it was all right for me to go. And
God assured me that I would return to my family
without a single scratch upon my head. And while it
was very hard for my mother and my brothers and
my sisters to accept. Just like that, I left the
mountains of each Tennessee for the first time in my life,
bound for the unknown of the other side of the world.
(14:02):
Within a few days, I arrived at Camp Gordon after
several days of traveling on a train. I was exhausted.
The first morning, they made all the new recruits pick
up cigarette butts in the yards. I looked around, and
I saw nothing but sandy flatness. I never realized how
much I loved those mountains that I grew up in
until that moment. Before long, they assigned me to Coompany
(14:28):
G three hundred and twenty eighth Infantry, the eighty second Division.
Now this division was made up of men from every
state in America. There were rural folk and city folk,
all just blended together. Yet I was the only mountain
man in the entire company. The only thing we all
had in common was we were all poor, or, as
the drill sergeants kept telling us, the best that America
(14:50):
had to offer to defend freedom. They put me in
the bunks near a bunch of Italian and Greek men.
None of us could understand what the other fellow was
even saying. Every night was a sleepless night. I had
never been so homesick in my entire life. Before long,
they put a gun in my hand, and they seemed
proud at the quality of the weapon, all those city
(15:12):
boys being with pride. Most of them they had never
held a gun before me. My first thought was how
greasy it was. My paw taught me how to keep
a rifle as clean as a newborn baby, because back home,
our lives depended on these guns. First thing I did
was to take that thing and break it into a
million parts and clean it squeaky clean. The looks on
(15:34):
the drill sergeant's faces seemed like they had never seen
someone clean a gun like that before, and one of
them asked me how I knew how to do it,
and I replied, Sir, we make our own rifles back home.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Sir, we make our own rifles back home. Sir Alvin
Yorke said to his commanding officer at the time, what
a scene that must have been, Right, all these city
slickers holding a gun for the first time, and here's
Yorke looking at it with semi disgust, needing feeling the
urge to take it apart and clean it up, and
(16:07):
everybody just watching in amazement. What a beautiful, simple, sort
of hillbilly answer to a straight question. You're listening to J. D. Phillips,
who runs the popular YouTube channel, The Appalachian Storyteller, and
he's using Sergeant Yorke's own words from his autobiography, his
(16:27):
own life story and war diary, And my goodness, what
a story. Growing up in a one room log cabin,
the father of blacksmith, and a great shot when you
shoot a muzzleloader. His dad told him you make each
shot count. The boy they did. His dad dies when
he's in the third grade. He quits school and he
(16:49):
never goes back, only nine months of education. But he's
the oldest boy in the house. He has to hit
the streets, he has to hustle, and he's got this void.
He's lost his dad, and he just starts to drink.
He starts to gamble, and he just starts getting into trouble.
Then one night, his best friend gets killed. He goes
home and he sees his mom. She says to him, son,
(17:12):
when are you going to become a real man like
your father and grandfather? And those words cut through him.
The next thing you know, he was getting his life
in order. An evangelist, a traveling evangelist came through town,
and he rediscovered his faith and a spirit in him
and just gave up the bad things in his life
and started anew. Then came the call for the military.
(17:35):
He tried to get out of it, tried to claim
a religious exemption. It didn't happen, and then he heard
this sense and voice from God. The next thing you know,
he finds himself oversees ready for war. The story of
Alvin Yorke continues here on our American stories, and we
(18:08):
continue with our American stories and with the story of
Sergeant Alvin York as told by J. D. Phillips. Let's
pick up were JD last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Most of the new recruits were city boys, and I'll
tell you they couldn't hit nothing with those guns. Not
only would they miss the entire target, but they'd missed
the entire heel that the target was mounted on me.
I'd been shooting squirrels since I's five, and killing turkeys
at one hundred and fifty yards by the time I
was nine. Seems like all I remember doing in basic
(18:41):
training was shooting, but mostly hiking while carrying as much
weight as a man could possibly haul by himself days
of endless marching hikes and told that gun, I never
saw so many folks fall out from exhaustion it Before long,
I got a letter telling me that I've been assigned
(19:01):
to the front lines on the other side of the
world in France. Before long, I was on a train
to New York City, and a few days later Boston, Massachusetts.
An officer came through and he asked every man in
the company if they objected to going across the ocean
and fighting. When he asked me, I told him I
didn't object because I loved my country. However, to be honest,
(19:25):
I wasn't sure who was even in the right of
the wrong in this war. He simply replied to me
that blessed are the peace makers, and that we were
the peace makers. After hearing that, we all thought that
as soon as we got over there, we would be
keeping the peace. And I'll tell you right now nothing
could have been further from the truth. At four o'clock
(19:48):
the next morning, we all loaded onto an old ship
and we started for France. This was the first time
I'd ever seen the ocean. Water. Everywhere I looked water,
and when I looked back towards America. All I saw
was water. While the Greeks and Italians and the Jews
withstood the voyage just fine, the rocking back and forth
(20:10):
of the ship kept me sick the entire time. We
went to sleep wearing our full gear and life preservers
twenty four seven, just in case we were attacked. I
had never wanted to go back to those mountains more
than I did in that moment. Sixteen days later, as
the sun was setting on the water behind us to
(20:31):
the west, we arrived in Liverpool, England. Within three days
we were on the move, traveling towards France. By now
I was making friends with all the other fellows in
the company. My three friends were named Corporal Murray Savage
and Sergeant Harry Parsons. They were both from Brooklyn, New York,
and then there was Lieutenant Stuart from Georgia. Anyway, we
(20:54):
arrived in France and the first thing they gave us
with gas masks. For the first month, it seemed that
all we would do was take a train to some
small town or village and higher round, until we would
suddenly get orders to board another train to some small
town or village and repeat the process. Finally, we got
orders to relieve the twenty six division boys in the
(21:16):
Montsect sector in Rambucourt. We'd moved during the middle of
the night, and we would stay there for the next
ten days. Apparently this is where the army would send
all the new troops for one final train in session
before sending them into no man's land. Tennessee started to
seem like something I had only dreamed in my mind,
and I started to question if it ever really existed
(21:39):
or if I would ever see it again. Occasionally, fire
would come in from artillery shells. Putting on gas masks
became second nature because of the constant gas shells, And
then there was the constant threat of snipers. Some of
us new meat. We would constantly be duck in our
(21:59):
heads as the sounds of bullets whizzed by. But after
a few boys were shot, we soon realized that it
was no use to duck, since no one ever hears
the bullet that hits them. At first, there was the
endless waiting in the trenches, and that seemed to be
the hard part for the Greeks and the Italians. They
wanted to go on the offensive every time one of
(22:19):
them would do something foolish like sneaking out of the
trench trying to get a better look at things. Some
one would die. And that was the trouble with my platoon.
Every one was so antsy and they couldn't sit still.
They wanted to attack and get the war over with me.
I spent most of my time reading a small bible
that I kept in my pocket. I must have read
(22:40):
that thing at least five times. We spent the next
two months constantly moving positions in the trenches. We never
knew what was the grand scheme of things. It was
a hurry up and wait and always do what you're told. Suddenly,
without warning, we were part of a big American offensive.
We captured a small town named Nory, and we kept
(23:01):
clawing our way forward. Our whole battalion found ourselves right
in the heart of the Saint Michael Drive, and suddenly
we were on the front lines. When the enemy launched
into an all out offensive. We began losing men immediately
(23:26):
to machine gun fire. Our biggest problem was we were
too anxious to get to the enemy, and we kept
pushing forward when we should have shown more patience. I'll
say this, though, those Greeks and Italians. They moved full
steam ahead, no matter what the cost was. After we
captured this town, we went house to house looking for
any prisoners or anything of value that we might use.
(23:49):
Most soldiers were looking for booze, and they quickly drank
any they had found. And while we were dug in here,
there was a huge grape vineyard in the distance. And
the longer we stayed dug in those trenches, the hungrier
we all got, and the better those grapes looked. Finally,
we couldn't stand it, so we all went into the vineyard,
unaware that there was a German observation balloon high above.
(24:13):
They unleashed an assault on us, and they killed several
more of our men. And once we made it back
to the trenches, the captain ordered us all to stay
out of those grapes. But I have to tell you
I was starving and man, I couldn't get those grapes
out of my mind. So that night I snuck back
into the vineyard as quiet as a mouse went. Suddenly,
(24:35):
on mortarshell exploded near by me. I started running for
my life when I ran into another man and we
both fell to the ground. I quickly realized that it
was the captain himself. Turns out he couldn't get those
grapes off his mind either. It seems like all of
us tried hard to find some humor to maintain our sanity,
(24:57):
constantly wearing gas masks for hour to day. Constant bombing,
sharpshooters and machine gun nests killed men every day, And
when a man was dead, dying, or badly injured, no
one came for him. They lay there beside you for
days at a time. Soon we had orders to move
(25:19):
to prepare for the Battle of Argone. We hiked for
miles through the woods that were shot up something terrible.
Even the ground was all tore up from the shelling.
By daybreak, we had made it to the main road
and aeroplanes were buzzing our heads while we crawled over
dead men and horses. All the while, shells were exploding
(25:40):
all around us. Somehow we made it to the side
of the road and some small holes that served as
makeshift bunkers. We weren't yet close enough for the machine
gun nests to reach us, but the constant shelling from
the aeroplanes was non stop, and I saw a lot
of men just blown to pieces. When the orders finally
(26:02):
came in, it was our job to take hell two
forty and he'll two twenty three by the next day.
And that day started with with a slow drizzle, but
that didn't stop the shells from falling.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And you've been listening to J. D. Phillips who runs
the popular YouTube channel, The Appalachian Storyteller, and he's telling
the story of Alvin York as Alvin himself, using Yorke's
own words from his autobiography Sergeant York, his own life
story and war diary. And my goodness, what a story
(26:39):
you're hearing, thinking little in the beginning of what was
to come, because well, he hadn't seen combat yet, being
moved from place to place within the United States, seeing
the ocean for the first time, meeting people from all
kinds of different ethnic backgrounds, thinking he was going to
go over there and quote, keep the peace, and as
(26:59):
he said, nothing could have been further from the truth
when he finally entered wheel combat. And my goodness, what
kind of combat those World War One vets faced. When
we come back more of the remarkable story of Sergeant
Alvin York here on our American Stories, and we continue
(27:37):
with our American stories and the story of Sergeant Alvin
York Let's pick up with J. D. Phillips. Where we
last left.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Off, our machine gun battalion was moving alongside on the
opposite side of the road, and we saw bomb after
bomb fall on them. The whole area looked like a
tornado or through it all day and all night long.
The machine gun nests flashed and fired non stop. Somehow,
(28:10):
in that moment, my mind traveled back home to the
other side of the world. I was standing on the
porch for a log cabin watching an old time thunderstorm
rolled across the mountains. All I had in this moment
was my faith in God. Somehow though, we mobilized with
(28:33):
orders to take Hill two twenty three. The orders were
who began to push at six a m. Just before sunrise,
take the hill and advance across the valley to the
mountains on the other side to try to take the railroad,
which was an important lifeline for the German army supplies.
By six ' ten we reached the top of the hill.
(28:56):
The German machine guns were firing at us from both
sides and in the front of it. One by one.
I watched as my buddies were hit, and soon we
secured Hill two twenty three, and we set our eyes
towards the push towards the railroad. But the valley was
several hundred yards wide and machine gun nests dug in
on the opposite sides, with more guns perched on the
(29:17):
mountain planks in the ridges. To even try and run
across that valley seemed like suicide. The first wave of
American troops took off across the field.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Never cut down.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
The second wave came and suffered the exact same fate.
Almost every man was killed. Suddenly the order was given
to dig in. We were stopped dead in our tracks.
The artillery shells kept falling and thirty machine gun nests
kept firing non stop. We were trapped and they knew
exactly where we were. Somehow we had to get to
(29:53):
those machine guns that were located about three hundred yards
in front of us. We decided we would send a
small group to try to go around and somehow attacked
the guns from the back. So I was one of
seventeen men in ordered to carry out the surprise attack.
Now the valley it had lots of trees and brush
and hilly terrain for us to move stealthily and quickly,
(30:14):
and quietly we moved as our hearts were beating out
of our chest. Before long we had crossed over the
hill and positioned ourselves in a gully behind them. We
were now in no man's land, behind the enemy lines.
The brush was so thick we couldn't even see the Germans,
but the sound of the machine guns was a nightmare.
(30:38):
We kept moving until we crossed a small stream, when
suddenly we stumbled upon fifteen Germans who were eating their
breakfast in the middle of all this carnage. They jumped up,
and to our surprise, they threw their hands up and surrendered. Amazingly,
not one shot was fired. However, by now we'd been
spotted by the machine guns on top of the hill,
(31:00):
and they turned their guns around and started shooting at us.
They were only thirty yards away. Six of us were
killed instantly and three more wounded. That left only eight
of us. My friend Corporal Savage was among the dead.
All of my commanding officers were dead. That left me
in charge, and I was all alone out in the open.
(31:24):
The machine guns were cutting down the brush all around
me like a lawn more. All the while, the Germans
were yelling orders to one another, and I couldn't understand
anything they were saying. I didn't know where my other
seven men were, but most of them were holding guns
on the German prisoners. I knew that the Germans would
have to pop their heads up to see where I
was and point their machine gun at me, and some
(31:45):
calm came over me like a rush of hot water.
As I laid there in the grass, I began to
fire back at the machine gun nest I never blinked,
and every time I saw a German pop his head
up from behind those sand bags, it was like I
was shooting turk tied behind a log back in the mountains,
except those German heads were much bigger than turkey heads,
(32:06):
and there was no way I could miss anytime one
of them is so much as moved, I fired, and
I never missed the mark. It all went on for
nearly five minutes, nearly thirty machine guns firing all around me.
I emptied several clips, and the barrel of my gun
was red hot. Suddenly, six Germans jumped up out of
a nearby trench about twenty five yards away, and they
(32:28):
charged me with bayonets attached to their rifles. They were
screaming and running full speed. I only had about a
half a clip left of my rifle, so I pulled
out my pistol and I shot every one of them.
I immediately returned to firing with my rifle at those
machine guns. By now I had killed over twenty of
them before a German major appeared with his hands up
(32:51):
out of the trench in front of me, yelling English, English,
and I replied, no American, and he yelled, if you'll
stop firing, I'll make them surrender. I quickly pointed my
rifle at him, and I said, if you don't make
them surrender, I'll blow your head off. The major began
blowing a whistle, and one by one they came down
(33:12):
with their hands up, and he threw down their guns
and their belts. One man was taking off his belt
when he threw a hand grenade at me, and it
exploded in the air right in front of me. Somehow
I wasn't hurt, and I killed him instantly, Seeing that
every man on the hill surrendered, nearly one hundred of them.
And as I stood and looked around me, every tree,
(33:35):
every bush, and every bit of grass was gone. Every
area except the spot where I hid during the assault
had been shot up. There I stood without a hair
harmed on my head. God had truly kept me from.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Harm, all told Mountain boy from East Tennessee, Alvin York
had captured one hundred and thirty two German soldiers and one.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Of the greatest battles of World War One. He returned
home to America, held as the greatest war hero in history.
For his actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
A Hollywood movie was made about him.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Now supposed in these yeh cartridges is a flock of
wild turkey's a flying across the ridge, coming this way,
see right at me. Now, which one of them would
you shoot?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Question?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I'd take a crack at all of them and trust
to luck. But he wouldn't have no luck that way.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Push it?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Oh, well, then I picked the monument. So what the monument?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
The guy out in front?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Well, that ain't right either. If you want to get
more than one turkey, I wish one has got the
most mean of them. Yeah, what's the answer. Well, if
you shoot this one here, the leader, the rest of
them will see him drop and fly off. See so
you drawed down on the last turkey yet and then
the next one, see kind of coming from that to front.
(35:01):
Then the rest of them won't know there's being hit.
And if, of course, they might flare off some when
the shooting starts. But if a feller's got himself a
repeating rifle, he's got a good chance of getting the
whole flock. He sounds all right, Take he's sure, he's
dumb animals.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Seems you picked up a good bet down the hills.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Alan.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Anybody that's done any hunt knows.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That in every consumer product in America wanted his endorsement.
Yet Alvin turned his back on all of the fame
and he returned home to his farm in Tennessee. He
dedicated the remainder of his life establishing schools and educational
opportunities for the mountain children of East Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to J. D.
Phillips who runs the popular YouTube channel The Appalachian Storyteller,
And of course pick up if you care to Alvin
York's autobiography, Sergeant Yorke, his own life story and war diary,
(36:08):
and again a special thanks to J. D. Phillips for
playing the part of Alvin and reading from and performing
parts of his remarkable life story. And what a story
it was. The description of those battlefield scenes are remarkable,
those machine gun nests, the flashing lights from those machine
guns going day and night, and all the while memories
(36:31):
rekindled about home. And yet there they were with a mission,
and Alvin said, all I had in these moments was
my faith in God. Then what he was known for
that remarkable battle in which essentially he captured over one
hundred and thirty Germans almost single handedly, and all because
(36:52):
of that crack shooting that he learned in the hill
country of Tennessee turkey hunting. As he put it, the
heads of the Germans were a lot bigger than those
turkey heads. And when he came back home, every consumer
product company in the world wanted his image, wanted his likeness,
wanted his endorsement. But he turned his back on fame.
(37:16):
Sergeant Alvin York did returned home to his farm in
Tennessee and spent his adult life working on educational opportunity
for the East Tennessee Mountain kids who had grown up
just like him. The story of Alvin York, who made
his name on this day in history in nineteen eighteen
when he captured one hundred and thirty two Germans. Here
(37:39):
on our American stories.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
This doesn't best dec
Host
Lee Habeeb
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