Charger Features

Alvin C. York: the man, the life, the legend

Grant Beaty, Charger Staff

In World War I Sergeant Alvin C. York almost single-handedly captured 132 prisoners, killed twenty-five men and unmanned thirty-five machine guns in the battle of Argonne Forest. York was born in Pall Mall, TN on Dec. 13, 1887. His father died when he was twenty-four which, being the oldest still at home, left him to work to support his family.
York was a wild young man who went drinking and gambling every Saturday night. In 1915, however, this all changed when he became very religious. This could be due in part to the influence of his mother and Gracie Williams, the woman he eventually married. In 1917, York was drafted into the army. He had many internal conflicts about killing people, though he was a very accurate marksman.

On Oct. 8, 1918, York and his company attacked the Germans at a hill near Chattek-Chehery. Seventeen men, including York, went to disable some machine guns that were firing heavily on their position. Before long only seven were left and many were wounded. York ended up shooting seventeen German soldiers with a rifle and eight with his pistol. He took a German Major as hostage, who then blew a whistle, telling his men to surrender. In all he captured 132 soldiers. Marshall Ferdinand Foch said, “What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe.”

York received the Medal of Honor, the French Medaille Milltaire and Croix de Guerre, and the Italian Grace de Guerra for his brave actions.

When York returned from the war and married Gracie Williams. In the 1920’s he raised money for the Alvin C. York Institute, which was to raise awareness for education. In 1937 he made a movie about his war experience. York used the proceeds to open a bible school in 1942 that closed down a year later and never reopened. He suffered a stroke in 1954 that he never completely recovered from and died Sep. 2, 1964.