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Speaker 2: Pushkin.
Speaker 1: At three in the morning and the pitch dark and
Speaker 1: drizzling rain, the men were told that it was time
Speaker 1: to march. It was October eighth, nineteen eighteen. Company G
Speaker 1: of the three to twenty eighth Infantry of the US
Speaker 1: Army had been in France for almost five months, sleeping
Speaker 1: in wet and dirty trenches, enduring German bombardments that rattled
Speaker 1: their bones and made their ears ring, strapping on masks
Speaker 1: to save themselves from the suffocating and burning and blinding
Speaker 1: mustard gas, watching as their comrades got picked off by
Speaker 1: sniper fire, and now in the blackest part of the night,
Speaker 1: Company G was on the move. They marched past bombed
Speaker 1: out towns and trees that had been burned to stubbs.
Speaker 1: The road was a maze of trucks and horses, slippery
Speaker 1: and almost impossible to navigate. Their wet boots hit the
Speaker 1: puddled roads, and a kind of drum beat, the clump
Speaker 1: of horseshoes keeping time, the boom and flash of German
Speaker 1: artillery shells serving as terrifying punctuation. Deep in the mass
Speaker 1: of men was Private Alvin York. He had come to
Speaker 1: France from a time rural town in Tennessee, leaving the
Speaker 1: county of his birth for the very first time at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty nine. Now he was here wrestling
Speaker 1: with the fact that he was being sent into a
Speaker 1: terrible battle, one that would see certain death for some,
Speaker 1: if not most, of his company. He was wrestling with
Speaker 1: something else as well. He was a man of intense faith.
Speaker 1: He had committed himself to the service of God and
Speaker 1: the Bible. He believed wholeheartedly and one of the main
Speaker 1: tenants of Christianity thou shalt not kill. Sniper bullets zip
Speaker 1: past the muddy and exhausted men as they finally reached
Speaker 1: their destination, a hill near the French town of Chatel Jahari.
Speaker 1: On the far side of the hill, an entrenched German
Speaker 1: force weighted with machine guns pointed at the fields below.
Speaker 1: When they reached the top of the hill, the men
Speaker 1: of company were told at six ten a m. Zero hour,
Speaker 1: you'll go over the top down to those fields into
Speaker 1: the sights of those waiting German guns. At zero hour,
Speaker 1: the men fixed their bayonets and they went over the
Speaker 1: hill into the shooting. I'm Jr. Martinez and this is
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor
Speaker 1: is the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded
Speaker 1: for gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life,
Speaker 1: above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must
Speaker 1: be approved all the way up the chain of command,
Speaker 1: from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House.
Speaker 1: This show is about those heroes, what they did, what
Speaker 1: it meant, and what their stories tell us about the
Speaker 1: nature of courage and sacrifice. Happened on that October day,
Speaker 1: in that valley, that death trap would give America the
Speaker 1: hero that they needed at a moment when thousands of
Speaker 1: their brothers, sons, and fathers were coming home in coffins.
Speaker 1: That hero would be Alvin York And in the weeks
Speaker 1: and months and years that followed, his story would be
Speaker 1: polished and shined up till it became a myth for
Speaker 1: Alvin York. That myth would become a way to do
Speaker 1: good in the world, it would also be a terrible burden.
Speaker 3: It's not your creed or your high, not the color
Speaker 3: of your eyes that makes an Americans. It's our freedom, man,
Speaker 3: equality over the Constitution, and our scale of rights that
Speaker 3: makes in the medical in an almighty fighter.
Speaker 1: That's Alvin York you're hearing. And descended from a long
Speaker 1: line of fighters. Both his grandfathers had served the Union
Speaker 1: in the Civil War. Keeping the country free ran in
Speaker 1: the family.
Speaker 4: Once the man.
Speaker 3: Asked tasted that freedom, he'd rather die fighting than to
Speaker 3: do without it for himself and his children.
Speaker 1: Alvin grew up in Paul Mall, a tiny mountain hamlet
Speaker 1: right around where the famous Davy Crockett supposedly wrestled a bear,
Speaker 1: many many miles from what anyone would consider an actual town.
Speaker 1: Alvin's father was a blacksmith, and his mom raised eleven kids.
Speaker 1: They all lived in a little cabin that once had
Speaker 1: been a corncrib. School was only open a couple of
Speaker 1: months a year, and young Alvin got the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a second grade education. When Alvin was in his early twenties,
Speaker 1: his father died, which meant Alvin was the head of
Speaker 1: the family. He didn't take it well. According to his granddaughter,
Speaker 1: Deborah York.
Speaker 5: He became kind of the bread winner, he often said.
Speaker 5: The pressures of that led him to drink and become
Speaker 5: kind of a hellion.
Speaker 1: He drank, he gambled, He thought anyone and everyone he
Speaker 1: could find. He went, as he put it, hogwild. As
Speaker 1: he later said, quote I kind of thought I could
Speaker 1: whip the world, and more than once set out to
Speaker 1: do it. He entered moonshine, drinking contests, He got in
Speaker 1: a knife fight over a girl. He shot at things
Speaker 1: for no good reason. When he got home from partying,
Speaker 1: his mother, Mary would be sitting up waiting for him,
Speaker 1: praying for his soul. She pleaded with him to get
Speaker 1: right with the Lord, and on January one, nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: he did. He thought about all the sacrifice, says she
Speaker 1: had made for him, and then, as he put it, quote,
Speaker 1: I gave up smoking, drinking, cussing, and brawling completely and forever.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, Alvin, salvation was a good thing. His timing, however,
Speaker 1: was terrible because at that very moment, Europe was gripped
Speaker 1: with what would become known as World War One and
Speaker 1: Paul mall As In much of Rule America, people didn't
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to conflict overseas, so when
Speaker 1: Alvin was drafted in nineteen seventeen, he was horrified. He
Speaker 1: later said, quote, I never had killed nobody, even in
Speaker 1: my bad days. I didn't want to begin now. Yet
Speaker 1: he was also deeply patriotic. He was in conflict with himself, and.
Speaker 5: He often said it wasn't that he was afraid to
Speaker 5: die for his country. He didn't want to kill for
Speaker 5: his country. That was what he was grappling with.
Speaker 1: Alvin wrote to the draft board asking for really from
Speaker 1: service as a conscientious objector. His request was rejected once,
Speaker 1: then twice, and then the third and final time.
Speaker 5: His church that he belonged to was too small of
Speaker 5: a sect to be recognized by the government, so they
Speaker 5: denied as conscientious objector status.
Speaker 1: So in November nineteen seventeen, Alvin Yorke reported for duty.
Speaker 1: He was six feet tall, tightly muscled from his years blacksmithing, hunting,
Speaker 1: and fighting, and pictures from this time, he has a
Speaker 1: full mustache and looks uncannily like the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Handsome,
Speaker 1: if a little intense around the eyes. Alvin joined the
Speaker 1: three twenty eighth Infantry, eighty second Division the US Army.
Speaker 1: They were known as the All American Division for good reason.
Speaker 1: At least to hear Alvin tell it.
Speaker 3: The All American Division was made up of voys from
Speaker 3: all over the country. There were boys from the mountains
Speaker 3: like me, and boys from the small towns and cities.
Speaker 3: There were Southerners, New Yorkers, Middlewesterners, as well as boys
Speaker 3: from the cow country in the Pacific coast.
Speaker 4: And there were a.
Speaker 3: Man whose folks had been Greek, Italian, Jewish, German, Polish, Swedish,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 1: Three men stood out to Alvin from the company. There
Speaker 1: was Bernard Early, an irishman and bartender who liked to
Speaker 1: drink and fight in equal measure. There was Otis Merrithew
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, and an orphan who had gone
Speaker 1: under an assumed name to enlist. Alvin later described those
Speaker 1: two as quote just about the hard boiledest soldiers I
Speaker 1: ever knew. There was Murray Savage, another religious man who
Speaker 1: became Alvin's closest friend. Friendship, though, was pretty hard for
Speaker 1: Alvin to come by. The guys in company g knew
Speaker 1: Alvin had tried and fell to be a conscientious objector,
Speaker 1: and he was the subject of endless mockery. It made
Speaker 1: them doubt whether he'd even be any use to his
Speaker 1: country on the battlefield. How could they rely on him
Speaker 1: to have their backs if he didn't even want to
Speaker 1: shoot the enemy? As Merrithew put it years later, quote
Speaker 1: would he run and leave us exposed? Would he fight?
Speaker 1: I didn't know, and not knowing bothered me. It was
Speaker 1: clear that some of the men really didn't like this
Speaker 1: Bible thumping, slow talking rube from Nowhere, Tennessee. The jeering
Speaker 1: and skepticism surely got to Alvin, but his days of
Speaker 1: brawling and fighting were over, at least where his fellow
Speaker 1: soldiers were concerned. The Germans would be another thing entirely.
Speaker 1: Bombs fell constantly as the men of the three twenty
Speaker 1: eighth marched towards the Argonne Forest in the northeast of France.
Speaker 1: The weather was rainy and miserable, but it was the
Speaker 1: noise that got to Alvin. Most the airplanes buzzing like
Speaker 1: hornets overhead the thunder of artillery. The roads were blocked
Speaker 1: by the corpses of horses and men. It looked like
Speaker 1: a cyclone had ripped through the woods. Alvin thought this
Speaker 1: must be what armageddon is like. By this point, in
Speaker 1: early October nineteen eighteen, Alvin had been in the army
Speaker 1: for eleven months and in France for almost five. Two
Speaker 1: important things happened in the meantime. First, Alvin had his
Speaker 1: dark night of the soul. Before his company left for Europe.
Speaker 1: He had been granted a ten day furlough to go
Speaker 1: home and make peace with his role in the conflict
Speaker 1: to come. He went into the woods and prayed. He
Speaker 1: believed that quote, no matter what a man is forced
Speaker 1: to do, so long as he is right in his
Speaker 1: own soul, he remains a righteous man. Ultimately, Alvin convinced
Speaker 1: himself that he wasn't going to France to take lives.
Speaker 1: They were there to make peace, and that was something
Speaker 1: he could live with. He returned to the army. When
Speaker 1: he did, the second important thing happened. Alvin's commanding officers
Speaker 1: discovered that he was an incredibly good shot. He'd been
Speaker 1: hunting his whole life, and back home. Bullets were expensive,
Speaker 1: so if you were going to use one, it had
Speaker 1: to hit its mark.
Speaker 5: For him, shooting with survival, you didn't eat if you
Speaker 5: didn't kill game and put food on the table.
Speaker 1: By June he was put in charge of an automatic
Speaker 1: rifle squad, and by September he was promoted to acting corporal.
Speaker 1: For a man who believed in that commandment, thal shall
Speaker 1: not kill, it was a tense situation. Even though he'd
Speaker 1: made his peace, he had a job to do.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: He and the rest of his division were on their
Speaker 1: way to what they hoped would be the decisive battle
Speaker 1: of the war. Part of the coordinated drive by the Allies.
Speaker 1: Stretching for hundreds of miles, the Americans were attacking between
Speaker 1: the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River. It was insanely
Speaker 1: difficult terrain, filled with high hills and deep ravines. The
Speaker 1: Germans had been entrenched there for four years, stringing barbed
Speaker 1: wire and building concrete machine gun nests. The area was
Speaker 1: important because it held key supply lines, in particular the
Speaker 1: Dcoville Railway. As one of the American commanders put it, quote,
Speaker 1: who wins the railway wins the war, and that's how
Speaker 1: in the wee hours of the morning of October eighth,
Speaker 1: Alvin found himself marching through wet and mucky roads towards
Speaker 1: the village of Chatel Shahari and a hill they referred
Speaker 1: to as Number two twenty three, setting out to attack
Speaker 1: heavily defended territory that none of these Americans had ever
Speaker 1: seen before. Their commanders knew the casualty rate would be
Speaker 1: painfully high. The climb up Hill two twenty three was
Speaker 1: slippery and treacherous, and even in the pitch dark, the
Speaker 1: Germans saw them and began firing. The underbrush of the
Speaker 1: forest was filled with dead and dying Americans who had
Speaker 1: tried and failed to advance over the previous days. Alvin
Speaker 1: passed them as he crested the hill. The moment dawn arrived,
Speaker 1: the men of Company G would race down the far
Speaker 1: slope into the fields below. The Germans had all of
Speaker 1: the high ground. The Americans would be out in the open,
Speaker 1: no trenches to protect them, enemy snipers and machine guns
Speaker 1: ringing them on three sides. There were more gunners hiding
Speaker 1: in the knee high grass, a killing floor. There was
Speaker 1: meant to be a heavy barrage in advance of the
Speaker 1: men to protect them, but at zero hour the barrage
Speaker 1: didn't come. The men would have to go forward without it.
Speaker 1: They went over the top of Hill two twenty three.
Speaker 1: What awaited them, Alvin would later say, was quote a
Speaker 1: death trap. A rain of bullets sliced through the first
Speaker 1: wave of Americans, and then the second lieutenant, who was
Speaker 1: leading Alvin's company, was shot in the leg. He went down,
Speaker 1: but just for a moment he stood again and led
Speaker 1: the men forward. Then he was shot in the head dead.
Speaker 1: As Alvin put it, quote, we were cut down like
Speaker 1: the long grass before the mowing machine at home. The
Speaker 1: men pressed themselves to the ground, hiding in shell holes,
Speaker 1: trying to regroup and survive. Sergeant Harry Parsons assumed command.
Speaker 1: He called over at Bernard Early, and above the deafening
Speaker 1: noise of the guns, he laid out a plan. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it sounded more like a suicide mission. Early would take
Speaker 1: seventeen men and divide them into three groups, one led
Speaker 1: by Alvin's friend Murray Savage, one by Otis Merrithew, and
Speaker 1: one by Alvin. The idea was that each group would
Speaker 1: creep up the hill to their left and come behind
Speaker 1: the machine guns, catching them by surprise, that is, of course,
Speaker 1: if the Americans weren't caught first. Early led the men forward.
Speaker 1: The trees and brush on the hill provided a screen
Speaker 1: from the sniper's bullets. The seventeen men went silently, single file,
Speaker 1: and soon enough they were behind the German line. The
Speaker 1: sounds of screaming men in the field started to recede.
Speaker 1: They moved cautiously, following a footpath in the woods. Then
Speaker 1: they started to hear the drum of machine gun fire
Speaker 1: on the ridge above them. Suddenly one of the men
Speaker 1: called out Germans. Two enemy soldiers darted from a hiding
Speaker 1: place in the brush. The Americans shouted at them to surrender,
Speaker 1: and instead they ran. The men took off after them.
Speaker 1: They chased them until after a moment the woods opened
Speaker 1: up into a clearing, a clearing filled with German soldiers.
Speaker 1: It was between eighty and ninety Germans, and they were
Speaker 1: eating breakfast. Alvin later remembered loaves of bread and steaks
Speaker 1: and jellies laid across the table. They hadn't seen the Americans.
Speaker 1: The German men were hanging out smoking, preparing but not
Speaker 1: yet ready for a day of battle. Fortunately for the Americans,
Speaker 1: they weren't close to their guns. Early told his men
Speaker 1: to hide in the brush, and then he gave the
Speaker 1: order to fire. The small group of Americans caught the
Speaker 1: Germans totally by surprise, and now the enemy was falling
Speaker 1: where they stood. Some of the Germans surrendered immediately they
Speaker 1: assumed they were surrounded by a far superior force. Others
Speaker 1: took off running. Early told his men to hold fire
Speaker 1: and approached the officer to the group. Fortunately, the Germans
Speaker 1: spoke enough English to follow Early's order. Line up, you're
Speaker 1: being taken prisoner. Early and Marrithew organized the Germans into
Speaker 1: lines and confiscated whatever weapons they had, But the Germans
Speaker 1: saw something the Americans missed a signal from the machine
Speaker 1: gunners on top of the ridge. Suddenly, all the Germans
Speaker 1: hit the ground, diving for cover, and a spray of
Speaker 1: machine gun fire ripped through the Americans. Early was hitting
Speaker 1: the arm and sighed at least four times. He was
Speaker 1: down for the count but conscious. Marrithew was shot multiple
Speaker 1: times in the left arm. In total, three of the
Speaker 1: seventeen Americans were wounded and six were dead, including Alvin's
Speaker 1: dear friend Murray Savage. He was shot nine times. His
Speaker 1: uniform cut to shreds. As Alvin remembered it, quote, thousands
Speaker 1: of bullets kicked up the dust all around us. The
Speaker 1: air was just plumb full of death. Some of the
Speaker 1: American survivors shot back at the machine guns on the ridge.
Speaker 1: Others clustered around the prisoners, training their guns on them.
Speaker 1: For one thing, it gave them a measure of safety,
Speaker 1: and for the other, if those German prisoners decided to
Speaker 1: fight back, the Americans would be utterly outnumbered, and they
Speaker 1: knew it. Alvin was slightly ahead of the group of
Speaker 1: Americans and prisoners, and when the machine gunners mowed down
Speaker 1: his friends to the ground, he wasn't focused on what
Speaker 1: the rest of the men were doing. All he cared
Speaker 1: about was clearing those machine gunners off of that ridge.
Speaker 1: He never wanted to kill, but it was a stark choice. Now.
Speaker 1: If he didn't shoot the enemy, all of his friends
Speaker 1: would die. He moved into a better firing position. He
Speaker 1: waited patiently for the enemy shooters on the ridge to
Speaker 1: poke their heads up. They had to raise up to
Speaker 1: see their targets. Each time one did, Alvin shot him
Speaker 1: with dead aid, or, as he later put it, touched
Speaker 1: them off He used to tell the story to his.
Speaker 6: Son and said they were spitting bullets all around me,
Speaker 6: and said, I'll touch them off. When they stick their
Speaker 6: hand up, he'd touch them all one in time.
Speaker 1: Alvin remembered it this way quote. That's the way we
Speaker 1: shoot wild turkeys at home, you see. We don't want
Speaker 1: the front ones to know we're getting the back ones,
Speaker 1: and then they keep on coming until we get them all.
Speaker 1: Alvin remembers that as he shot, he was shouting for
Speaker 1: the Germans to surrender. He was, he said, unwilling to
Speaker 1: kill any more than he had to. Finally, the English
Speaker 1: speaking German officer blew his whistle, a signal for the
Speaker 1: troops to stop fighting. Not a hair on Alvin's head
Speaker 1: was harmed. He saw it as a sign that God
Speaker 1: was protecting him. What remained of the group from Company
Speaker 1: G gathered the Germans up into two lines, with Alvin
Speaker 1: at the lead. They marched back to camp. Alvin kept
Speaker 1: his pistol trained on the officer. As they went back
Speaker 1: to regimental headquarters, they ran into more Germans and they
Speaker 1: were added to the line of prisoners too. The wounded
Speaker 1: Americans were taken off to the hospital. Alvin kept the
Speaker 1: Germans marching. As he entered a divisional prisoner camp, he
Speaker 1: was reportedly stopped by the Brigadier General Julian Lindsay, who
Speaker 1: said to him, quote, well, Yorke, I hear you captured
Speaker 1: the whole damn German Army, to which Alvin responded only
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty two All told, the action had
Speaker 1: lasted half an hour at most. That half hour would
Speaker 1: define the rest of Alvin's life. For his part in it,
Speaker 1: alvign Yorke would be awarded the Medal of Honor, but
Speaker 1: he got something else as well, a myth that he
Speaker 1: would have to live up to. Alvin York continued fighting
Speaker 1: with his regiment in the weeks that followed. He even
Speaker 1: got blown into the air by a mortarshell just a
Speaker 1: few days later. By the end of the month, nearly
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the three to twenty eighth infantry were casualties.
Speaker 1: But the mews Argun offensive was as successful as the
Speaker 1: Allies had hoped, and on November eleventh, the armistice was signed.
Speaker 1: By then, Alvin had been promoted to sergeant, and on
Speaker 1: November thirtieth, he received his Distinguished Service Cross, the army's
Speaker 1: second highest award for valor. In those days and weeks
Speaker 1: after the armistice, Alvin was asked to tell the story
Speaker 1: of the heroic actions of October eighth to wrap audiences
Speaker 1: of other soldiers. It was the chaplain of the eighty
Speaker 1: second Division, who no doubt liked the religious angle, who
Speaker 1: first asked Alvin to talk about capturing all those Germans.
Speaker 1: The men needed something to inspire them in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of so much cartnage. It's unclear when the story became
Speaker 1: entirely focused on what Alvin did that October morning. Obviously
Speaker 1: the other men from Company G were there too. Early
Speaker 1: led the ambush and surrender of the bulk of the Germans.
Speaker 1: After Early was shot, Merrithew insisted that he had taken
Speaker 1: command and fired at the Germans despite his wounded arm.
Speaker 1: The other survivors had kept the prisoners under guard and
Speaker 1: fired back at the machine guns two Alvin later stated quote,
Speaker 1: I hadn't time or a chance to look around for
Speaker 1: the other boys. I didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 1: But as the story was told and retold, the actions
Speaker 1: of that day went from being an extraordinary group effort
Speaker 1: to an almost miraculous tale of a single soldier The
Speaker 1: hero of this story, of course, was Alvin, a man
Speaker 1: devoted to peace and kindness, but whose shooting skills were undeniable.
Speaker 1: And then, on one incredible morning, the story went, he
Speaker 1: jumped into action. While his fellow soldiers were wounded, unable
Speaker 1: to shoot, or hiding from the enemy gunfire, he mercilessly
Speaker 1: picked off each of the German machine gunners one by one,
Speaker 1: silencing more than thirty guns all on his own. He
Speaker 1: was a one man army. It was less like a
Speaker 1: war story and more like a legend, a lot like
Speaker 1: the one the USA liked to tell about its own
Speaker 1: involvement in the war. Reluctant, pea sloven, ruthless, and ultimately triumphant,
Speaker 1: the commanding general of the eighty second Division, George Duncan,
Speaker 1: started telling everyone that alvin only version of the story.
Speaker 1: It was picked up by a reporter from the Saturday
Speaker 1: Evening Post, a magazine with more than two million readers
Speaker 1: back home. Soon enough, Duncan and another general in the division,
Speaker 1: perhaps interested in a little reflected glory for themselves, started
Speaker 1: pushing for Alvin to receive the Medal of Honor. It
Speaker 1: was investigated and approved quickly. On April eleventh, nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: Alvin was awarded the medal, and the alvin centric version
Speaker 1: of events was cemented in military history. Did Alvin believe
Speaker 1: this version of the story. Maybe, after all, it reflected
Speaker 1: his experience of a moment filled with panic and trauma.
Speaker 1: Did Alvin go along with the one man army story
Speaker 1: because he wanted to give his commanding officers what they
Speaker 1: were clearly looking for? Maybe Alvin wasn't stupid, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't sophisticated either, with the second grade education and little
Speaker 1: experience of the wider world. And this official story had
Speaker 1: to be fact checked and research in order for him
Speaker 1: to receive the Medal of honor. Right other members of
Speaker 1: his company had signed official statement supporting this narrative. Who
Speaker 1: was he to argue against that? Plus the accolades kept
Speaker 1: rolling in. He went to Paris for the founding of
Speaker 1: the American Legion. It was safe to say, say a
Speaker 1: far cry from Paul mal Tennessee.
Speaker 5: He saw electricity, he saw indoor plumbing. He went to
Speaker 5: all of the major attractions in Paris, the museums, the cathedrals,
Speaker 5: and universities. He just tried to process what he had
Speaker 5: been through, but also to realize how he wanted life
Speaker 5: to be different when he came home.
Speaker 1: By the time Alvin was due to return to the
Speaker 1: US in May of that year, Americans had already heard
Speaker 1: every detail of his story from the Saturday Evening Post
Speaker 1: and countless newspaper articles that followed. Alvin sailed for New
Speaker 1: York on the SS Ohioan. It pulled into doc but
Speaker 1: from the ship, Alvin can see a huge throng of
Speaker 1: people waiting on shore. It was daunting and he couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out why they were there. Here's Alvin's grandson, Gerald Yorke.
Speaker 7: When he came back, one of the guys asking or
Speaker 7: You're not going to get off the ship, and he said, well,
Speaker 7: I'm waiting for the to die down, and they said, well,
Speaker 7: the crowd's here for you.
Speaker 1: We've seen this before with veterans returning from World War One.
Speaker 1: Remember Henry Johnson from last season. News of his exploits
Speaker 1: also arrived in America before he did, so. Not only
Speaker 1: did he have to grapple with what actually happened in
Speaker 1: the war, he had to deal with this new found
Speaker 1: and not very welcome fame, whether he wanted to or not.
Speaker 1: He had to go to work keeping his legend alive
Speaker 1: the second he set foot on home soil. As Alvin
Speaker 1: made his way down the gang plank, he was greeted
Speaker 1: by dignitaries from his home state of Tennessee. There were
Speaker 1: reporters and cameramen. There was a ticker tape parade through
Speaker 1: the streets of New York City, lavish dinners at the
Speaker 1: Waldorf Astoria Hotel, at visit to the Stock Exchange. Alvin
Speaker 1: went from there to Washington, where he got a standing
Speaker 1: ovation and congress. He was offered money to tell his
Speaker 1: story my grandfather.
Speaker 7: When he came back, was offered about two hundred and
Speaker 7: fifty thousand dollars in nineteen nineteen, money to endorse various things,
Speaker 7: and he said, I did what I had to do
Speaker 7: to save my comrade, and so no, the uniform's not
Speaker 7: for sake.
Speaker 1: Making money off of killing people felt wrong to Alvin,
Speaker 1: and he didn't want a life on the road. He
Speaker 1: wanted to go home, but the newsreels followed him there too.
Speaker 4: The second elder in this church, Sergeant York, was a
Speaker 4: conscientious objector during the early stages of World War One,
Speaker 4: but when he got into action, he killed twenty five
Speaker 4: German single handed and captured one hundred and thirty two
Speaker 4: including a major in three lieutenants, and is credited with
Speaker 4: putting thirty five enemy machine guns out of action.
Speaker 1: There's that legend of the one man Army again.
Speaker 4: Nothing backwoods about this backwoods boy, America's number one World
Speaker 4: War One hero mess and Sargeant.
Speaker 1: York Alvin was offered a four hundred acre farm, with
Speaker 1: the Nashville Rotary Club covering the down payment. It was
Speaker 1: meant to be a gift from the grateful state of Tennessee,
Speaker 1: though Alvin would end up on the hook for most
Speaker 1: of it. He married his sweetheart Gracie in front of
Speaker 1: thousands of well wishers, presided over by the Governor of Tennessee.
Speaker 1: But once the crowd of gawkers and fans disappeared, Alvin
Speaker 1: saw his beloved hometown through changed eyes. It was being
Speaker 1: left behind by the world. So we used his influence
Speaker 1: to get the State Highway Department to build an actual
Speaker 1: road through the hills. They did. Today it's still called
Speaker 1: the Alvin c. York Highway. And most of all, he
Speaker 1: pushed to educate the local children.
Speaker 5: He went around giving speeches to say, look these mountain
Speaker 5: children deserve a chance, and they are economically disadvantaged, geographically isolated,
Speaker 5: and they need opportunities like.
Speaker 1: All Americans have. He built the York Institute. By nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight, it was serving more than seven hundred students, and.
Speaker 5: It was actually a full time school before education was
Speaker 5: mandatory in the state, and it still run to this day.
Speaker 1: Alvin's fame on the battlefield had allowed him to do good,
Speaker 1: It also caused resentment among some of the men who
Speaker 1: had been there that famous October morning. Around the ten
Speaker 1: year anniversary, a few of the other members of Company
Speaker 1: G most notably Bernard Early and Otis Merrithew, began speaking
Speaker 1: to the press telling a fuller version of the story,
Speaker 1: asking why Alvin hogged the glory for himself. Alvin's answer
Speaker 1: was what it had always been. He loved and received
Speaker 1: affected the men of his company, both Early and Merrithew
Speaker 1: were undeniably brave, and he still had no idea what
Speaker 1: anyone other than him had done that day. As he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: there were others in that fight besides me. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you that they're entitled to a whole heap of credit.
Speaker 1: It isn't for me, of course, to decide how much
Speaker 1: credit they should get, but just the same those boys
Speaker 1: were heroes. In fact, five of the surviving members of
Speaker 1: Company G had already received Silver Stars for their bravery
Speaker 1: shortly after the war ended, but Bernard Early, who led
Speaker 1: the charge until he was shot, was not one of them. Finally,
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine, after some undeniable foot dragging from
Speaker 1: the military, Early received a Distinguished Service Cross, more than
Speaker 1: a decade after the action and the Argon Forest. By
Speaker 1: that time, the weight of the one man Army legend
Speaker 1: had caught up to Alvin. He was overextended and chronically
Speaker 1: plagued by debt. He owed thousands of dollars on the
Speaker 1: farm he'd been gifted. He wasn't good with finances, and anyway,
Speaker 1: his church preached against material goods. He mortgaged the farm
Speaker 1: to help pay for a fleet of school buses. He
Speaker 1: faced foreclosure than bankruptcy. He kept slipping further underwater financially.
Speaker 1: His fame had allowed him to give back, but giving
Speaker 1: back was taking almost everything he had. In nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: Alvin was approached with an offer to cash in on
Speaker 1: his Wanings celebrity by selling the movie rights to his story.
Speaker 1: The timing was perfect Not only was he broke, but
Speaker 1: he was desperate to achieve one of his dreams, building
Speaker 1: a Bible school in his community. He also, at that
Speaker 1: point had seven kids, most of whom had sort of
Speaker 1: hilariously patriotic names. Betsy Ross York, Woodrow Wilson, York. You
Speaker 1: get the idea. Here's his son Andrew Jackson, York.
Speaker 6: He decided to want to build a Bible school, which
Speaker 6: is about a high a mile from here, build it
Speaker 6: on his ow home place where he's born, and the
Speaker 6: movie came. He finally graded to let him do it
Speaker 6: if they would agree to his terms.
Speaker 1: The movie would be called Sergeant York and it was
Speaker 1: produced by Warner Brothers, the film studio run by Polish
Speaker 1: born brothers Jack and Harry Warner. The Warners were Jewish
Speaker 1: and horrified by the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
Speaker 1: I saw the movie as a way to remind Americans
Speaker 1: of the importance of fighting for freedom everywhere. And that's
Speaker 1: when some of the controversy around Alvin's legend was stirred
Speaker 1: up once again. Otis Merrithew wrote to the studio, promising
Speaker 1: bad publicity if his heroism wasn't portrayed as equal to Alvin's,
Speaker 1: but the film went on as planned. After all, the
Speaker 1: movie wasn't really Alvin's story, it was Hollywood's, with invented
Speaker 1: scenes and composite characters, and Alvin played by Gary Cooper
Speaker 1: in a performance that would win him an Oscar.
Speaker 8: You see, I believe in the Bible, and I'm believing
Speaker 8: that this year life we're living, there's something the Lord
Speaker 8: does give us, and we got to be a living
Speaker 8: that the best we can. And I'm figuring that killing
Speaker 8: other folks ain't no part of what he was intending
Speaker 8: for us to be a doing here.
Speaker 1: The film was a blockbuster head when it was released
Speaker 1: in the fall of nineteen forty one. It worked just
Speaker 1: as planned, a heartwarming piece of propaganda for a country
Speaker 1: that would soon find itself at war. It even helped
Speaker 1: fuel enlistments. But once again, it all came at a
Speaker 1: big cost to Alvin. He was in the news again.
Speaker 1: In one radio interview, he said, quote, although I was
Speaker 1: credited with wiping out the whole battalion of thirty five
Speaker 1: machine guns, I was only one of seventeen who did
Speaker 1: the job. I want the whole world to know that
Speaker 1: without their cool courage, none of US would be alive today.
Speaker 1: But let's be honest. People don't love a complicated story.
Speaker 1: They prefer a legend. He couldn't stop it any more
Speaker 1: than he could have stood in that clearing in the
Speaker 1: forest and refused to return fire. Elvin believed that the
Speaker 1: US was right to fight against fascism. In fact, he
Speaker 1: tried to enlist.
Speaker 5: I was too fat and too old, too out of shape.
Speaker 1: But they made him an honorary.
Speaker 5: Colonel and let him go across the country selling war
Speaker 5: bonds and actually giving speeches to increase morale for the troops.
Speaker 5: Going back across.
Speaker 1: He traveled the country, supporting the war effort and raising
Speaker 1: money for the Red Cross. He didn't ask for or
Speaker 1: receive any payment, and for the second time in his life,
Speaker 1: he tried to reconcile his love of the Bible with
Speaker 1: his patriotism.
Speaker 3: It's not an easy thing for a man to make
Speaker 3: up his mind to go to war.
Speaker 1: This is really him, not Gary Cooper playing him the man,
Speaker 1: not the myth.
Speaker 3: I well remember the doubt and confusion I felt about
Speaker 3: going to the last one. War means more than uniforms,
Speaker 3: marching and band music. It means facing death and what's
Speaker 3: almost worse, it means carrying death and suffering to other us.
Speaker 3: Thou shalt not kill is written in the Bible. Here
Speaker 3: in America, we've always tried to follow that commandment. Our
Speaker 3: enemies have denied us the right to follow it.
Speaker 1: His financial situation was in shambles, but his north star
Speaker 1: remained steady, focused on serving the people of his little
Speaker 1: mountain community.
Speaker 7: He was asked later in life, what do you want
Speaker 7: to be remembered for your actions? In France being awarded
Speaker 7: the Medal of Honor, meeting the President, and he said,
Speaker 7: I want my legacy to be that I brought education
Speaker 7: to rural Tennessee.
Speaker 1: How do you live with an idealized version of yourself
Speaker 1: that you didn't have a hand in creating. Perhaps Alvin
Speaker 1: understood has myth for what it was, something that didn't
Speaker 1: belong to him, Really, something bigger, more abstract, created for
Speaker 1: public consumption. There were good things about it. Just go
Speaker 1: to Paul Mall, Tennessee for proof of that. It inspired
Speaker 1: countless Americans to go back to Europe, this time to
Speaker 1: fight the Nazis. It gave comfort to grieving families in
Speaker 1: the wake of World War One, A shining example of
Speaker 1: the fact that our men did great things on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: It was a life's work to sustain a myth, and
Speaker 1: it had its cost. But just like with his military service,
Speaker 1: Alvin was clear eyed about the trade offs and willing
Speaker 1: to make them. Alvin passed away in nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: at the age of seventy six after a long illness.
Speaker 1: Otis Merrithew finally received a Silver Star in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: a year after Alvin's death. At his ceremony, he admitted
Speaker 1: that Alvin was quote a hero. What precisely happened on
Speaker 1: that battlefield in nineteen eighteen is something we'll never know
Speaker 1: for sure. One thing is certain. Alvin Yorke fought valiantly
Speaker 1: for his country. He fought for the people of his community.
Speaker 1: He fought in the way his faith had taught him
Speaker 1: to for peace.
Speaker 3: Someday peace will return to the world. But before peace
Speaker 3: is won, all of us must work, confined to our
Speaker 3: last downce of.
Speaker 2: Strength, Medal of Honor.
Speaker 1: Stories of Courage is written by Meredith Rollins and produced
Speaker 1: by Meredith Rollins, Jess Shane, and Suzanne Gabber. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Ben Nadav Hoffrey. Sound design and additional music by
Speaker 1: Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Constanza Gallardo. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Arthur Gomperts. Original music by Eric Phillips. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Tennessee State Parks.
Speaker 1: Thomas Wilmer, host of the radio show Journeys of Discovery
Speaker 1: with Tom Wilmer and CASEYBX, the public radio station servicing
Speaker 1: sunduy Sobispo, California. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: this story, take a look at our show notes, where
Speaker 1: we have some of the resources we use to put
Speaker 1: together this episode. We also want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: so send us your personal story of courage or highlight
Speaker 1: someone else's bravery. Email us at Medal of Honor at
Speaker 1: Pushkin dot f M. I'm your host, j R. Martinez