WEBVTT - Alvin York: The Dark Side of a War Hero 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.480 Hey everyone, We've put together a survey for listeners of 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:06.760 Medal of Honor and we want to hear from you. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.240 Tell us what you love about the show, what we 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.760 can improve on, or stories you think we've missed. We're 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.840 committed to making this show even better and you can 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.960 help to take the survey. Visit bit dot lee slash 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:27.320 MH survey. That's bit dot l y slash MH survey. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.160 The link is also in our show notes below. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:41.479 Pushkin. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.640 At three in the morning and the pitch dark and 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.120 drizzling rain, the men were told that it was time 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.080 to march. It was October eighth, nineteen eighteen. Company G 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.440 of the three to twenty eighth Infantry of the US 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.759 Army had been in France for almost five months, sleeping 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:09.600 in wet and dirty trenches, enduring German bombardments that rattled 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.200 their bones and made their ears ring, strapping on masks 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.720 to save themselves from the suffocating and burning and blinding 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.679 mustard gas, watching as their comrades got picked off by 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.560 sniper fire, and now in the blackest part of the night, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.520 Company G was on the move. They marched past bombed 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.160 out towns and trees that had been burned to stubbs. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.240 The road was a maze of trucks and horses, slippery 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.200 and almost impossible to navigate. Their wet boots hit the 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.959 puddled roads, and a kind of drum beat, the clump 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.240 of horseshoes keeping time, the boom and flash of German 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:54.840 artillery shells serving as terrifying punctuation. Deep in the mass 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.120 of men was Private Alvin York. He had come to 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:03.080 France from a time rural town in Tennessee, leaving the 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.120 county of his birth for the very first time at 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:11.200 the age of twenty nine. Now he was here wrestling 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.120 with the fact that he was being sent into a 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.760 terrible battle, one that would see certain death for some, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:22.320 if not most, of his company. He was wrestling with 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.760 something else as well. He was a man of intense faith. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.640 He had committed himself to the service of God and 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.560 the Bible. He believed wholeheartedly and one of the main 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:39.959 tenants of Christianity thou shalt not kill. Sniper bullets zip 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.560 past the muddy and exhausted men as they finally reached 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.880 their destination, a hill near the French town of Chatel Jahari. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.680 On the far side of the hill, an entrenched German 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.360 force weighted with machine guns pointed at the fields below. 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.320 When they reached the top of the hill, the men 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.200 of company were told at six ten a m. Zero hour, 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.840 you'll go over the top down to those fields into 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.840 the sights of those waiting German guns. At zero hour, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.800 the men fixed their bayonets and they went over the 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:24.680 hill into the shooting. I'm Jr. Martinez and this is 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.120 Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.200 is the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.520 for gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:41.040 above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.480 be approved all the way up the chain of command, 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.440 from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House. 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.520 This show is about those heroes, what they did, what 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.440 it meant, and what their stories tell us about the 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:01.320 nature of courage and sacrifice. Happened on that October day, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.000 in that valley, that death trap would give America the 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.920 hero that they needed at a moment when thousands of 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.920 their brothers, sons, and fathers were coming home in coffins. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.400 That hero would be Alvin York And in the weeks 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.039 and months and years that followed, his story would be 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.240 polished and shined up till it became a myth for 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.800 Alvin York. That myth would become a way to do 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:33.800 good in the world, it would also be a terrible burden. 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.359 It's not your creed or your high, not the color 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.640 of your eyes that makes an Americans. It's our freedom, man, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.800 equality over the Constitution, and our scale of rights that 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.040 makes in the medical in an almighty fighter. 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.480 That's Alvin York you're hearing. And descended from a long 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.559 line of fighters. Both his grandfathers had served the Union 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.919 in the Civil War. Keeping the country free ran in 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:15.560 the family. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:17.279 Once the man. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.359 Asked tasted that freedom, he'd rather die fighting than to 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.960 do without it for himself and his children. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.960 Alvin grew up in Paul Mall, a tiny mountain hamlet 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.920 right around where the famous Davy Crockett supposedly wrestled a bear, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.559 many many miles from what anyone would consider an actual town. 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:46.279 Alvin's father was a blacksmith, and his mom raised eleven kids. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.280 They all lived in a little cabin that once had 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.680 been a corncrib. School was only open a couple of 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.400 months a year, and young Alvin got the equivalent of 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.880 a second grade education. When Alvin was in his early twenties, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.400 his father died, which meant Alvin was the head of 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.680 the family. He didn't take it well. According to his granddaughter, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:09.080 Deborah York. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.960 He became kind of the bread winner, he often said. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.000 The pressures of that led him to drink and become 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:15.839 kind of a hellion. 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.960 He drank, he gambled, He thought anyone and everyone he 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.760 could find. He went, as he put it, hogwild. As 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.840 he later said, quote I kind of thought I could 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.839 whip the world, and more than once set out to 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:37.720 do it. He entered moonshine, drinking contests, He got in 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.960 a knife fight over a girl. He shot at things 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.760 for no good reason. When he got home from partying, 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.599 his mother, Mary would be sitting up waiting for him, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.400 praying for his soul. She pleaded with him to get 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:56.799 right with the Lord, and on January one, nineteen fifteen, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.479 he did. He thought about all the sacrifice, says she 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.600 had made for him, and then, as he put it, quote, 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:09.840 I gave up smoking, drinking, cussing, and brawling completely and forever. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.600 By all accounts, Alvin, salvation was a good thing. His timing, however, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.840 was terrible because at that very moment, Europe was gripped 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.480 with what would become known as World War One and 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.040 Paul mall As In much of Rule America, people didn't 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.200 pay a lot of attention to conflict overseas, so when 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.920 Alvin was drafted in nineteen seventeen, he was horrified. He 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.520 later said, quote, I never had killed nobody, even in 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.440 my bad days. I didn't want to begin now. Yet 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:48.640 he was also deeply patriotic. He was in conflict with himself, and. 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:50.920 He often said it wasn't that he was afraid to 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.480 die for his country. He didn't want to kill for 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.960 his country. That was what he was grappling with. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.360 Alvin wrote to the draft board asking for really from 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:05.200 service as a conscientious objector. His request was rejected once, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.560 then twice, and then the third and final time. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.080 His church that he belonged to was too small of 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.400 a sect to be recognized by the government, so they 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.960 denied as conscientious objector status. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.800 So in November nineteen seventeen, Alvin Yorke reported for duty. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:29.160 He was six feet tall, tightly muscled from his years blacksmithing, hunting, 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.640 and fighting, and pictures from this time, he has a 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:38.800 full mustache and looks uncannily like the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Handsome, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.880 if a little intense around the eyes. Alvin joined the 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.400 three twenty eighth Infantry, eighty second Division the US Army. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.320 They were known as the All American Division for good reason. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:52.439 At least to hear Alvin tell it. 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.800 The All American Division was made up of voys from 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:00.640 all over the country. There were boys from the mountains 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.400 like me, and boys from the small towns and cities. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:09.600 There were Southerners, New Yorkers, Middlewesterners, as well as boys 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.800 from the cow country in the Pacific coast. 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:13.679 And there were a. 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:21.400 Man whose folks had been Greek, Italian, Jewish, German, Polish, Swedish, 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:21.720 and I. 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.719 Three men stood out to Alvin from the company. There 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.360 was Bernard Early, an irishman and bartender who liked to 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.520 drink and fight in equal measure. There was Otis Merrithew 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.720 twenty one years old, and an orphan who had gone 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:41.160 under an assumed name to enlist. Alvin later described those 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.360 two as quote just about the hard boiledest soldiers I 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.880 ever knew. There was Murray Savage, another religious man who 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:54.240 became Alvin's closest friend. Friendship, though, was pretty hard for 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.320 Alvin to come by. The guys in company g knew 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.280 Alvin had tried and fell to be a conscientious objector, 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.560 and he was the subject of endless mockery. It made 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.800 them doubt whether he'd even be any use to his 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.600 country on the battlefield. How could they rely on him 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.520 to have their backs if he didn't even want to 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.400 shoot the enemy? As Merrithew put it years later, quote 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.720 would he run and leave us exposed? Would he fight? 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:26.160 I didn't know, and not knowing bothered me. It was 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.679 clear that some of the men really didn't like this 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:34.240 Bible thumping, slow talking rube from Nowhere, Tennessee. The jeering 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.480 and skepticism surely got to Alvin, but his days of 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.839 brawling and fighting were over, at least where his fellow 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.280 soldiers were concerned. The Germans would be another thing entirely. 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.079 Bombs fell constantly as the men of the three twenty 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.680 eighth marched towards the Argonne Forest in the northeast of France. 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.400 The weather was rainy and miserable, but it was the 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.960 noise that got to Alvin. Most the airplanes buzzing like 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.960 hornets overhead the thunder of artillery. The roads were blocked 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.480 by the corpses of horses and men. It looked like 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:31.200 a cyclone had ripped through the woods. Alvin thought this 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.600 must be what armageddon is like. By this point, in 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.200 early October nineteen eighteen, Alvin had been in the army 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.600 for eleven months and in France for almost five. Two 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:48.200 important things happened in the meantime. First, Alvin had his 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.280 dark night of the soul. Before his company left for Europe. 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.600 He had been granted a ten day furlough to go 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.040 home and make peace with his role in the conflict 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.120 to come. He went into the woods and prayed. He 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.200 believed that quote, no matter what a man is forced 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.880 to do, so long as he is right in his 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:12.600 own soul, he remains a righteous man. Ultimately, Alvin convinced 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.400 himself that he wasn't going to France to take lives. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.680 They were there to make peace, and that was something 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:25.800 he could live with. He returned to the army. When 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:31.080 he did, the second important thing happened. Alvin's commanding officers 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.880 discovered that he was an incredibly good shot. He'd been 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:39.359 hunting his whole life, and back home. Bullets were expensive, 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.400 so if you were going to use one, it had 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:43.520 to hit its mark. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.160 For him, shooting with survival, you didn't eat if you 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.080 didn't kill game and put food on the table. 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.800 By June he was put in charge of an automatic 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.600 rifle squad, and by September he was promoted to acting corporal. 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.520 For a man who believed in that commandment, thal shall 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.439 not kill, it was a tense situation. Even though he'd 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.160 made his peace, he had a job to do. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:11.080 Now. 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.440 He and the rest of his division were on their 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.000 way to what they hoped would be the decisive battle 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.520 of the war. Part of the coordinated drive by the Allies. 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:24.000 Stretching for hundreds of miles, the Americans were attacking between 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.719 the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River. It was insanely 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:33.080 difficult terrain, filled with high hills and deep ravines. The 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.840 Germans had been entrenched there for four years, stringing barbed 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.720 wire and building concrete machine gun nests. The area was 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.679 important because it held key supply lines, in particular the 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.640 Dcoville Railway. As one of the American commanders put it, quote, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.880 who wins the railway wins the war, and that's how 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.000 in the wee hours of the morning of October eighth, 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.280 Alvin found himself marching through wet and mucky roads towards 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.800 the village of Chatel Shahari and a hill they referred 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.720 to as Number two twenty three, setting out to attack 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.480 heavily defended territory that none of these Americans had ever 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.760 seen before. Their commanders knew the casualty rate would be 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:20.920 painfully high. The climb up Hill two twenty three was 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.240 slippery and treacherous, and even in the pitch dark, the 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.080 Germans saw them and began firing. The underbrush of the 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.120 forest was filled with dead and dying Americans who had 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.240 tried and failed to advance over the previous days. Alvin 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:42.400 passed them as he crested the hill. The moment dawn arrived, 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.680 the men of Company G would race down the far 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.200 slope into the fields below. The Germans had all of 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.200 the high ground. The Americans would be out in the open, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:56.200 no trenches to protect them, enemy snipers and machine guns 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.800 ringing them on three sides. There were more gunners hiding 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:05.960 in the knee high grass, a killing floor. There was 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.080 meant to be a heavy barrage in advance of the 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.560 men to protect them, but at zero hour the barrage 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.880 didn't come. The men would have to go forward without it. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.240 They went over the top of Hill two twenty three. 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.440 What awaited them, Alvin would later say, was quote a 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.760 death trap. A rain of bullets sliced through the first 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.720 wave of Americans, and then the second lieutenant, who was 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.400 leading Alvin's company, was shot in the leg. He went down, 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.400 but just for a moment he stood again and led 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:45.040 the men forward. Then he was shot in the head dead. 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.360 As Alvin put it, quote, we were cut down like 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.600 the long grass before the mowing machine at home. The 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.160 men pressed themselves to the ground, hiding in shell holes, 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:02.280 trying to regroup and survive. Sergeant Harry Parsons assumed command. 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.920 He called over at Bernard Early, and above the deafening 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.360 noise of the guns, he laid out a plan. Frankly, 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.760 it sounded more like a suicide mission. Early would take 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.800 seventeen men and divide them into three groups, one led 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.320 by Alvin's friend Murray Savage, one by Otis Merrithew, and 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.640 one by Alvin. The idea was that each group would 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.040 creep up the hill to their left and come behind 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.560 the machine guns, catching them by surprise, that is, of course, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:38.520 if the Americans weren't caught first. Early led the men forward. 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.800 The trees and brush on the hill provided a screen 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.760 from the sniper's bullets. The seventeen men went silently, single file, 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.320 and soon enough they were behind the German line. The 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.200 sounds of screaming men in the field started to recede. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.880 They moved cautiously, following a footpath in the woods. Then 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.200 they started to hear the drum of machine gun fire 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.120 on the ridge above them. Suddenly one of the men 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:11.359 called out Germans. Two enemy soldiers darted from a hiding 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.720 place in the brush. The Americans shouted at them to surrender, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:19.359 and instead they ran. The men took off after them. 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.159 They chased them until after a moment the woods opened 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.919 up into a clearing, a clearing filled with German soldiers. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.080 It was between eighty and ninety Germans, and they were 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:38.359 eating breakfast. Alvin later remembered loaves of bread and steaks 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.480 and jellies laid across the table. They hadn't seen the Americans. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.520 The German men were hanging out smoking, preparing but not 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.200 yet ready for a day of battle. Fortunately for the Americans, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.840 they weren't close to their guns. Early told his men 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.800 to hide in the brush, and then he gave the 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.719 order to fire. The small group of Americans caught the 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.480 Germans totally by surprise, and now the enemy was falling 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:11.720 where they stood. Some of the Germans surrendered immediately they 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:16.680 assumed they were surrounded by a far superior force. Others 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.720 took off running. Early told his men to hold fire 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.760 and approached the officer to the group. Fortunately, the Germans 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:29.600 spoke enough English to follow Early's order. Line up, you're 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:34.480 being taken prisoner. Early and Marrithew organized the Germans into 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.720 lines and confiscated whatever weapons they had, But the Germans 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.840 saw something the Americans missed a signal from the machine 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:48.040 gunners on top of the ridge. Suddenly, all the Germans 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.480 hit the ground, diving for cover, and a spray of 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:56.120 machine gun fire ripped through the Americans. Early was hitting 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.600 the arm and sighed at least four times. He was 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:04.080 down for the count but conscious. Marrithew was shot multiple 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.119 times in the left arm. In total, three of the 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:13.520 seventeen Americans were wounded and six were dead, including Alvin's 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:19.240 dear friend Murray Savage. He was shot nine times. His 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:25.680 uniform cut to shreds. As Alvin remembered it, quote, thousands 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.080 of bullets kicked up the dust all around us. The 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.560 air was just plumb full of death. Some of the 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.760 American survivors shot back at the machine guns on the ridge. 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.760 Others clustered around the prisoners, training their guns on them. 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:43.840 For one thing, it gave them a measure of safety, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.560 and for the other, if those German prisoners decided to 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.920 fight back, the Americans would be utterly outnumbered, and they 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.320 knew it. Alvin was slightly ahead of the group of 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.920 Americans and prisoners, and when the machine gunners mowed down 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.600 his friends to the ground, he wasn't focused on what 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.320 the rest of the men were doing. All he cared 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.800 about was clearing those machine gunners off of that ridge. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.440 He never wanted to kill, but it was a stark choice. Now. 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.720 If he didn't shoot the enemy, all of his friends 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.639 would die. He moved into a better firing position. He 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.040 waited patiently for the enemy shooters on the ridge to 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.199 poke their heads up. They had to raise up to 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:33.320 see their targets. Each time one did, Alvin shot him 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.800 with dead aid, or, as he later put it, touched 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.760 them off He used to tell the story to his. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.800 Son and said they were spitting bullets all around me, 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.680 and said, I'll touch them off. When they stick their 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.080 hand up, he'd touch them all one in time. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.439 Alvin remembered it this way quote. That's the way we 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.800 shoot wild turkeys at home, you see. We don't want 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.960 the front ones to know we're getting the back ones, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.160 and then they keep on coming until we get them all. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.280 Alvin remembers that as he shot, he was shouting for 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:14.119 the Germans to surrender. He was, he said, unwilling to 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.919 kill any more than he had to. Finally, the English 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.520 speaking German officer blew his whistle, a signal for the 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.120 troops to stop fighting. Not a hair on Alvin's head 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.359 was harmed. He saw it as a sign that God 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.520 was protecting him. What remained of the group from Company 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.080 G gathered the Germans up into two lines, with Alvin 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.680 at the lead. They marched back to camp. Alvin kept 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.720 his pistol trained on the officer. As they went back 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.560 to regimental headquarters, they ran into more Germans and they 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.879 were added to the line of prisoners too. The wounded 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.159 Americans were taken off to the hospital. Alvin kept the 0:21:56.200 --> 0:22:00.280 Germans marching. As he entered a divisional prisoner camp, he 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:04.080 was reportedly stopped by the Brigadier General Julian Lindsay, who 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.480 said to him, quote, well, Yorke, I hear you captured 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:13.960 the whole damn German Army, to which Alvin responded only 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:19.479 one hundred and thirty two All told, the action had 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.680 lasted half an hour at most. That half hour would 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.280 define the rest of Alvin's life. For his part in it, 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.679 alvign Yorke would be awarded the Medal of Honor, but 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.280 he got something else as well, a myth that he 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:42.080 would have to live up to. Alvin York continued fighting 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.920 with his regiment in the weeks that followed. He even 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.159 got blown into the air by a mortarshell just a 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.639 few days later. By the end of the month, nearly 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.160 thirty percent of the three to twenty eighth infantry were casualties. 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.159 But the mews Argun offensive was as successful as the 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:04.600 Allies had hoped, and on November eleventh, the armistice was signed. 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.960 By then, Alvin had been promoted to sergeant, and on 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:13.760 November thirtieth, he received his Distinguished Service Cross, the army's 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.919 second highest award for valor. In those days and weeks 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.240 after the armistice, Alvin was asked to tell the story 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.040 of the heroic actions of October eighth to wrap audiences 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.560 of other soldiers. It was the chaplain of the eighty 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:32.160 second Division, who no doubt liked the religious angle, who 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:35.639 first asked Alvin to talk about capturing all those Germans. 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:39.840 The men needed something to inspire them in the aftermath 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:44.639 of so much cartnage. It's unclear when the story became 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:49.520 entirely focused on what Alvin did that October morning. Obviously 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.280 the other men from Company G were there too. Early 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.600 led the ambush and surrender of the bulk of the Germans. 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:00.760 After Early was shot, Merrithew insisted that he had taken 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:05.560 command and fired at the Germans despite his wounded arm. 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.040 The other survivors had kept the prisoners under guard and 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:13.640 fired back at the machine guns two Alvin later stated quote, 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:16.480 I hadn't time or a chance to look around for 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:19.120 the other boys. I didn't know what they were doing. 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:24.520 But as the story was told and retold, the actions 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:27.719 of that day went from being an extraordinary group effort 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:33.280 to an almost miraculous tale of a single soldier The 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:37.160 hero of this story, of course, was Alvin, a man 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:41.880 devoted to peace and kindness, but whose shooting skills were undeniable. 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:47.280 And then, on one incredible morning, the story went, he 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:51.080 jumped into action. While his fellow soldiers were wounded, unable 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:55.280 to shoot, or hiding from the enemy gunfire, he mercilessly 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.920 picked off each of the German machine gunners one by one, 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.120 silencing more than thirty guns all on his own. He 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:08.239 was a one man army. It was less like a 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:11.639 war story and more like a legend, a lot like 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.000 the one the USA liked to tell about its own 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:21.520 involvement in the war. Reluctant, pea sloven, ruthless, and ultimately triumphant, 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.119 the commanding general of the eighty second Division, George Duncan, 0:25:26.840 --> 0:25:30.639 started telling everyone that alvin only version of the story. 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:33.720 It was picked up by a reporter from the Saturday 0:25:33.720 --> 0:25:37.960 Evening Post, a magazine with more than two million readers 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:43.040 back home. Soon enough, Duncan and another general in the division, 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:47.639 perhaps interested in a little reflected glory for themselves, started 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:51.439 pushing for Alvin to receive the Medal of Honor. It 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:57.600 was investigated and approved quickly. On April eleventh, nineteen nineteen, 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:02.320 Alvin was awarded the medal, and the alvin centric version 0:26:02.359 --> 0:26:08.159 of events was cemented in military history. Did Alvin believe 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:13.840 this version of the story. Maybe, after all, it reflected 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:18.840 his experience of a moment filled with panic and trauma. 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:21.919 Did Alvin go along with the one man army story 0:26:21.960 --> 0:26:24.560 because he wanted to give his commanding officers what they 0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:30.439 were clearly looking for? Maybe Alvin wasn't stupid, but he 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:34.760 wasn't sophisticated either, with the second grade education and little 0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:38.680 experience of the wider world. And this official story had 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:41.000 to be fact checked and research in order for him 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:44.560 to receive the Medal of honor. Right other members of 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:48.960 his company had signed official statement supporting this narrative. Who 0:26:49.000 --> 0:26:53.920 was he to argue against that? Plus the accolades kept 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:57.199 rolling in. He went to Paris for the founding of 0:26:57.240 --> 0:27:01.040 the American Legion. It was safe to say, say a 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:04.280 far cry from Paul mal Tennessee. 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:07.720 He saw electricity, he saw indoor plumbing. He went to 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:13.439 all of the major attractions in Paris, the museums, the cathedrals, 0:27:13.480 --> 0:27:16.000 and universities. He just tried to process what he had 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:19.200 been through, but also to realize how he wanted life 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:20.520 to be different when he came home. 0:27:22.080 --> 0:27:24.080