The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1919-05-30
CORPORAL YORK, OF TENNESSEE,
MAKES GREATEST INDIVIDUAL
RECORD in UNITED STATES ARMY
Killed 20 Germans, Captured 1872, Put IS Machine Guns
Out in Half Day.

The following is from the Saturday
Evening Post. written by George Pat
tulio, who made a personal inYestiga-
ton of the case and went over the
ground with York and some of the
other survivors.
York arrived in New York and
Washington last week and was ban
quoted and toasted very much more
than he desired to be. He has been
awarded the Congressional medal and
his superior officers have hoEored him
in every way, vouching for the truth
of what is pronounced the greatest
feat of the biggest war in the worlds
history.
Another feature that gives this case
strong local interest is the fact that
York is mountaineer whose home is
only five miles from the southern line
of Eastern Kentucky, in the same
chain of mountains that traverses our
border.
A Wonderful Story.
Alvin G. York comes from Pail Mall,
Fentress county, Tennessee, and is
second elder in the Church of CHRIST
and Christian Union. The sect is OPP
posed to any form of fighting; they are
conscientious directors. But York re
fused to ask exemption, went TO war
and as Corporal York of Company G.,
32Sth Infantry, killed twenty Germans
on October 9Th, captured 1872 prisoners,
including major and three lleuten-
ants, put 35 machine guns out of bust
ness, and thereby broke up an entire
battalion which was about to counter
attack against the Americans on Hill
223 in the Argonne sector near Chatel-
Chehery.
He outfought the machine gun bat
talon with his rifle and automatic
pistol There were seven other Amer
leans present at the fight, but it was
Yorks battle and only York's. But
for him not man of them would have
come out alive except as prisoners. In
my estimation it stands out as the
greatest individual feat of the war,
not only because of the amazing
things he did that day but because of
the mans deep religious convictions
and scrupIes. For though York Joined
the army when drafted he remained
troubled for months, and it was only
after his captain had laid his doubts
by quoting biblical authority for taking
UP the sword that he saw his duty
clearly. Once his conscience was at
ease the second elder went in for fight
ing in earnest-and he surely did one
fine job.
Never once did he do the wrong
thing, though he was several times in
situations about which he had received
no Instructions This Tennessee noun
taineer seems to do everything cor
rectly by intuition; army officers who
have been over the ground where he
thought assert that no amount of mill
tary training could have improved his
tactics, yet with York it was entirely
the working of instinct, for until Nov
ember IA, 1917, he was living on a
small farm on Wolf River, five miles
from the Kentucky border. On that
day he Joined the army at Camp Cor
don, Georgia.
Was An Expert Shot.
York was soon promoted to corporal
in Company q, S2Sth Infantry, SD
Division. And he was with his com
pany when the I'd Battalion of the
;328th jumped off from Hill 223, just
north of Chatel- Chehery, at six o'clock
'on the morning of the eighth of Octo-
Der. Their objective was the Decau
vile railroad, two kilometers due west
and by the way, they got it. They
got it despite the sheer ridges they
had to climb under artillery and ma
chine-gun fire; and the bochee were
Obliged to pull out OF a sector of the
Argonne Forest, their communications
having been cut.
The battalion had to cross valley
several hundred yards in width. On
the left rose. a considerable hill from
which the boches sprayed them with
machine gun fire; straight ahead tow
cred the elevation known as 1871 a
steep high ridge, from which came a