HISTORY OF TENNESSEE
Sergeant
York
*Sergeant York was released in 1941 when most of the world was at war,
although the United States was still technically uninvolved. The
movie was created in part because film-makers had long wanted to tell
Alvin York’s story, and partly to prepare Americans for their likely
entrance into World War II.
*The movie is mostly accurate.
*Alvin York was born in Pall Mall, Tennessee, along the Wolf River in
Fentress County, on 13 December 1887, and was descended from the first
settlers of the area. His grandfather, Uriah York, had fought in
both the Mexican War and the Civil War, and other relatives had been
patriotic soldiers from the American Revolution onwards.
*York’s mother, however, was an intensely religious woman, a member of
the Church of Christ in Christian Union. His father died in 1911,
though, and afterwards York took to wild and riotous living, drinking
with his friends at a tavern called ‘The Shack’ on the
Tennessee-Kentucky border (much as depicted in the movie).
*After a few years of rough living, York was saved. This did not
happen exactly as it did in the movie, though. In 1914, one of
his best friends was killed in a bar fight. About the same time,
his mother caught him coming home drunk and asked him why he couldn’t
be as good a man as his father and grandfather, both of whom had been
highly respected men in the valley of the Wolf.
*He became a member and eventually an elder of the Church of Christ in
Christian Union. He met a young girl named Gracie Williams and
fell in love, eventually asking her to marry him.
*In 1917 he was drafted, despite writing on his draft registration ‘I
don’t want to fight.’ When he was called up, he was torn (more so
than shown in the movie) between his conviction that when the Bible
said ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ it meant it, and his memory of the war
heroes in his family and his admiration for other frontiersman and
fighters such as Jackson, Crockett, and Sam Houston. The movie
also mentions Boone (and even shows the famous Boone Tree, which was
not in Fentress County, but just north of Johnson City), which is
interesting, as Boone himself was a Quaker who never killed a man
except in self-defence.
*In his own accounts, York at different times both characterised himself as a conscientious objector and said he never was one.
*York was inducted into the 82nd Infantry division (not yet an airborne
division), which was known as the All-American Division because it had
members from all 48 states. He earned a reputation as a
sharpshooter, and was promoted to corporal and assigned to train others
in marksmanship.
*Eventually, his officers (including the divisional general, a
religious New Englander) convinced him that it was acceptable to kill
in warfare, and York fought in Europe.
*His most famous action was in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and is
pretty close to how it is show in the movie. On 8 October, 1918,
York and other Non-Commissioned Officers combined their squads to try
to go around a hill held by a German machine-gun nest. They
surprised some German soldiers eating breakfast, and made them
surrender, but then the American squads were attacked, and most of the
soldiers were killed or badly wounded, including all the other NCOs,
which left York in charge of 7 other men.
*Leading this small force, he picked off German machine gunners when
they stuck their heads up to look around, just as he had shot turkeys
in the woods back home. When some German soldiers filed by in a
line, he picked them off like flying turkeys, hitting the man in the
back and working his way up. While some movie critics have made
fun of this in the film, it comes directly from Alvin York’s diary, and
is correct. Although there are a few slight deviations in the
film, it is very close to an accurate depiction of York’s famous action.
*As York put it, he surrounded the Germans. He and his seven men
captured 132 (including 3 officers) and killed 28 others and silenced
25 machine-gun nests.
*York stayed in the lines (and was nearly killed by an artillery shell)
until 1 November when his unit was sent back for rest. He was
promoted to sergeant, and was in Paris when the Armistice was signed to
end the War.
*York was given the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished
Service Cross, and a number of foreign decorations, including the Croix
de Guerre, pinned on him by Marshall Foch. He was the most
decorated American soldier of WWI.
*He got a ticker-tape parade in New York, and was offered speaking
engagements and film and book deals, but turned down most of them,
feeling that it wasn’t right to sell what he had done. He was
paid for some speaking engagements, and was given a large farm by the
state of Tennessee, and livestock and farm machinery by various
admirers.
*He went home and married Gracie Williams. The service was performed by Governor Albert Roberts.
*He spent his life after the war promoting education in Tennessee, and
in 1929, with money from York, Tennessee, and Fentress County, the York
Agricultural Institute opened in Jamestown, Fentress County, where it
still serves as a local public high school, but also take students from
any part of the state to study agricultural techniques.
*Eventually York wanted to build a Bible College to train fundamentalist ministers and missionaries.
*This finally convinced him to let a movie be made about him.
York had been taught in his church that movies came from the devil, and
he did not watch them. However, he felt that if he used profits
from a film to fund a bible college, it would be using the devil’s
money to do the Lord’s work.
*York had three conditions for the move: his own share of the
profits would go to the York Bible School, Gracie could not be played
by anyone who smoked, drank, or cursed, and York himself had to be
played by Gary Cooper. It was hard getting Cooper for the role
(as he was contracted by MGM, not Warner Brothers), but he later said
it was his favourite movie to work on—and not just because it got him
an Oscar as best actor. It was also hard finding an Hollywood
actress who did not drink or smoke of cuss, but they finally found a
fifteen-year-old girl (the same age Gracie was when York married her)
named Joan Leslie to play her.
*York served as an advisor to the movie, which was largely based on his
diary of the war. Many of his family and neighbours objected to
it, which is why so few of his family members or any of Gracie
Williams’ family but her one of her uncles are portrayed.
*The movie did well, and York made some money (although not as much as
he’d hoped). The York Bible School never succeeded, though, and
eventually the IRS accused York of tax evasion. He was never able
to pay his back taxes until the nation found out and raised a
collection that paid it all off for him.
*During WWII York was offended that so many healthy draftees and
volunteers were rejected because they did not have sufficient
education. He offered to lead 5,000 of them himself, but was
turned down because of his health. In the 1950s he suffered a
series of cerebral hemorrhages and died at the Veterans Hospital in
Nashville on 2 September 1964, at the age of 74.
*Over 8,000 people attended York’s funeral in Pall Mall, including
General Matthew Ridgeway, who had commanded the 82nd Airborne during
WWII, and the 82nd Airborne Band, who played all of Alvin York’s
favourite hymns.