![]() Once the Germans realized the size of the American contingent, machine gunners on the hill overlooking the scene turned their weapons on their own troops, after ordering them to lie down. A brief firefight ensued, which resulted in the unexpected surrender of a superior German force. The men misread their French language map and mistakenly wound up behind enemy lines. York and sixteen other soldiers under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early were dispatched to take control of the Decauville railroad in the Chatel-Chehery sector of the Meuse-Argonne sector. After weeks of debate and counseling, York relented to the arguments of his company commander, George Edward Buxton, and agreed that there were times when war was moral and ordained by God. A member of Company G in the 328th Infantry, also known as the “All American Division,” York established a reputation as an excellent marksman, but one who had no stomach for war. York received basic training at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Although York wrote on his draft card, “Dont want to fight,” local and state review boards denied his case because the church was not recognized as a legitimate Christian sect.ĭespite his status as a thirty-year-old would-be conscientious objector, York in many ways typified the underprivileged, undereducated conscript of World War I. ![]() Pile encouraged York to use the sect’s proscriptions against war to obtain conscientious objector status. ![]() York received his draft notice from his friend, pastor, and postmaster, Rosier Pile, on June 5, 1917. The American declaration of war on Germany in April 1917 tested York’s newfound faith, however. He stopped drinking, gambling, and fighting. The church also brought York into contact with his future wife, Gracie Williams.īy most accounts, York’s conversion was sincere and complete. Blessed with a melodious singing voice, York became the song leader and a Sunday school teacher at the local church. The church also held moral convictions against violence and war. A fundamentalist sect with a following limited to Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the church espoused a strict moral code that forbade drinking, dancing, movies, swimming, swearing, and popular literature. Russell of the Church of Christ in Christian Union. As he had never traveled more than fifty miles from his home, York’s war experience awakened him to a more complex world.Īs York came of age he earned a reputation as a deadly accurate shot and a “hell raiser” who would “never amount to anything.” In 1914 a close friend of York’s died, though, and he experienced a religious conversion during a revival conducted by H. The oldest of eleven children in a family of subsistence farmers, York was a semiskilled laborer when he was drafted into the army in 1917. Congressional Medal of Honor winner and hero of World War I, Alvin C.
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