The Discovery of Alvin C York's Firing Position in the Argonne Forest France 2006

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¡¡ The Discovery of Alvin C York's Firing Position in the Argonne Forest France 2006
By Michael John Kelly

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¡¡¡¡The story has been passed down over the years, capturing the imagination of both schoolchildren and adults alike, and for many years students of military history have attempted to no avail, to find the location in the Argonne forest where the action took place.

Formed in 2005. The team objective was to discover Alvin York's firing site in the Argonne forest, France.

Using historical records and maps from the time, the group set out in March 2006 and over a 5 day period found a number of interesting artifacts from the period but nothing conclusive as to the site of York's fight. Further research was undertaken in archives by Dr Nolan which resulted in a 10 day expedition in November of 2006. This time, the group altered the position of their investigations slightly. They had no idea of the compelling evidence they would discover.

THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST:

On October 8 1918 the sleepy little village of Châtel-Chéhéry on the edge of the mighty Argonne forest was to be part of an action that would cast it headlong into a site of military historic homage for the next 90 years. The attack by the 82nd Division at that point was designed to seize a German railway that was supplying German troops along the front line. In part, the attack was also to relieve the Lost Battalion, a group of American soldiers led by Major Charles Whittlesey, who had found themselves surrounded and cut-off by superior German forces near Binarville, a small village in the forest only 8 kilometers distant.

Corporal Alvin C. York was one of the men in the attack, his unit was the 328th Infantry, Company G of the 82nd Division who found themselves pinned down by heavy German machine-gun fire. In an attempt to eradicate this threat, York and 17 men under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early was detailed to work their way through the lines and behind the machine-guns and to destroy them.

Picking their way through forest and undergrowth and an autumnal mist, they made their way undetected for a distance of about 1 mile before they saw 2 German soldiers bearing red cross armbands, they immediately ran off into the undergrowth. Early detailed his men to form a skirmish line and they then gave chase. Coming to a small stream they disturbed a large group of German soldiers, who,surprised to see American soldiers so far from the action, were seated and having breakfast on the bank on the other side of the stream.

After a few initial shots from the Americans, the Germans surrendered. The Americans were in the process of securing their prisoners when they were fired on from the hill behind by a German machine-gun. Immediately Sgt. Early was hit multiple times in the lower body rendering him unfit to command. In total, 6 of the patrol were killed and 3 wounded which left Alvin York the senior N.C.O.

Documentary evidence states that York was in a position where the machine-gun could not properly see him, the German gunners had to raise their heads in order to gain a full view. York being the backwoodsman marksman he was, raised his weapon and was able to shoot the gunners one at a time.

He was then charged by a German officer and soldiers, he shot them all sequentially from the rear most first. This way the soldiers at the front would not be aware that they were being shot, therefore they would not take to cover.

After only a short time, the Germans surrendered to York and the survivors of the patrol. They were rounded up with York and the American soldiers in the middle of the formation and marched back to American lines, collecting more Germans who capitulated en-route.

Upon arrival at camp, 132 prisoners were counted. A little later an American officer counted 25 German bodies at the site of the battle.

York was promoted Sergeant and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In 1929 there was a re-enactment of the fight at the Army War College. Two officers from York's unit, Captain Danforth and Major Buxton (who later wrote the divisional history of the 82nd Division) independently supplied the Army with maps they had drawn as to the route they felt the patrol had taken. Although there is a little difference as to be expected, the two route lines on the map are much the same.

This document was discovered by a member of the team in the archives at Washington D.C. Also found were the map coordinates of the site of burial of members of the patrol who had been killed. This record had been made by the Graves Registration Unit. There was an anomaly with the coordinates as written but after examination it was discovered the positions of the graves had been recorded the wrong way round and when assembled in the correct order the grave locations were in the same area where the Team were conducting their investigations.

METHODOLOGY:It was intended by the group to reexamine the historical record and the physical landscape of the York site using an interdisciplinary methodology combining geography, history and archeology. The whole purpose was to locate Alvin York's firing position during the action. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology would be employed to integrate historic maps, reports and other documents in a spatial database that would model the landscape as it was in October 1918. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology would be used to navigate to York's most probably position based on historical spatial data. A metal detector would be used to locate artifacts related to the fight. The artifacts would then be mapped using GPS and added to the spatial database. GIS would be used to analyze the spatial data to determine the most probable location of Alvin York's firing position.It was hoped that the following questions would be answered:

1.How can GIS be used to integrate history and archeology to create an accurate picture of Alvin York's activities on October 8 1918?

2. Can GIS successfully resolve some of the controversies and contradictions in written accounts of the York fight?

3. Can Gis serve as the basis for preserving the spatial record of the York fight and creating interpretive materials for battlefield tourism?

THE DISCOVERIES:

Previous attempts had been made by others to locate the fight site. Notably the investigation conducted by two Army Colonels in 2000. Their approach was to use modern day application of military tactics in such circumstances as was known in 1918. The METT-T (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops and Time) and OCOKA (Observation and fields of fire, Cover and Concealment, Obstacles, Key terrain, and Avenues of approach) edicts. This method allowed them to identify the general area of engagement but failed to pinpoint York's firing position or the location of the German participants.

In 2006 a serving Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army with another team was attempting to locate the position. He used many German records and accounts but strangely discounted the map information as supplied by Buxton and Danforth. The group announced in 2006 that they had identified the firing position and produced a large number of both American and German artifacts from the period to substantiate their claim.

The exploration was re-started by a second visit in November 2006 which was planned to allow for maximum GIS/GPS capability e.g. there would be little interference from the tree canopy foliage, there was an immediate battery failure on the Trimble Recon data collector. Instead the Trimble Pathfinder Pro XRS unit was used for mapping artifacts in the field, but with continental generosity from the D3E Electronique GPS Boutique, the team were able to access base station files that were used to post-process the data to sub-meter accuracy.

The team initially set out to find the site where four German .77m field guns had been captured by the 2nd Battalion on 8 October. This position had been described in a transcript of a question and answer document held between Major G. Edward Buxton and the 2nd Battalion Commander, Major Tillman concerning the battalion attack on October 8 1918. Tillman had described the position of the guns in his account of the attack.

Almost immediately the search revealed three live .77mm shells with the copper driving bands chiseled off by post war savagers. A further search located twelve .77mm shell cases and seven protective shipping covers for .77mm shell fuses. This confirmed the location of the four .77mm guns captured by the 2nd Battalion and fixed the right flank of the battalion attack. This had the effect of increasing the Team's confidence in the documentary evidence.

Returning to the general area the team had researched previously and making corrections based upon Danforth & Buxton's map and the coordinates of the burials of the York patrol, it was not long before a number of important finds were made around the location of a small stream.

The remains of a an American cartridge belt consisting of eight full clips of 30-06 ammunition, several loose live rounds and stripper clips, part of the brass cover for a field dressing container, and a pocket knife were discovered. In addition a button from an American tunic and mess utensils were found nearby.

When an article was located it was left in-situ, flagged or marked and then mapped using the GPS before being bagged and tagged.

The following day thanks to the generosity of the French department of Archaeology, a backhoe was brought in in an attempt to locate soil disturbance from the graves of the six American soldiers. The bodies had been recovered in stages after the war and taken to the American Meuse-Argonne cemetery, and in one instance, a soldier had been repatriated to the U.S.

This search had a negative result. However, at the same time as this search was being conducted, investigations continued by the side of the stream. This resulted in finding a bronze unit collar disc inscribed with the number 328' crossed rifles and letter G that confirmed beyond any doubt the presence of members of York's company at that site and probably belonged to one of the American casualties.

An American helmet was found on the other side of the stream and the base of a steep hill. This had a hole in the side probably caused by a bullet. It is interesting to note that records state that upon exhumation of one of the American casualties, he had received a wound to the left scapula.

The team then worked their way up a very steep hill. A number of interesting artifacts were found here.

Expended cartridge cases from the bolt action rifles used by both sides are ejected to the right and rear of the shooter. The point of impact of each ejected case creates a pattern pointing to the shooters position. In this case, the pattern of the ejected cases had been modified by the steep, forty percent slopes at the engagement site.

Ejected cases found by the group had been displaced down slope from their point of initial impact by the momentum of their ejection from the weapon and subsequently by overland precipitation flow. Consequently, the patterns created by recovered small arms ammunition can only provide a general location of the firing position of individual combatants.

However, the distribution and quantity of 30-06 cartridge cases (US) is consistent with the American accounts that state all members of the patrol fired several rounds when they first encountered the Germans on the side of the hill.

The investigation resolved that York's squad moved part of the way up the hill to gather prisoners when the German machine-gun opened fire. Private Beardsley of York's squad stated he took cover behind a tree about fifteen paces to the rear of York with Private Dymowski on one side and Private Wareing on the other. Both of these men were killed by the German machine-gun fire.

Beardsley saw York firing his pistol, and he said he also fired his pistol at least three times indicating that some privates as well as non-commissioned officers were armed with .45 caliber pistols.

Forty-four .45 caliber cartridge cases and four .45 caliber bullets recovered from the middle of the slope indicate the general positions of York and Beardsley.

Documentary evidence indicates York fired 21 pistol rounds and Beardsley three rounds. Evidently one or both men fired more .45 caliber bullets than reported. Major Buxton said that York fired 21 rounds from his pistol and 15 rounds from his rifle. Only four 30-06 cartridge cases were recovered in this area. This suggests York used his pistol more and rifle less than Buxton recorded.

A total of eight 30-06 cartridge cases and two empty 30-06 stripper clips were recovered from the flat area beside the stream.

This confirms that few surviving members of the patrol beside York engaged the German machine-gunners.

A total of eight 9mm cartridge cases were recovered in the vicinity of York's firing position. York stated that a German officer among the prisoners fired a pistol at him but missed.

When this officer, Lt. Vollmer later surrendered his pistol to York, the magazine was empty. The 9mm cartridge cases provide confirmation that Vollmer fired his pistol at York before he surrendered.

A metal detecting search was carried out on the slope close to the summit and about 60 meters from York's firing position.

A large number of intact and expended 7.92mm ammunition was found in one spot. From this the team determined that this had been the firing position of the German machine-gun that fired upon York's patrol.

CONCLUSION:

It is interesting to note that very few German or American weapons were recovered. They consisted of two rifle bolts, three ersatz bayonets, and the remains of four stick grenades. One rifle bolt was from a Gewehr 98 and the other from the Gewehr 98b carbine carried by machine-gunners and sappers. A total of four empty bayonet scabbards or parts of scabbards were recovered. Nine entrenching tools and one scabbard were found.Twenty artifacts were associated with German gas masks, eighteen items associated with eating and drinking were found confirming that some of the Germans were eating when they were captured.

These articles were missed when the American salvage crews later swept the area.

The number of German items of equipment found on the side of the hill is indicative of a group of German soldiers involved in an act of surrender. To remove one's rifle bolt is and throw it down shows total capitulation, It is safe to conclude through the abundance of evidence that a large number of Germans surrendered at that location, it also follows that an enormous quantity of arms, ammunition and equipment was removed later by battlefield salvage.

The Team concluded that the western side of Hill 223 was the site of the engagement that resulted in York being awarded the Medal of Honor. Whereas it is impossible to confirm or refute every statement by every participant in the documentary accounts based on the type and distribution of the artifacts; the degree of correlation between the documentary and physical evidence revealed by GIS can validate the interpretation of events.

FOOTNOTES:

French authorities have agreed to lay a historic trail. The ceremony will take place in August 2008 at Chatel-Chehery.

A bronze bust of York is being cast. It has been sculpted by a Tennessean doctor. This bust will be presented to the people of the village of Chatel-Chehery in October 2008 at a commemoration ceremony. A number of identical busts have been replicated and will be presented to various educational institutions in Tennessee.

Further evidence may become available after expended rounds found at the site have been forensically examined.

Michael Kelly. June 2008

The author Michael Kelly is a well respected English Military Historian and guide on the Western Front battlefields of WW1. He has been involved in the Australian investigation into the missing soldiers at Fromelles, France, and in 2006 was one of an international team of historians, geographers and archaeologists who discovered the site in France where Sergeant Alvin C. York from Pall Mall Tennessee, killed 21 German soldiers and took 132 prisoners.

Michael regularly leads people to the battlefields, his specialty is to research the background of relatives of those he guides and to then walk the ground over which that relative trod and in many instances was killed.

He has painstakingly researched the American Expeditionary Forces battlefields in the Meuse-Argonne area of France from WW1 and put it all together in a compact handy sized guide entitled Sergeant York of the Argonne ISBN 978-0-9559386-0-3 Published by Ennogra Forest Publications, Grimsby, England.

Designed for ease of navigation, Michael has innovatively included satellite navigation points for use with GPS systems. This will enable the visitor to go straight to the site of interest.

Previously unpublished, Michael Kelly has included the coordinates of the location where the unit collar identity disc was found and the site where the German machine-gun that fired on York's patrol was located.

A number of tips for the traveler can be found together with affordable restaurant/hotel accommodation in the area.

Please visit:http://www.sergeantyorkproject.com

Michael may be contacted by email: 1battlefields@sergeantyorkproject.com

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