Alvin York

Alvin Cullum York was born in a two-room log cabin in Fentress County, Tennessee. He was the third child born to William Uriah York and Mary Elizabeth (Brooks) York. William Uriah York was born in Jamestown, Tennessee, to Uriah York and Eliza Jane Livingston, who had moved to Tennessee from Buncombe County, North Carolina. Mary Elizabeth York was born in Pall Mall to William Brooks, who took his mother's maiden name as an alias of William H. Harrington after deserting from Company A of the 11th Michigan Cavalry Regiment during the American Civil War, and Nancy Pyle, and was the great-granddaughter of Conrad "Coonrod" Pyle, an English settler who settled Pall Mall, Tennessee.

William York and Mary Brooks married on December 25, 1881, and had 11 children: Henry Singleton, Joseph Marion, Alvin Cullum, Samuel John, Albert, Hattie, George Alexander, James Preston, Lillian Mae, Robert Daniel, and Lucy Erma. The York family is mainly of English ancestry, with Scots-Irish ancestry as well. The family resided in the Indian Creek area of Fentress County. The family was impoverished, with William York working as a blacksmith to supplement the family's income. The men of the York family farmed and harvested their own food, while the mother made all of the family's clothing. The York sons attended school for only nine months and withdrew from education because William York needed them to help work on the family farm, hunt, and fish to help feed the family. When William York died in November 1911, his son Alvin helped his mother raise his younger siblings. Alvin was the oldest sibling still residing in the county, since his two older brothers had married and relocated. To supplement the family's income, York worked in Harriman, Tennessee, first in railroad construction and then as a logger. By all accounts, he was a skilled laborer who was devoted to the welfare of his family, and a crack shot. York was also a violent alcoholic prone to fighting in saloons. In one of the saloon fights, his best friend was killed. His mother, a member of a pacifist Protestant denomination, tried to persuade York to change his ways.

York and his wife Gracie had 10 children, seven sons and three daughters, most named after American historical figures: an infant son (1920, died at four days old), Alvin Cullum Jr. (1921–1983), George Edward Buxton (1923–2018), Woodrow Wilson (1925–1998), Samuel Huston [sic] (1928–1929), Andrew Jackson (1930–2022), Betsy Ross (born 1933), Mary Alice (1935–1991), Thomas Jefferson (1938–1972), and an infant daughter (1940, died the same day).

York had health problems throughout his life. He had gallbladder surgery in the late 1920s and had pneumonia in 1942. Described in 1919 as a "red-haired giant with the ruddy complexion of the outdoors" and "standing more than 6 feet... and tipping the scale at more than 200 pounds", by 1945, he weighed 250 pounds and in 1948, he had a stroke. More strokes and another case of pneumonia followed, and he was confined to bed from 1954, further impaired by failing eyesight. He was hospitalized several times during his last two years. York died at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 2, 1964, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 76. After a funeral service in his Jamestown church, with Gen. Matthew Ridgway representing President Lyndon Johnson, York was buried at the Wolf River Cemetery in Pall Mall. His funeral sermon was delivered by Richard G. Humble, General Superintendent of the Churches of Christ in Christian Union. Humble also preached Mrs. York's funeral sermon in 1984.

Political views

York originally believed in the morality of America's intervention in World War I. By the mid-1930s, he looked back more critically: "I can't see that we did any good. There's as much trouble now as there was when we were over there. I think the slogan 'A war to end war' is all wrong." He fully endorsed American preparedness, but showed sympathy for isolationism by saying that he would fight only if war came to America.

A consistent Democrat – "I'm a Democrat first, last, and all the time", he said – in January 1941 he praised President Roosevelt's support for the United Kingdom, and in an address at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day of that year, he attacked isolationists and said that veterans understood that "liberty and freedom are so very precious that you do not fight and win them once and stop." They are "prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them!" At times, he was blunt: "I think any man who talks against the interests of his own country ought to be arrested and put in jail, not excepting senators and colonels." Everyone knew that the colonel in question was Charles Lindbergh.

In the late 1940s, he called for toughness in dealing with the Soviet Union and did not hesitate to recommend using the atomic bomb in a first strike, stating, "If they can't find anyone else to push the button, I will." He questioned the failure of United Nations forces to use the atomic bomb in Korea. In the 1960s, he criticized Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's plans to reduce the ranks of the National Guard and reserves, saying, "Nothing would please Khrushchev better."

Controversy

Beginning soon after York's return to the United States at the end of the war, doubt and controversy periodically surfaced over whether the events detailed in his Medal of Honor documents had taken place as officially described, and whether other soldiers in York's unit should also have been recognized for their heroism. Otis Merrithew (William Cutting) and Bernard Early were among those who argued against the official version. Of the 17 American soldiers who were involved in York's Medal of Honor action, six were killed. York received the Medal of Honor, and over the years, three of the others who lived through that day's fighting also received valor awards, including the Distinguished Service Cross for Early in 1929, and the Silver Star for Merrithew in 1965.

Considerable red tape hampered the other men's attempts to get recognized as well as conflicts of interest by those reviewing their files. Later in life Gen. Lindsey would have a change of heart and support the other men's claims for recognition, which were again blocked by military officials citing a 1929 cutoff date for recommendation. Historian James P. Gregory's 2023 book Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York and related academic lectures has brought about new scrutiny on the subject and renewed calls for the men involved other than York to be honored.

York's record became the subject of controversy in Germany in 1928, after a Swedish journal published an article about York's exploits, which some Germans felt impugned the honor of the German armed forces. In 1929, the Reichsarchiv investigated the claims made about York's battlefield exploits by reviewing military records and interviewing surviving German officers of the 2nd Württemberg Landwehr Division, who had fought against York. The German report, which was not published at the time, concluded, "York was a brave and fearless soldier" and the official U.S. Army report on York's actions "corresponds with the facts," but also found that some of the details of York's first report from the battlefield had been "grossly exaggerated." In particular, the German investigators found that York's unit had likely captured fewer than 132 prisoners and 35 machine guns, as Germans records showed the loss of only 79 prisoners in the sector that day, and German officers reported fewer than 35 machine guns were present. The German investigators shared their report with the U.S. Army, which did not take any action, as the report confirmed York's role in valorously leading assaults on German positions and did not contradict any of the specific details of York's Medal of Honor citation.