The Exact Site of Sergeant Alvin C. York's Heroic Stand Finally Identified

[slava1stclass]

To all:

A truly amazing bit of research/detective work. Check it out.

Regards,

slava1stclass

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?sectio...p;article=40908

New York Times

October 27, 2006

pg. 8

Officer Says He Found Site Of York's Heroics In 1918

By Craig S. Smith

PARIS, Oct. 23 ? An American military officer based in Germany says that he has located with some certainty the spot on which the World War I hero Sgt. Alvin C. York carried out his famous exploit in the Argonne forest of northeastern France.

On Oct. 8, 1918, Sergeant York, then a corporal, crept behind enemy lines with 16 other soldiers to attack German machine gunners who were holding up an American advance. They came under fire, and Sergeant York was credited with overcoming the superior force by using sharpshooting skills he had honed during turkey shoots and squirrel hunts in the Tennessee woods.

Competing camps of scholars and military historians have long debated the exact site of this legendary stand, which ended with the capture of 132 German soldiers and was immortalized in a 1941 film starring Gary Cooper. Until now, no one had found what seemed to be such striking material proof that the exploit might have taken place as described.

?We nailed it,? said Lt. Col. Douglas Mastriano, an American military intelligence officer working for NATO, who has spent six years researching the Sergeant York story using American and German military archives.

The general area where the fight took place, near the village of Ch?tel-Ch?h?ry, is well known, but vague and conflicting battlefield accounts made it impossible to say exactly where it occurred.

Most people involved in the hunt have agreed, however, that Sergeant York was the only one who emptied a sidearm in the narrow valley that day, and students of the issue have said that finding a concentration of empty Colt .45 cartridges would be the best proof of where he stood.

Over the past year, Colonel Mastriano, his wife, Rebecca, his son Josiah and his friends Kory O?Keefe, Lt. Col. Jeff Parmer and Gary Martin spent nearly 1,000 hours walking the battlefield with metal detectors. On Oct. 14, Colonel Mastriano and Mr. O?Keefe found two .45 caliber rounds, one live and one that had been fired.

They returned the next weekend and found more evidence: 19 empty .45 cartridges scattered over a 10-foot-wide area at the base of a hill, along with German and American rifle rounds. Many of the German rounds had not been fired. They found more .45 slugs 20 yards away near the remains of a German trench together with hundreds of German rifle and machine gun cartridges, many of them live rounds, and bits of gun belts and debris consistent with soldiers surrendering.

The material fits closely with Sergeant York?s account, in which he described firing his rifle toward machine gunners on a hill before pulling out his Colt .45 to pick off seven German soldiers who charged him with fixed bayonets. Colonel Mastriano had the casings examined by a ballistics expert, who confirmed that they all had come from the same gun.

?I honestly never thought that we would recover the .45s and was stunned when we dug them up,? Colonel Mastriano said this week from his home in Heidelberg, Germany. ?The find means that the search for the York spot is over.?

[Kev in Deva]

So what remains to do now? mark the spot with a suitable monument, a larger than life size bronze statue of Sgt York, 45 in hand, maybe standing on a towering base carved in marble or granite in the shape of a spent 45 Cartridge.

In reality if Sgt York had stood in a field untouched by war, and was the only one there to fire off his 45 then just maybe, I could believe this, but in reality trillions of bullets were fired, and trillions of spent cases were left lying around the area of France & Belgium, both in WW1 & WW2.

Cant wait to see if any Hollywoodish is going to do a remake of the movie, in the style of the Flyboys etc...etc...

Kevin in Deva

Edited October 27, 2006 by Kev in Deva

[Guest Darrell]

Wow .. now that's what I call looking for "needle(s)" in a haystack

Great story.

As a sidenote .. was this such a legendary story that people would actually spend this much time and energy in a serach?

[Daniel Cole]

I wonder if York's 45 is in a museum somewhere, maybe with his MOH? If so they could compare ballistics to 100% confirm. Great story

Dan

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

I would very much like to believe that the projectiles are from York's .45. But I think before looking on this finding as what it is claimed to be, more questions remain. For instance, it would be important to confirm if any skirmishes occurred before and after York's stand at that location.

As someone else said, It is very hard for me to believe that no other .45 caliber pistols were ever fired at that location....but wouldn't it be a find if the projectiles were definitely proved to be York's based on ballistics (as Daniel eluded to) and .45 brass were not found anywhere else but along York's path!!!

[Ed_Haynes]

All of this says much more about the mythic level to which York's feat has been elevated (thanks, Hollywood) than anything else. Interesting, though, I guess, . . . .

[Kev in Deva]

I would very much like to believe that the projectiles are from York's .45. But I think before looking on this finding as what it is claimed to be, more questions remain. For instance, it would be important to confirm if any skirmishes occurred before and after York's stand at that location.

As someone else said, It is very hard for me to believe that no other .45 caliber pistols were ever fired at that location....but wouldn't it be a find if the projectiles were definitely proved to be York's based on ballistics (as Daniel eluded to) and .45 brass were not found anywhere else but along York's path!!!

Hallo Gents

Nobody knows for sure what direction / path Sgt York followed, thats why its been so hard to pin it down, also what are the chances of .45 cases buried in the ground since WW1 being ballisticaly traceable any way, even ground found, shell cases, exibit large amounts of corrossion, the chance of matching up a case, found so, would be very hard, whereas the gun on the other hand, (providing it was all the original pieces such as ejector, and firing pin) would have been kept in far better conditions.

The best bet would be for somebody with a time-machine, a G.P.S, metal detector, (and a death-wish) and a good bullet proof vest to protect you while you go swanning around the search area

Kevin in Deva.

Edited October 31, 2006 by Kev in Deva

[Jim Baker]

A nice read about York. He was truly a "country" boy.

http://www.medalofhonor.com/Sgt.York.htm

[Hauptmann]

Hallo Gents

Nobody knows for sure what direction / path Sgt York followed, thats why its been so hard to pin it down, also what are the chances of .45 cases buried in the ground since WW1 being ballisticaly traceable any way, even ground found, shell cases, exibit large amounts of corrossion, the chance of matching up a case, found so, would be very hard, whereas the gun on the other hand, (providing it was all the original pieces such as ejector, and firing pin) would have been kept in far better conditions.

The best bet would be for somebody with a time-machine, a G.P.S, metal detector, (and a death-wish) and a good bullet proof vest to protect you while you go swanning around the search area

Kevin in Deva.

Hi Kevin,

Just wanted to pop in on this one. Happened to see a documentary on remains and artifacts found on the Custer Battlefield today. And they actually managed to do quite a number of amazing things. They had one researcher who compared all the shell casings that have been found to date and matched a number of them as having been fired from the same gun. In this way they could trace the various locations a particular gun was in on that day. They could also determine whether the guns were Army issue or likely used by the Indians... or in some cases Army issue pieces which were captured by the Indians during the battle and then turned on their former owners.

They did indeed manage to match at least one rifle in the museums collection to a group of cartridges found on the battlefield and hence proved that rifle was indeed used in the battle and they showed each location where it was fired that day!

So if they could determine this from cartridges buried since 1876 then I see no reason they could not do the same from those from WWI.

I'm also curious as to whether they have York's .45 and if they could test fire it in order to match up the cartridges and confirm that they were indeed fired by York on that day.

I hope more information comes out on this over time.

Dan

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Dan,

I believe the Custer Battlefield with the locations of the dead were recorded after the event and if not mistaken, period pictures were taken showing the various location of the bodies

If so, the area is a well documented one, and has been subject to many arcealogical surveys, far be it so with the alleged Sgt York path, also the ground where Sgt. York was, has been subjected to much in the way of shell-fire and countless numbers of spent cartridges as well as other fragments must lie around with many being of the .45 model (whereas the Custer site would hold a few hundred assorted cartridge cases.)

Weather has to be taken into consideration western Euope is more wet than the Custer site, so more chance of items being found in the ground being in a more degraded condition.

And again the point arises about the gun, was it in fact kept, and if so, is it the actual gun, carrying all the original pieces of mechanism such as firing pin, extractor, etc, because if even one of these has been replaced then the gun can no longer be proved to be "the one" belonging to Sgt. York.

Kevin in Deva.

[Hauptmann]

Hallo Dan,

I believe the Custer Battlefield with the locations of the dead were recorded after the event and if not mistaken, period pictures were taken showing the various location of the bodies

If so, the area is a well documented one, and has been subject to many arcealogical surveys, far be it so with the alleged Sgt York path, also the ground where Sgt. York was, has been subjected to much in the way of shell-fire and countless numbers of spent cartridges as well as other fragments must lie around with many being of the .45 model (whereas the Custer site would hold a few hundred assorted cartridge cases.)

Weather has to be taken into consideration western Euope is more wet than the Custer site, so more chance of items being found in the ground being in a more degraded condition.

And again the point arises about the gun, was it in fact kept, and if so, is it the actual gun, carrying all the original pieces of mechanism such as firing pin, extractor, etc, because if even one of these has been replaced then the gun can no longer be proved to be "the one" belonging to Sgt. York.

Kevin in Deva.

Hi Kevin,

You're quite correct re: the bodies and such at the Custer site. However, they did say there were up in the thousand or several thousand range re: how many shells and such they've recovered from the Custer site. Sadly I missed getting this one on tape/dvd. I haven't had time to check and see if I'd gotten it previously and had forgotten doing so. I generally tend to get such things that hold an interest for me, which the Custer battle has for most of my life. I'll try to see if I can find out the exact figures they mentioned in the program. Hopefully, if nothing else they'll repeat it soon as they usually do with most of their shows. I believe it was on the History Channel but again I'll have to double check to make sure.

I just tried checking on the web to see if they'd mentioned the number recovered but so far I can't find it. I wish I'd caught it in time yesterday to get it on disc or something. I did get the last 20 minutes or so on tape as I had to head out and wanted to finish it later. I'll try and do that later today and see if they mention the figure again.

Also totally agree with the York site not being documented as in the Custer case and it having seen untold combat not only during WWI but long before I'm sure and again after in WWII.

Also not sure about the gun being kept/saved. Chances are that he turned it back in upon leaving the service and it was reissued ad nauseum from that point on, perhaps even being lost or destroyed over time. "If" it was kept and "if" they can test fire and then compare it's cartridges with those from the site and "if" the original firing pin and other parts are indeed intact (which I agree may have been changed over at some point) then there's a possibility they could get matches. All slim chances but all possibilities as well.

It's also amazing how well preserved some items are even when recovered from the worst sites. Almost as if they're "meant" to be that way.

But then again some mysteries like this may never be completely solved. All we can do is try and at times be willing to admit that it's just not going to happen no matter how hard we try.

Anyhow if I manage to dig up that documentary and can quote their figures and other info I'll pop back into all this and let everyone know. Or perhaps if another member (knock on wood) managed to get it and can do so it would be much appreciated.

Nonetheless this is a fascinating discussion and I do hope much more info comes to light in the near future.

Thanks,

Dan