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Meet the American who inspired the nation in two world wars: Christian soldier Sgt. Alvin York

Tennessee backwoodsman sought exemption from WWI as conscientious objector, battlefield heroics astounded Europe’s toughest soldiers

“His fortunes changed when he gave his life to Christ” around 1915.

“I wanted to be a good Christian and a good American too.” — Sergeant Alvin York

York first refused to fight when the United States entered World War I in 1917. He filed as a conscientious objector, but ultimately submitted to Uncle Sam.

His World War I heroics inspired the World War II generation.

The movie version of his life, “Sergeant York,” starring Gary Cooper, hit the silver screen in 1941.

It earned 11 Academy Award nominations and two Oscar wins, including Best Actor for Cooper, and was the top-grossing movie of the year.

“Sergeant York” was being shown in theaters on Dec. 7 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, launching America into World War II.

“There were numerous reports of young men leaving movie theaters and going to enlist, so fervent was their patriotism,” reported the Knoxville Focus.

York may have doubted his deadly actions — but never his patriotism. Among his eight children: Woodrow Wilson, Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson, Betsy Ross and Thomas Jefferson York

“He was just daddy to me,” daughter Betsy Ross York, now 89 and a resident of Bowling Green, Kentucky, told Fox News Digital.

“He never did talk about the war, and we didn’t ever ask him.”

Born in backwood poverty

Alvin Cullum York was born in Pall Mall, Tennessee, on Dec. 13, 1887, to William and Mary (Brooks) York.

“The Yorks struggled in poverty, which only worsened when York’s father died in 1911,” writes the National Museum of the Army.

“York only had nine months of schooling but had gained a variety of skills exploring and hunting for game in the mountains of Tennessee. York became a skilled marksman and continued to work jobs around Pall Mall to support his family.”

He became a member as an elder at the Church of Christ in Christian Union following his awakening, adopting pacifism.

Uncle Sam gave him little choice.

Alvin C. York, who had rarely if ever left his little corner of heaven in rural Tennessee, shipped off across the ocean for hell.

Mowed down like blades of grass

York entered the war in France as a member of the 82nd Division — which become the 82nd Airborne Division of paratroopers. They rose to fame jumping into Normandy in World War II.

He awoke on the morning of Oct. 8, 1918, to find himself in the midst of a savage battle, which he recorded in a diary published in 1922.

His unit was struck by artillery and gas attacks and then marched on a German position heavily fortified with machine guns.

“Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home,” the hillbilly soldier wrote metaphorically of watching his comrades slaughtered.

“Every time a head come up, I done knocked it down … I was giving them the best I had.”

He likened it to the way he shot turkeys back home.

“In the middle of the fight a German officer and five men done jumped out of a trench and charged me with fixed bayonets … I only had about half a clip left in my rifle; but I had my pistol ready. I done flipped it out fast and teched them off, too.”

The Germans were stunned after seeing six men dropped so quickly. They began surrendering en masse, fearing they faced a larger American unit.

A German major, who spoke fluent English, facilitated the surrender and the march back to American lines.

“There was so many [Germans] there was danger of our own artillery mistaking us for a German counter-attack and opening up on us,” York wrote.

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“Lieutenant Woods came out and counted 132 prisoners. And when he counted them he said, ‘York, have you captured the whole German army?’ And I told him I had a tolerable few.”

York’s exploits became legend on the battlefront. But he never shared his story in his many letters back home.

His family only learned of his heroics when the exploits were written up in the April 26, 1919, edition of the Saturday Evening Post, then one of the most widely read publications in America.

“He outfought the machine-gun battalion with his rifle and automatic pistol,” enthused Canadian war correspondent George Pattullo.

“It stands out as the greatest individual feat of the war, not only because of the amazing things he did that day, but because of the man’s deep religious convictions and scruples.”

‘Sense of peace before he died’

Sergeant Alvin C. York died on Sept. 2, 1964, in Nashville after a long illness that left him incapacitated in his later years.

President Lyndon B. Johnson led a long list of dignitaries who attended his funeral.

York is buried in his hometown of Pall Mall.

His legacy lives on an incredible number of ways, both big and small.

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The 82nd Airborne gifted one of its most famous veterans in his later years a 1957 Pontiac. The York family still keeps and cherishes the automobile today.

I was born in Tennessee and everyone in Tennessee knows the name of Alvin York. Above is a clip about his accomplishments in War World I.

Cara Gist of Shannon Hills tells me that her grandfather Herbert S. Apple of Salado, Arkansas (near Batesville) fought in World War I. He served in France and fought in the trenches. Apple was actually a victim of a mustard gas attack by the Germans. Also he  was wounded by machine gun fire in both the hip and back and stayed in a military hospital in New Mexico for two years. He later went back to his farm and raised chickens until his death while in his seventies.

Cara’s husband Alan said his father served in World War II. Charles E. Gist was born on January 7, 1919 in Solgahachia, Arkansas. He served in the US Army, 65th Bombardment Squadron, 43 rd Bombardment Group. At one point the plane he was traveling in was shot down and had to make an emergency landing. He was honorably discharged on July 22, 1945 at Camp Chafee, and later he married and went to work at Little Air Force Base in Jacksonville.

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