90th Anniversary of Sgt. Alvin York Battle Here
U.S. Researchers Use GPS, GIS to Pinpoint World War 1 Battlefield
Long celebrated as America’s most-highly decorated WWI hero, Alvin York—a native of Pall Mall, Tenn.,—boasts a legacy that is both complex and controversial. Nevertheless, the history books overwhelmingly credit the soft-spoken, semi-literate soldier with single-handedly enacting the surrender of some 100-plus Germans on Oct. 18, 1918.
An acting corporal at the time of the now-acclaimed 1918 battle, York, according to firstworldwar.com, was able to successfully lead a 17-man expedition of U.S. soldiers in securing a number of prisoners before the Germans launched a heavy counterattack. However, after six of his men were killed, York—who was an expert marksman from his impoverished youth and time spent hunting for food in Tennessee’s backwoods—took the initiative to take on German gunners, leaving his remaining 11 men guarding their captured prisoners.
From there, York is said to have shot some 17 before charged by seven German soldiers, all of whom he reportedly killed with his pistol, before remarkably managing to corral a total of 132 German prisoners. The impressive bravery and leadership of that day caused York to be presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as the French Croix de Guerre, a cross-shaped medal created in 1915 by the French government to recognize acts of wartime bravery.
In Search of the Sgt. York Battleground
In spite of York’s battlefield renown worldwide, including a 1940 motion picture about his life starring Hollywood legend Gary Cooper, the precise location of the battle, which was fought in France’s Argonne Forest, was somehow lost. Lost, that is, until a Tennessee-led research team uncovered more than 1,400 artifacts during a Nov. 12-24, 2006, expedition in Châtel-Chéhéry, France, led by geographer Tom Nolan, a member of the geosciences faculty at Middle Tennessee State University, and Michael Birdwell, an Alvin York scholar and member of Tennessee Tech University’s history faculty.
Joining Drs. Nolan and Birdwell on their expedition—their second trip to the site in 2006—was an international team of historians, archaeologists, geographers and interested parties that included French archaeologists Yves Desfosse and Olivier Brun; Belgian archaeologist Birger Stichelbaut; WWI historian Michael Kelly, a guide with Bartlett Battlefield Journeys in the United Kingdom; military artifact experts Eddie Browne and Ian Cobb of Great Britain; Frederic Castier, historian and official representative of the First Division Museum; the mayor of Châtel-Chéhéry, Roland Destenay; the mayor of Fleville, Damien Georges, who also serves as the regional forester for the Argonne; and Jim Deppen of Nashville, Tenn.
Although the researchers’ initial trip to Argonne in March 2006 left them feeling “80 percent” certain they had located the site, Nolan said in an Oct. 6, 2008, telephone interview they knew additional research and work were needed. Thus, they returned to Tennessee, where they continued to conduct historic and geographic research and seek expert advice from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee State Museum.
Using GPS, GIS for Historical Research
Nolan, who used geographic information systems (GIS) technology to ultimately pinpoint the York battle site, said that aside from re-examining affidavits taken in 1919, as well as reviewing correspondence and significant documents from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the researchers also discovered the burial records of the six Americans killed Oct. 8, 1918—documents that played a role in refining the search area. Also, reviewing the 1929 correspondence between Col. G. Edward Buxton and Capt. Henry O. Swindler, where they discussed the re-enactment of the Oct. 8, 1918, battle, proved crucial, he noted.
During their two-week return to the Argonne site in November 2006, the researchers again utilized advanced mapping technology; specifically, GIS to synthesize spatial information obtained from historic French and German battle maps and maps annotated by York’s commanding officers, Col. Buxton and Maj. E. C. B. Danforth, with written accounts by both German and American participants. Next, this information was superimposed on the modern landscape to help focus their metal-detection fieldwork.
“While historic interpretation and surface archaeology were both important, it was geography and GIS that provided the means to interpret that information and relate it to the modern landscape,” Nolan observed. “Without geography and GIS, we would not have been able to … find the York battlefield site.”
Uncovering Artifacts of Sgt. York and German Soldiers
Among the most impressive artifacts the team unearthed was “a U.S. Army collar disk stamped ‘328 Infantry G,’ Sgt. York’s own company,” Birdwell said. This significant find, he noted, “added to a preponderance of evidence gathered by the team (that we had found) the location of the battle that occurred near Châtel-Chéhéry on Oct. 8, 1918.”
The team recovered many artifacts consistent with historic documents that described items discarded by German soldiers as they surrendered to York and the Company G survivors, including German gas masks, German gas mask filters, German bayonets, Mauser rifle bolts, fired German and U.S. rifle rounds, and spent Colt .45 rounds.
“Although the discarded equipment, ammunition and expended cartridge cases we found have little individual historic value, their spatial relationships and patterns provide confirmation of the historic accounts of the engagement,” said Nolan, who used GPS to map the locations of the artifacts and display their relationship with other historic data.
Birdwell and Nolan formally announced the historic York battlefield find during a joint press conference at MTSU on Dec. 8, 2006, and since that time word of their discovery continues to spread, but not without some controversy. The Tennessee researchers, however, are confident the valid scientific techniques and procedures utilized, as well as the public support of independent researchers who have reviewed their methods and findings, are on their side.
“Hopefully, sound and scholarly research will triumph over well-meaning, albeit ego-driven and amateur research efforts, to present an accurate interpretation of York’s history,” Nolan said.
For more information about York or the researchers, please visit The Sergeant York Project.
Sources
Personal communication, Tom Nolan and Michael Birdwell, Oct. 6, 2008.
Who’s who: Alvin C. York, updated April 11, 2006. Retrieved Oct. 6, 2008, from http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/york.htm
Sgt. Alvin C. York
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Dr. Tom Nolan, geographer and York researcher
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U.S. soldier's mess kit recovered by Nolan's team.
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Entrance to French village, home of York site.
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328th Infantry insignia recoverd by Nolan's team.
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