Sergeant York

I went up to the Argonne region recently to do a story on the search for the spot where Sergeant Alvin C. York stood when he fought off an attack by German machine gunners and eventually captured 132 enemy soldiers.

The Argonne region is rich in history. It is also a somewhat forgotten corner of France. The muskets that Lafayette's soldiers used in the Revolutionary War were made here. The largest World War I American cemetery is also in the area.

I went with a freelance photographer named Owen Franken who does a lot of work for the newspaper. He is the older brother of the comedian and left-wing radio talk show host, Al Franken. Here you can see him photographing the Châtel-Chéhéry town hall.

Châtel-Chéhéry is pretty much a one street village that was occupied by the Germans for the four years of World War I. It was evacuated in late 1917 amid the American advance led by General Pershing. Much of the village was destroyed by American artillery. Artillery scars are still visible on the church walls.

Of course, anyone who remembers Sergeant York these days, does so because of the 1941 movie about him starring Gary Cooper. It was the highest grossing film of that year and is credited with helping sway public opinion in favor of engagement in Europe during World War II.

The real York wasn't nearly so glamorous.

This is a picture of Owen and the mayor of Châtel-Chéhéry, Roland Destenay, standing beside the rental car we drove up there in from Paris. In the background is a hill known locally as the "Châtelet," because a medieval castle, or chateau, once stood on it. The Americans called it "Hill 233" during the Argonne offensive. York's battalion fought bitterly to take it.

The battalion was advancing from over the hill into this valley when they were stopped by machine gun fire from a line of hills behind where I stood as I took the picture. York was in a platoon of 17 men who snuck around to the right in this picture and came up behind the machine gun nests.

This is a commemorative placard left by one of the people searching for the spot where he captured most of his prisoners. It is not at the spot, which has yet to be found, but is near a small stream that York said he leapt over just before capturing the first group of Germans.

This is Mayor Destenay walking past the stream.

This is an idealized painting of the moment when York, low on rifle ammunition, pulls out his Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol to shoot seven German soldiers who were charging him.

Doug Mastriano is a military intelligence officer who works for NATO in Germany. He is obsessed with the York story and is one of the people searching for the spent Colt .45 cartridges dropped by York's gun. If he can find them, he can say with some certainty that he has found the spot where York stood.

This is a photo of York at the place where he fired the gun. Of course, a lot has changed in the last 88 years.


So far, the only thing anyone has turned up are rifle cartridges. But there's no way of telling if these came from York's rifle or from that of some other American soldier. He is the only one believed to have fired his pistol in the area, so the pistol cartridges are the Holy Grail.