York's famous Machinegun finds a home

[Brad Posey]

This is a photo I took in July 2009 while I was there with the Army officer, you can see him seated on the left in a green shirt. The monument in the foreground is about 75 meters above where he claims the York fight took place.

[Brad Posey]

Here is a group of artifacts that I found on top of Hill 167 in July 2009.

[Brad Posey]

a close up

[Brad Posey]

And me at the scene of the crime.

[Brad Posey]

Here is a photo found in the 328th Infantry's history.

[Brad Posey]

And another US Army Signal Corps photo that shows what the area where the main 328th attack occured towards Hill 167

[Brad Posey]

This 1919 photo shows what the general vicinity of where the other group claims the York fight took place on Hil 167 looked like several months after the battle.

It is very interetsing to note that this area is on an eastern facing slope and not on a western facing slope as described in all of the American accounts of the fight.

[Brad Posey]

In closing tonight's update here are a few photos of where the American dead were buried in what was known as a "concentration cemetery". That is, where casualties were concentrated before they were later removed to the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery. York's Platoon Leader, Lt. Stewart (DSC) was among those buried in this cemetery located behind the church in Chatel Chehery.

[Brad Posey]

Here is another US Army Signal Corps photo of 82nd and 28th Division soldiers awaiting burial in the cemetery at Chatel Chehery. The German eagle topped monument is still there, just badly damaged from the war.

[Brad Posey]

This photo was taken in the same cemetery in Chatel Chehery, obviously during the 1919 investigation into SGT York's fight since it mentions the 328th Infantry specifically.

There were only 45 reported KIA's in 2/328 on 8 October, 1918 so most of the graves you see here belonged to other 82nd and 28th Division soldiers killed in the vicinity 7 - 10 October, 1918.

Those who were in remote areas or too far away from roads were "buried where they fell", as is the case with the 6 members of the patrol who were killed in action.

[Brad Posey]

That is all for tonight. Tomorrow I hope to start presenting the German side of the story.

[Brad Posey]

To start with the German account of what happened on the morning of 8 October, 1918 I want to show the most popular document used by the first two groups who were looking for the site of SGT York’s heroics.

Background:
In early 1929 a Swedish newspaper ran an article about SGT York, at that time the Germans had never heard of SGT York. A German citizen living in Sweden was offended by the article and wrote a letter to the German Reichsarchiv in Berlin. This was a major embarrassment for the German Army as a whole and particularly the officers involved. In July 1929 the Reichsarchiv drafted a rebuttal with an accompanying map and sent this to the US Army War College.

Sgt York’s exploit was initially reported by the Saturday Evening Post in 1919, which helped propel him to national hero status in the US. The 1941 movie staring Gary Cooper made SGT York a legend. But, in 1929 the rest of the world had never heard of SGT York or what had happened in the remote ravine west of Chatel Chehery France on 8 October, 1918, especially the Germans.

The 1929 German rebuttal is a fascinating document and it’s purpose is clearly to absolve any feelings of guilt felt by the German officer’s corps in general and particularly those who were involved. IN that sense it is full of misinformation and excuses. What is important to note is that the location of the exact site where the event occurred was not as important as what transpired during the event so there is information useful in this report. On the other hand, the Germans never returned to the site or the Argonne, or anywhere else as far as tat goes after the war was over to carefully document their war experiences as the A.E.F. did and particularly the 82nd Division who spent one month in 1919 covering every movement of their actions during the war. In saying that, one must be very careful in jumping to conclusions by an “X” on a map as if it were a treasure map.

What I did was a careful comparison of what this report says with the actual war diaries written by the units involved at the time of the event as well a witness statement that has never been seen before by an of the SGT York research groups that I found in the Bavarian archives in Munich. We will look at that later.

Before we start into the German rebuttal it is important to know what the German names were for terrain features and other physical features on the battlefield. Here is the 1918 German map with both the German and American names for common features on the battlefield.

[Brad Posey]

This is the modern map with both German and American place names.

[Brad Posey]

Here is a scan of the German rebuttal map. The original report was written in German in 1929 and later translated by the US Army War College in 1936. This is the translated map the War College traced from the original German map.

[Brad Posey]

Here is a close up of the German rebuttal map. This map depicts the action of "Battalion Mueller" from the 125th Landwehr Infantry Regiment on the evening of 7 October, 1918 when they pulled back from Hill 223 after battling the 1st Battalion, 328th Infantry and what happened on 8 October, 1918.

What they are trying to show on this map ad in their report is that is would have been impossible for a group of 17 Americans to capture 132 German soldiers and for one man, SGT York, to have killed up to 25 of their men.

They are trying to illustrate that this event occurred from a major American breakthrough in the rear by a large American assault force.

As we will see later the Germans knew on 8 October that something bad had happened in the rear of the 4th Company 120th LDW, the 210th RIR and the 7th Bavarian Mineur Company. The individual German unit war diaries and post-war statements help clear this up in regards to the location of the fight. The Germans would never admit that the event actually occurred the way the American’s said it did. That is, a patrol of 17 men exploiting a huge gap in their line, infiltrating their rear and capturing 132 men, further adding to their already growing list of troubles ion the Argonne.