York's famous Machinegun finds a home

[Brad Posey]

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[Brad Posey]

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[Brad Posey]

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[Brad Posey]

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[Brad Posey]

This is one of Dr. Nolan’s artifact distribution maps.

This map illustrates the find locations for German fired and unfired 7.92mm cartridges. The 7.92mm cartridge was used in both the standard German rifle as well as the MG08 or MG08/15 weapon systems.

On the left hand side of the slide you see a diagram that shows the relative size of the circle where artifacts were found to the number of artifacts of this type that were found there. In other words, the larger the circle, the greater number of cartridges found at that particular location.

The artifact recovery locations were recorded with a Trimble GPS unit and mapped using ArchGIS software .

Tomorrow I will discuss individual artifact distributions that support everything I have presented as well as how these artifact distributions agree, with a reasonable degree of certainty, with the historical record.

Please do not misunderstand “a reasonable degree of certainty”. Our research was conducted in the most objective manner possible incorporating state of the art Geographic Information Science (GIS), a thorough study of archival documentation and acceptable battlefield archaeological methodology.

The problem with this type of research is that it is still too close to our own time. What I am trying to say is that if we were interpreting one of Julius Caesar’s battles in Gaul (Roman ruled France) we would not find any living person that has a personal affiliation with these battles, whether it be through a relative who was participant in the battle or through other affiliations that personally connect someone in our current time with the individuals in these battles.

Tomorrow I will discuss the archaeology.

[Napalm]

Hi Brad, sorry for interjecting but is there any video available of the above?

[Brad Posey]

The only "official video that I know of is an 8 minute film that can be seen on the project’s web site. It says “2009 Expedition to Chatel Chehery”, but what the video shows is Tom Nolan’s 2006 research. On the web site it says that this is the first of several segments. So, I assume there will be more to follow that will tell the whole story including what we did in 2009.

The web site itself also only reflects 2006 research. Based on what I am currently presenting here in the WAF I have been asked to write an article for the web site describing what we did in 2009 as well as the additional German and American documents, photos and maps that I found in the course of my research and contributed to Tom Nolan’s project. You have been seeing that already here.

There were several other participants with video cameras, but unfortunately there was no plan to document what we did in the field on video. I will check with the others and see how much video they have. David Currey, a documentary filmmaker, was with us in France for several days and I am not sure how much he filmed, but I guess that will be part of what he will use to continue the video I mentioned above.

What we do not have on film is made up for in still photos which I have been posting here. Keep in mind, this entire effort, including Tom’s 2005 and 2006 trips to the Argonne was self-funded. All of us who participated did so as unpaid volunteers and paid for logistics and everything else ourselves. So, there was little time or money to hire a film crew.

What I may do is return to Chatel Chéhéry and film the route myself – a sort of step by step video over the ground this event took place. If anyone knows somebody interested in helping with something like this please let me know.

I will continue the discussion later tonight.

[Brad Posey]

Several things came up and I could not resume last night.

I will be back on Sunday night if not sooner to start the archaeology discussion.

[Brad Posey]

This map illustrates where both the American and German fired cartridges and German unfired cartridges were found. Also illustrated by a black triangle you can see where German machinegun parts or machinegun weapons system component parts were found. In the following posts I will refer to this map many times.

To describe the archaeology in a way that is logical and easy to follow I will break it down into several categories and discuss them individually:

1.) German Fire directed against G/2/328 – German firing positions that were responsible for bringing G Company’s attack to a halt and the primary objective of the 17 man American patrol.

2.) German surrender in the ravine – German equipment and ammunition that indicate capture or surrender.

3.) German firing positions in the ravine - the location where German soldier fired a weapon.

4.) American firing positions – the location where an American soldier fired a weapon.

5.) American graves – the temporary burial locations of the 6 members of the patrol killed during the fight.

6.) Post war target practice – the apparent target practice by American soldiers after the battle.

7.) The surrounding area – artifacts found on in the surrounding area near the ravine including Hill 167.

[Brad Posey]

I have discussed German machinegun positions earlier in this discussion and at that time I was primarily interested in showing what would account for the disintegration of the G/328 attack in the valley and the German weapons responsible, which was the primary objective of 17 man American patrol.

During our investigations in the field in April 2009 a better understanding of what Dr. Nolan had found in 2006 was achieved as well as being able to better understand documentation that, until now, had not been seen by Dr. Nolan in his previous research; German archival documents from the Stuttgart and Munich archives as well as several US Army Signal Corps photos from the National Archives and Records Administration.

This map shows where the two German MG positions and one German 77mm position was found by Dr. Nolan in 2006. He identified an MG position as a location where a massive quantity of expended German 7.92mm cartridges were found concentrated in a very small area. The 77mm position was identified by finding numerous 77mm ammunition tube protective spacers as well as three unfired 77mm projectiles.

[Brad Posey]

Dr. Nolan used GIS technology to illustrate the fields of fire of both of the MGs he found in 2006 located on the hill above where the York fight occurred. The area shaded green is the area the GIS software said should be visible from each MG position based on the computer based terrain model.

MG Position 1 is clearly one of the weapons that was causing the problem on the left flank of G/328 and was one of the original targets of the American patrol.

MG Position 2 is not fully understood. From it’s location the left flank of 2/328 attack from Hill 223 was not visible at all. Neither is the bottom of the ravine with exception of the area on the west bank. In 2006 Dr. Nolan concluded that this was one of the German machine guns that were firing at the left flank of G/328 in the valley when the patrol stumbled upon the group of Germans behind the dam. In accordance with the recorded history, Dr. Nolan felt that, after hearing the sound of firing, the gun was moved from its original position overlooking the valley to this location in order to engage the patrol in the ravine below.

As we will see later there was an unusual distribution of fired American and German cartridges found just a few meters from this MG. In 2006 Dr. Nolan concluded that this concentration of American and German rifle and pistol cartridges found on the upper slope of the hill, within a few meters of the German MG, was more than likely York’s firing position when he defeated the German machine gunners firing at the patrol I the ravine below. (See Dr. Nolan’s doctoral dissertation: http://ecommons.txstate.edu/geogtad/5
Click “Download” to view the document)

[Brad Posey]

Back to the artifact distribution map of the American and German cartridges found in the ravine.

Here we see the concentration of America cartridges that were found on the upper slope within 50 meters of the German MG that does not have a real good view of the valley or the ravine. This MG position is not fully understood, but certainly cannot be responsible for the problems on the left flank of G/328 in the valley below, nor could it have been involved in the fire fight in the bottom of the ravine.

This weapon was located at the crest of a very steep slope and about 150 meters from American targets in the ravine (based on American artifact distributions – see map)

I have also shown two fired American cartridge distributions ( circled in RED) that are not thought to belong to the 8 October, 1918 distribution and are, in fact 1919 target practice artifacts. – More on that later.

Anyway, the German MG in question on the western crest of the hill facing the ravine. It would be impossible for a MG at this distance to fire accurately through and among a mass of German prisoners and be able to pick off the 9 American casualties with being responsible for double that number in friendly fire kills to their own men.

I say this because I have 20 years experience firing machineguns on a very regular basis and know that it would be impossible to control a burst of fire at that range so that it only hits the enemy and not your own men, who are standing in front of, behind, beside and right next to the Americans who were struck down in the very short and brief initial bursts from the machine gunners and riflemen located on that slope.

As I will demonstrate later, the “machine gunners” were more than likely riflemen with a few light MG08/15s mixed in. With the exception of the MG position on the crest of the hill – which I believe can be ruled out as a participant in the York fight – there were no other definitive German MG positions found in the ravine.

Having said that, if you look here and see all of the black triangles that represent MG related artifacts it is clear that MG08s and MG08/15s were present in some numbers here in the ravine, but there is little evidence that they fired much or at all. For the most part, the German fired cartridges found in the ravine and on the western facing slope point more towards a number of riflemen, and not machineguns.

I will pick up where I left off tomorrow……

[Mark S.]

Outstanding and thorough work Brad, thank you for taking the time to share this will all of us.

[DennyB]

Have you considered approaching the History Channel or someone to finance having a film made from your research? I think this topic is absolutely amazing and should be available for the public to be seen in a documentary film form. I certainly do applaud your work and appreciate your shedding light on this subject, a subject that I had wondered about since childhood. Thank you very much.
Denny

[Brad Posey]

Thanks for the kind words.

I do believe several media organizations were contacted about this and all declined. I will have to verify this with Dr. Nolan.

Sometimes research like this can seem uninteresting until you get to see it presented like this and understand that this is much more than simply going into the woods with a metal detector where you think something should be and coming back with a handful of cartridges announcing “we found it”.

I would just like to reiterate that as we get more into the interpretations of the artifacts that what I am presenting here are MY interpretations. I only mention that so there is no misunderstanding about what I am saying here and that it; Dr. Nolan sent us the artifact distribution maps you see me presenting here and asked for our interpretations of what the artifact distributions tell us and how they fit the historical accounts. As with any research of this nature, there were no two interpretations that agreed 100%, but everyone is more than 100% convinced this is the correct site of the fight, the grave locations are accurate within several meters and that in general, the fight took place as I am laying it out here.

There are a few differences of opinion and in order to remain transparent and objective I will lay it all out here. The slightly different interpretations have nothing to do with the site of the fight or the patrol member’s temporary graves as I mentioned above. They more concern artifact distributions that do not match the “text book” historical account of the fight or artifact distributions that could fit, but the location is definitely incorrect.

What I hope I am doing here is going through my thought process in a logical way to analyze the artifact distributions and discuss them all, whether they perfectly fit the historical record or not. In the end a reasonable interpretation has to be given for everything we found. Since all of the artifact data has been saved, it is possible for anyone to continue this research should the feel the need to and be able to incorporate everything we found.

Ok, more later.