From a violent, heavy-drinking tearaway to nearly 50 decorations from various countries, the story of Sergeant York is the stuff of fiction. How did he get from A to B?
- he honed his prodigious skill as a marksman from an early age
- he 'found' religion
- he 'found' patriotism
Gary Cooper as Sergeant York
DVD of the 1941 Film
The biographical film, starring Gary Cooper (I have only seen one other movie of his - Love in the Afternoon, where he plays far too old a man - apparently, gauze was placed over the camera lens to mask his true age of 56! - romantically entangled with the delicious 28-year-old Audrey Hepburn) as Alvin C. York was the highest grossing of 1941. As Tim Newark writes, it coincided with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and served as a very effective US recruiting tool.
Directed by Howard Hawks - an early poster
York refused on several occasions to sell the film rights to the Diary he had kept from first registering for the Draft to his return to the USA on 29 May 1919. Only when the producers promised that the money would go towards the funding of a Bible school, did he relent. The movie story follows him through his humble Tennessee background, working hard on an unproductive small-holding and releasing his frustrations with heavy drinking, carousing and fist-fighting. He respects, but will not join, the local Church of Christ congregation, powerfully led by the part-time pastor and local shop-keeper Rosier Pile (brilliantly played by Walter Brennan, who sported the most formidable eyebrows I have ever seen - much more real than Groucho's!). He falls for a local girl, Gracie Williams (starring the gorgeous Joan Leslie, who was only 16 in 1941. She lived until October 2015, dying aged ninety); her Bible reading-aloud uncle is a classic little cameo.
Joan Leslie and Gary Cooper
Spurred to improve his lot, and plot, York works harder than ever to purchase the more productive 'bottomland', but is cheated by the owner. Angry and bitter, he aims to seek revenge, but he and his mule are hit by lightning in a ferocious storm. Passing by Pastor Pile's church, he goes in, dripping wet. The storm and the revival meeting together (a great scene) bring about a religious conversion.
War breaks out, but York seeks exemption as a conscientious objector. This fails, and it brings a crisis between his Christian pacifism - what kind of law says you can go against the Book? - and his loyalty to his country. His wise, and also Christian, Major lends him a History of America to go with his Bible and packs him off home on furlough. It works! Blessed are the Peacemakers is contrasted with the story of Peter and the sword; Government of the people, by the people, for the people is laced by the telling of a whole people's struggle for freedom in the History book, emphasised by the story of Daniel Boone. It is clinched, when reading the Bible on a crag with his dog, the wind fortuitously blows it open at the famous Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the thing's that are God's. He returns to fight and to fame.
York takes part in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. His unit is part of an attack on a heavily defended ridge. After circling round to the rear of the German line of trenches, thanks to casualties during the close combat, York ends up as the senior officer. He goes it alone and successfully kills several Germans who have been firing machine guns. Not only this, single-handedly he gets a captured German officer to order the surrender of his comrades. 132 prisoners are escorted as PoWs by York and just seven others to the Allies base!
He is given the Distinguished Service Cross, upgraded as the truth of his exploit reaches higher levels to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Marshal Foch declared: What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any soldier of all the armies of Europe. In real life, York, described in 1919 as a red-haired giant, ended up with nearly 50 Decorations, a ticker-tape welcome when he returned to New York and the key to the city. Gary Cooper gained an Oscar for Best Actor (there were 11 Oscar nominations in all). The film, not only the highest-grossing of 1941, was frequently reshown at theatres all over America during the war for recruitment purposes. It earned over $8 million.
The movie stayed very true to the real-life story of York - although there was, for dramatic purposes, fictional material as well - who married his girl, Gracie Loretta Williams, on 7th June 1919.
York tried to re-enlist for active service in the Second World War, but was refused due to health problems and age, He served in the Army Signal Corps as a Major and toured training camps and was involved in Bond drives. He and Gracie had six sons and two daughters. York died, aged 76, on 2nd September 1964; Gracie died on 27th September 1984. The Yorks' farm became the Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park; there is a statue to York in the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol; a Veterans' Hospital bears his name; and in 2000, the USA Postal Service included York in its "Distinguished Soldiers" issue. Not bad for a poor Tennessee small-holder.
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