Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York: The Other Sixteen

[Guest Jamesrj13]

Recently I published my latest book Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York: The Other Sixteen through Texas A&M University Press. I also just presented on the topic at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City. I want to know the thoughts of the public and areas which I can adjust and provide more context for future presentations. If you are interested, please consider purchasing a copy of the book to see the research.

 

 

[uniformcollector]

Congratulations on a fascinating, important, and very challenging piece of scholarship!

[Matt_X]

Thanks for posting.

While discussing with some former colleagues, I came across your magazine article from a couple years ago.  I found that helpful in understanding the orgins and and answered some of the questions I had.   I look forward to reading your book, as I assume it fills in a lot more.

 

https://www.benning.army.mil/Infantry/Magazine/issues/2020/Summer/pdf/12_Gregory-O16.pdf

[GOAmules]

Why can't I find a single peer review of this book?  I find dozens of marketing posts  like this one by the author.  

 

A common theme of writers is to take a hero and try to disprove they did what they are known for.  From soldiers and airmen to sports heros to industry giants.   It sells books and podcasts and speakings for the revisionist.  Tearing down an icon is a cheap shot to me.  Using the word "myth" in a book title is too.  Why not a title such as "The other men who fought with York" or such?  Because it won't sell as well.  "The surprising and hidden truth of Roswell" just sells better.  

 

My reading of York was that of course there were others around him fighting that day.  It's in the movie too.  What's novel or revealed that isn't already known?  That people loved Sgt York?  That they needed a hero in poor Appalachia?  

[MAW]

This is a well-researched, well presented book.

 

The author makes it clear that his mission is not to disparage York, but like many legendary stories, there are more perspectives that did not get attention for decades, and stories can become clouded with the passage of time.

 

Watch the presentation posted above.

[Dave T]

Whenever I read articles or come across threads regarding some form of "Hero Revisionism" It always brings to mind an old episode of Northern Exposure. Season 1 Episode 2.

https://m.cda.pl/video/1731248791

 

"We need our heroes.We need men we can look up to, believe in. Men who walk tall. We can not chop em off at the knees just to prove they're like the rest of us."

Maurice J. Minnifield

 

 

[P-59A]

15 hours ago, Dave T said:

Whenever I read articles or come across threads regarding some form of "Hero Revisionism" It always brings to mind an old episode of Northern Exposure. Season 1 Episode 2.

https://m.cda.pl/video/1731248791

 

"We need our heroes.We need men we can look up to, believe in. Men who walk tall. We can not chop em off at the knees just to prove they're like the rest of us."

Maurice J. Minnifield

 

 

Dave, Mmmm, I take a different view, They are like the rest of us...they are us in  every way with one difference. They were at a place in a time were choices had to be made right then and right there. They made the hard choice. Most of us like to tell ourselves we would do the same, that we could do the same. I don't know if we would or could though. I have had my back to the wall a few times and stood up to the test. Nothing like what York faced, not even close, I have never found myself in those circumstances. The truth is the people who stand up to that kind test at that level have something in them most people do not have. Something in thier past that made stepping up possible. Maybe it was instilled by family values or maybe it came from other trails and tribulations in life before that day. I do not know. What I do know is when reading about those people I really want to know what it was that made it possible for them to do what they did. In part it is about the events of the day, but the outcome of events have roots that go back in time. Digging up those roots dosen't demean or deminish the person or the event, it confirms they were like the rest of us. That maybe I have more in common with them than I thought. It leeds one to think if they could do that then maybe if called upon we could too.

[Matt_X]

Circling back to the this. 

Michael Kelly's book about the archaeological work has considerable preview material available at google books.  This includes a number of maps, the table of contents and intro. 

https://books.google.com/books?id=-dXLDwAAQBAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Mr. Nolan's Phd thesis can be found on-line, but it was published in 2007 so that won't cover the subsequent research expeditions.   I'm not sure what else he published after that. I'm sure its referenced in both Kelly and Gregory's books. 

[Matt_X]

On 5/21/2024 at 9:18 PM, GOAmules said:

Why can't I find a single peer review of this book?  I find dozens of marketing posts  like this one by the author.  

That type of review I think will be hard to find on the internet.  I say this from personal experience.  I'm told there's been some reviews of a book I contributed to; but they were in pubications for organizations I'm not currently a member of.  So it goes.  What journals have you been looking in?  

 

Since I've now read Gregory's Unraveling the Myth of Sgt. Alvin York: The Other Sixteen, I'll provide a short review.

The book is about how Alvin York's heroic actions were subsequently reworked amd used by others for their own purposes. In many cases they ignored and even denigrated the other members of the patrol.  Hence the second part of the title.  The book is well written and I think it is worth reading if your interested in how stories evolve.    The book doesn't delve into York's perspective, so we don't know what his thoughts were, or even what he is being told be his defacto agent, studio reps, etc.  We only see his actions (and occassionally his words) from the outside.  In general the book is about his former comrades quest to have their actions publicly recognized in the US.  I emphasize publicly because the Army did recognize their actions, citing 5 of them for gallantry in action in General Orders. 

 

Slightly disappointing is the publication itself.  As is common these days, there are a couple of obvious misses by the copy editor. For example one prominent sentence reads the "surviving sixteen" when there are in fact only 11 survivors including York.  Also the black and white printing of a complicated color map would have been frustrating had we not had access to the color versions via the video, and preview of Kelly's book. 

 

At the end of Gregory's book he presents a revised version of the fight incorporating the bits the other survivers told, and using some of the archeaology.  He does not attempt to do a detailed analysis of exactly where each man was positioned using the GIS plotted archaeology.  That would be an endevour unto itself, and complicated as the reader will learn, because that valley and hillside is not 100% single component site.

 

Michael Kelly's Hero on the Western Front: Discovering Alvin York's WWI Battlefield  is for someone who wants to dig deeper into the story of competing claims of where York's patrol captured and fought the Germans.  It opens with a review of the events and actions of the 328th and Company G that October 1918.   It follows with a recounting of the research, the people, the methodology, and the plausibility or likelyhood of the differeing interpretations. It has lots of maps, both historical and modern overlays, and several chapters devoted to comparing the archival and archaeological evidence.  It is written in a fairly casual style, which may delight you or drive you crazy. This is clearly a personal story as well as a history.

 

Additional Digital Resources:

Tom Nolan's 2007 Thesis is available: Battlefield Landscapes: Geographic Information Science As a Method Of

Method of Integrating History and Archaeology for Battlefield Interpretation- DocsLib

 

The history detectives have web page about the battle site.
https://www.battledetective.com/battlestudy19.html
A copy of Nolan's thesis is available there as well.

 

After Nolan completed thesis, he led additional research expeditions, the last one in 2009.

On this archived page are the reports in pdf through 2010.
The Sergeant York Project Latest News
 

He also published this article:
Nolan, Thomas J. “Where Sergeant York Won His Medal of Honor: An Example of Applied Geographic Information Science.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly. No. 4, Vol. 71. (Winter 2012): 294-317. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42628277

I have not tried to access it yet.