Sergeant York and His People

MP3 Audio CD. Sergeant York and His People

I
A FIGHT IN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE

Just to the north of Chatel Chehery, in the Argonne Forest in France, is
a hill which was known to the American soldiers as "Hill No. 223."
Fronting its high wooded knoll, on the way to Germany, are three more
hills. The one in the center is rugged. Those to the right and left are
more sloping, and the one to the left--which the people of France have
named "York's Hill"--turns a shoulder toward Hill No. 223. The valley
which they form is only from two to three hundred yards wide.

Early in the morning of the eighth of October, 1918, as a floating gray
mist relaxed its last hold on the tops of the trees on the sides of
those hills, the "All America" Division--the Eighty-Second--poured over
the crest of No. 223. Prussian Guards were on the ridge-tops across the
valley, and behind the Germans ran the Decauville Railroad--the artery
for supplies to a salient still further to the north which the Germans
were striving desperately to hold. The second phase of the Battle of the
Meuse-Argonne was on.

As the fog rose the American "jumped off" down the wooded slope and the
Germans opened fire from three directions. With artillery they pounded
the hillside. Machine guns savagely sprayed the trees under which the
Americans were moving. At one point, where the hill makes a steep
descent, the American line seemed to fade away as it attempted to pass.