Everywhere he looked, young men fell “like the long grass before the mowing machine.”
Where’s the artillery? he wondered.
Nearby a panicked sergeant commanded his men to outflank the machine gunners perched in the surrounding hills. They could maybe, just maybe, dislodge the Germans and take the rail station. At the very least, they needed to get out of the valley. Now.
As if on cue, the American artillery rained hellfire down upon the valley, creating havoc among both American and German soldiers.
Sergeant Alvin C. York and 16 other soldiers sprang into action.
The smoke and brush obscured them as they flitted up and over the hill. What greeted them on the other side seemed absurd: 70 German soldiers eating their breakfast – “a mess of beef-steaks, jellies, jams, and loaf bread all around,” amidst the morning fog.
