Sergeant York's Rifle

[4thGordons]

Chris,

I think you will find that only one US Division (4 Regiments of the 93rd) was armed by the French with Berthiers. The other Division you may be referring too--The 92nd--was always armed with US small arms and fought as a US division. Although occasionally attached to French units (all US formations can say the samething of either being attached to British (Australian) or French units when in the line).

Joe Sweeney

Right you are! Perhaps it is because I am currently reading a history of the 93rd!

However - units of the 33rd Div. who fought with the Australians at Hamel in July 1918 were armed with SMLEs.... I have some pictures of this and there are a couple reproduced in Charles Messenger's book "Amiens 1918: The Day We Won the War"

My comment was rather tongue in cheek - as the claim in Ayres also ignores the fact that presumably a reasonable portion of "rifle ammunition" (30.06) was fired through machine guns (perhaps Chauchats? ) Ayres also claims that both the 1903 and M1917 were "more accurate and rapid firing than the rifles that armed both their enemies and allies" which seems - shall we say...debatable?

[Pete1052]

In the late 1930s when the U.S. Army first rolled out the M1 Rifle invented by John Garand of Springfield Armory the National Rifle Association in the U.S. was against it, as though nothing could ever compete with the M1903 Springfield. The M1 soon achieved legendary status during World War II, so U.S. Army Ordnance didn't do that bad, they developed two legendary combat rifles within a 40-year period.

[59165]

Chris,

I think you will find that only one US Division (4 Regiments of the 93rd) was armed by the French with Berthiers. The other Division you may be referring too--The 92nd--was always armed with US small arms and fought as a US division. Although occasionally attached to French units (all US formations can say the samething of either being attached to British (Australian) or French units when in the line).

Joe Sweeney

There was an American btn.or whatever size they were who fought in French uniform under French leadership(all from a none too vivid memory) even down to Adrian helmets so,which rifles did they use?

Again.Was York cack handed or not?

Just out of interest.

Turning into a good thread,this.

Dave.

[Pete1052]

Springfield Armory, Springfield, Massachusetts, where the M1903 and the M1 Garand were both designed and manufactured, was closed by Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson adminstrations. McNamara believed the big Army small arms depots were too expensive and that private industry could make weapons more economically. However, he also had a grudge against U.S. Army Ordnance -- he believed that the Ordnance guys had rigged the competitive shoot-off between the prototype M14 rifle and the Fabrique Nationale 7.62mm self-loader in the M14's favor, a case of "not invented here." Due to the pique of a Secretary of Defense the institutional wisdom on small arms design and manufacturing at Springfield that had designed and produced two legendary rifles was lost to the U.S. Army.

I have never fired either rifle but I have handled them both, and the M14 has an exquisite balance to it. Many guys couldn't control the M14 in fully automatic fire, and it was too much for our then-South Vietnamese allies. The wrist of the stock of the FN rifle is said to break easily. Hence the M16, but that's another story.

[Whitedog]

Something of interest. Yorks diary gives the serial number of the Colt 1911 .45 that he used against the Germans on Oct. 8th 1918 as 254648. Pretty neat to think that it's still out there somewhere. York reported both the rifle and the pistol as being stolen from him while he was returning to the States on the troop ship.

[Torrey McLean]

Other collectors/ historians who have met Alvin York's son at his museum affirm that Andrew Jackson York had no idea what rifle his father had used, and that his father had never mentioned it......

There is a huge industry devoted to proving - against the only known evidence - that the rifle was a Springfield.

Hello, Thunderbox - Your comment interested me, so I checked with my friend to see if I had misunderstood him. He confirmed that what I wrote in post #19 was accurate (namely,that Alvin York informed his son that he had used a M-1903 rifle on October 8, 1918), and my friend added that York's son pulled out a M-1917 rifle that had been given to him in order to point out to my friend the peep sight that he said his father disliked. So ... who knows what the true facts are? I'll continue to cite my friend's story to anyone who might be interested, but I wasn't present on October 8, 1918 and so I could be wrong about Alvin York's weapon .... Regards, Torrey

[Borden Battery]

Here is a small diary of Sgt York. Borden Battery

The Diary of Alvin York by Alvin C. York

The Diary of Sgt. York. [Mar 2006 - CEF Study Group]

http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.Vignettes/The.Diary.of.Alvin.York.html#Introduction

PS As a footnote, the late grandfather of the former City Engineer for the Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (Ryan Johnson. PEng.)was one of the German soldiers who surrendered to Sgt York.