Officers of the
regiment have said that he would have received a promotion while in the
training-camp but for the policy of not placing in command a man who
might be a conscientious objector.
The "All America" Division passed through England on its way to France
and the first real fighting they had was in the St. Mihiel Salient. From
there they went to the Argonne Forest, where the division was on the
front line of the battle for twenty-six days and nights without relief.
It was in the St. Mihiel Salient that York was made a Corporal, and when
he came out of the Argonne Forest he was a Sergeant. The armistice was
signed a fortnight later.
The war made York more deeply religious. The diary he kept passed from
simple notations about "places he had been" to a record of his thoughts
and feelings. In it are many quotations from the Bible; many texts of
sermons he heard while on the battlefields of France. With the texts
were brief notes that would recall the sermons to his memory. The book
is really "a history" of his religious development.
When he would kneel by a dying soldier he would record in his diary the
talk he had with his comrade and would write the passages of Scripture
that he or the dying man had spoken. It was upon this his interests
centered. To others he left the task of telling of the battle's result.
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