On Christmas Eve, 1944, as the largest battle American forces had ever participated in, raged in the Ardennes, one unit of the 10th Armored Division known as the Woodchoppers knew they were in for a long night, but were unaware they were making history.
Waymart resident George Waters was a cannoneer in a half-track assigned to the 796th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion of Command Company B (CCB) outside Bastogne on that fateful morning. His unit had been positioned on a high field to protect American outposts around the town when they were overrun by much heavier German forces and were forced to retreat, nearly crippled.
Their other cannoneer, gunner and driver injured, the unit moved into the center of Bastogne and took position across the central square from a house converted into a makeshift hospital. The aid station housed some 600 wounded under the care of a single field surgeon and two nurses.
Not 15 minutes after establishing their position in the cellar of a bar, a shell attack close by rocked the building they were in, leaving them dazed. Soon after, a voice called from the stairs at the rear of the cellar, saying “The hospital has been hit! We need help to get survivors out of the burning building!”
“Five of us went up the stairs, out the front door, and saw the carnage across the square,” Waters recalled in an interview with The News Eagle, “Two of my friends and two guys I didn’t know approached the . . . profusely burning shambles of the former three story building.
“As we approached, it appeared as if a huge cleaver had cut the building in a diagonal swath from the top corner to the ground level on the opposite side. Part of the second floor dangled over the first, and victims were being helped out from a huge hole leading to the basement.”
Knowing they would likely be strafed at any time by the German bomber circling overhead, the five men surveyed the situation in the bright glow of magnesium flares dropped by the bomber. They knew they would be prime targets when it returned.
“We turned to retreat to the cellar,” Waters recalled, “Took a couple of steps, and then I said, ‘Wait a minute. What if we were in there and no one would help us?’” The men turned back and made their way across the square to help carry out the wounded.
Bastogne was surrounded. Two days earlier, the commander of the German forces surrounding the town sent a message to Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, who led the American forces, saying essentially “We have you surrounded. Surrender or be annihilated.”; to which the American commander famously replied “Nuts!”. According to the account written later by Dr. Jack Prior, the doctor on duty in the makeshift hospital that night, “The best they (the Germans) could do with the translation was: “Go to Hell.”
The German Lt. General’s note had warned one Artillery Corps and six heavy Antiaircraft Battalions stood at the ready to obliterate the American troops in the town if they did not surrender within two hours.
The shelling did commence, but the Americans were not obliterated. Despite being out-gunned, CCB held their ground at great cost. Without knowing what other companies were doing, Waters explained, they became a force of one, repelling three columns of German forces long enough for the Army’s 101st Airborne to drop in and push the Germans back.
Two days later on Dec. 26, the 3rd Army arrived to relieve the beleaguered town, marking the beginning of the end for the German forces in the Ardennes–Alsace campaign, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge; which is noted by many as the beginning of the end of World War II. In all, over 19,000 Allied troops lost their lives during the Battle of the Bulge.
Gen. McAuliffe later said that if it hadn’t been for CCB meeting the Germans head on the way they did, there would have been no Bastogne for the 101st Airborne to have gone to, and the whole Ardennes campaign might have gone very differently.
Waters’ unit was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for their actions in Bastogne. Of over 600,000 troops who participated, Waters’ was the only unit in the Ardennes to receive the award.
On Tuesday Dec. 15, 65 years after the Battle of Bastogne, the Battle of the Bulge as a whole, and the sinking of the Leopoldville (also on Christmas Eve, 1944), the Pennsylvania House of Representatives receognized the anniversary with a Resolution. George Waters and the handful of surviving members of his company were invited to Harrisburg, where, ensconced in the plush seats of honor near the Speaker’s podium, they were presented the resolution recognizing their service. After the reading of the resolution, Waters said, the whole House stood for a three minute standing ovation, leaving the men teary-eyed despite themselves.
His eyes welling up again as he related the story, Waters said, “I just want people to remember all the men and women who gave their lives to the world as a Christmas present that year. It wasn’t just for America; It was so the world could remain free, which it does. It may sound corny, but I don’t give a damn, and you can quote me on that.”
