Two months after March 7, 1945, when American, British and other Allied forces had crossed the Rhine River into Germany, World War II in Europe came to an end. On May 7, 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender, which was ratified the next day. May 8, 2008, marks the 63rd anniversary of that victory. Clifford Hughes of Shelby, North Carolina took part in many of the bloody battles beforehand.

“I am an 88-year-old native of Shelby and have lived here all my life. I was drafted into the Army during World War II, where I served for 43 months in the Sixth Armored Division. “At the insistence of my two grown sons, I have recently begun to write about some of my life experiences… I was in combat for nine months in France and Germany, was in five major battles for which I was given five gold stars and was awarded the Bronze Star medal.

“I was not an officer, just an enlisted man doing his patriotic duty for the country I love.” Here is Hughes’ account of a horrific Christmas Eve, 1944, on the way to Germany.

Our Sixth Armored Division, of which I was a part, had been temporarily settled down near the small town of Metz, France. Having already been in combat for more than five months, and in three major battles and many skirmishes with the Germans all across France, we were enjoying this brief rest.

Three of us who stayed quite close together in combat had found a barn nearby our headquarters, which gave us some protection from the cold, unpredictable weather. Some wheat straw in the barn made our bedrolls more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. We had found a small tree, which we decorated with torn pieces of red paper from one of our Christmas packages from home.

It was late afternoon, Dec. 23, 1944, when we got word to be ready to move out early the next morning, Christmas Eve. The Fourth Armored Division, which had been fighting the Germans near Bastogne, Belgium, had its supply line cut off and that they were about to run out of food and ammunition.

Our order from Gen. George S. Patton, Commander of the Third Army - of which our Sixth Armored Division was a part - was for us to make a breakthrough and relieve the Fourth Armored Division, A.S.A.P.

Among all our gear, our food, our ammunition, our bedrolls, I placed the little Christmas tree in the half-track (armored truck) assigned to my section. We were desperately trying to enjoy the Christmas season as best we could.

We traveled north toward Bastogne that day. About half way to our destination, we stopped over for the night in another small town. As luck would have it, my two buddies and I found an empty two-story building close by. It had a large upstairs room with several bunks with mattresses on them, no less. We quickly claimed them for our use for Christmas Eve night.

Then we set up our little Christmas tree in this room. We three had decided some days before to wait until Christmas morning and open our gifts from home together to make it seem more like Christmas. The next morning we sat on our bunks and sang Christmas carols as we opened our gifts.

Soon after breakfast, we continued on our way to Bastogne. We knew the fighting had been fierce and the losses great, but we bravely went on, although quite anxious and concerned about what may lie ahead.

Reaching Bastogne a few hours later, we set up our combat command headquarters on the first floor of a building that had a ground-level basement room in the back. This room had only one window. There was about eight inches of snow on the ground, with the temperature hovering at zero degrees. We were issued bed sheets to use to camouflage our vehicles.

With this done and our guards assigned, another buddy and I decided to take some pictures.
Across the street was a two-story stone building, which appeared to have been a hospital. The building made a good background for the few snapshots that we took. This buddy was Gilbert White, whose home was in Troy, N.Y.

“Gil,” as we called him, was a likeable young man, some two or three years younger than I. He had gotten married while on furlough just before we left the States. His wife became pregnant at that time and bore them a son. He showed me pictures of their new baby boy that day at Bastogne, and of course he was so proud of him! The baby was about two months old at that time.

After taking a few snapshots, we returned to our headquarters and began preparing the basement room where we were to sleep. We found some logs in the woods nearby and stacked them across the open window to give us some protection in case of enemy fire.

We carefully covered the window from the inside with a blanket to provide complete blackout for our room, as we prepared to bed down after a harrowing and tiresome day.

Our headquarters company had a small electric generator to which we connected a line to provide a dim light so we could see to roll out our bedrolls. About six of us were planning to sleep in this small basement room, which was only about 8×20 feet in size.

It was almost midnight. Two or three men were already in their bedrolls to my left, toward the window. I was on my knees rolling out my bedroll. Gil was hard by my right, still standing, when an enemy shell exploded just outside that window to our room! It knocked down most of the logs we had stacked over the window, shrapnel came through the window, knocking out our electric power and ripping down pieces of ceiling plaster.

“I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!” Gil began screaming.

He had indeed been hit by a piece of shrapnel, which had obviously passed over me as I was on my knees, and had hit him as he stood about 12 inches to my right! Had I been still standing, this shrapnel would have hit me instead of Gil. My being on my knees had indeed saved my life!

We called emergency and Gil was rushed to the field hospital. We found out a few days later that the shrapnel had hit him in the left shoulder, severely damaged his spine and lodged in this right shoulder. He died a few days later.

Yes, it was a terrible Christmas and a sad Christmas, but we were so thankful that there were no other casualties in our company that evening in Bastogne. That was a part of what came to be called the “Battle of the Bulge.”

This article appears courtesy of The Star, of Cleavland County, North Carolina