Christmas Eve in Bastogne, 1944

Carols and bombs marked the night

As the new kid on the block, never having seen combat before, I found myself, with the rest of the Division Signal Company of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, Belgium, in December of 1944. We’d arrived there about a week before Christmas, and it had been a living hell from our first day.

Sunday, Dec. 24 was just another day under fire. There were few places where there was light after dark. One was the Division Signal Corps Message Center.

There, some of us gathered around an old Philips radio, listening to Radio Berlin doing a request broadcast: German civilians asking for Christmas carols to be played for their soldiers serving in Narvik, Norway; Italy; or Novosibirsk, Russia.

For me, growing up as a descendant of German immigrants, it was a gut-wrenching irony to hear “O Tannenbaum,” “Stille Nacht,” and “Leise Rieselt Der Schnee,” lightly falls the snow.

Later that evening, several of us posted as lookouts in a house with a working toilet kept a watchful eye for any sign of enemy activity in the countryside beyond; through the still unbroken glass of the windows on each side of the house. One man, irritated at having heard German carols, began to sing the English Christmas songs we knew. Although most of us didn’t feel much like singing, everyone joined in. Anything to feel better about things on this wartorn Christmas Eve.

There was “The First Noel,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and others before we began “Angels We Have Heard on High.” What we heard was the sound of angels of death overhead.

The drone of approaching planes above, probably Junkers of the German Luftwaffe, stopped the song. Grabbing our rifles a little tighter, we held our breath and waited. “And a bright star lit up the sky.” The first plane dropped Thermal flares lighting up the landscape with a brilliant glare.

Seconds later, we ran for the stairs as the area began to rock with the blasts of exploding bombs and shattered building parts falling down above us. After checking to make sure we were all OK, there was little talk. Awakening on Christmas Day, we saw our house had taken a direct hit; the 500pound bomb in its nose in the toilet it had split in two. On its descent it had spiraled as it hit the house, almost totally demolishing the place, but it hadn’t exploded.

Some of the others thanked me for praying as we tumbled our way into the basement. I didn’t know I had.