It was Christmas Eve in Haganau, a French Lorraine town that had been liberated just days before by the Allies. The Medical Detachment had arrived from CP-2 in Marseilles. It had landed on Dec. 10 and had picked up its training there. Now, after three days in French 40-and-8s, the Medics were in the battle zone.

"It was 9:30 at night," recalls Waterhouse, who regularly noted the time of military occurrences. "in the distance we could hear the pounding of artillery shells that broke the otherwise dead silence. We battle green corpsmen knew we were close to the 'real war'.

"Eight miles of 'tedious slogging on foot, carrying full field packs, brought us to the villages of Kaltenhouse and Oberhoffen. The weak light of a quarter moon showed corpses of German soldiers alongside the road. Signs like 'Mines cleared to ditches' emphasized that this was a true combat zone."

It was Christmas morning, 2 a.m., when the weary men trudged into Bischweiller near the Rhine River and bedded down in a deserted factory. In the evening of Dec. 27 the unit moved a few miles into Dreusenheim and set up their station no more than 300 yards from the front line in an old bierstube. "It was warm and comfortable and double bunks liberated from the abandoned police station gave us our first good night's sleep in France." And Christmas dinner caught up with them only four days late.

Then came the new year - and an entirely new phase of combat for the 274th and its Medics: Operation Nordwind!

In the Battle of Wingen, the detachment suffered its first casualty. Pvt Donald Brown was attached to the 2nd Platoon of George Company - the outfit that was always in the thick of combat. As he went to the aid of a wounded sergeant, Don was caught in machine-gun fire and was hit. But he was finally able to reach his man. He was about to administer morphine, when he discovered the sergeant was dead. Don crawled to a covered position and waited until a litter team came to evacuate him."

"They got me!" he yelled to the team. "They're shooting at all the Medics. It's terrible, terrible." His buddies were taken aback. Here it was the first day of their first battle and already one Medic had been hit. Worse, the enemy blatantly disregarded the red cross on Medic helmets, a Geneva Conference guarantee that non-combatants would be spared on the battlefield.

The next day - three hours into a Trailblazer attack - T/5 Theodore Fleck was hit. Attached to the 3rd Platoon of Fox Company, he was sniper bait as he worked to save the life of Pfc. William Scott. He was hit in the jugular vein and no effort of Fleck's could stop the deluge of blood. Knowing his end was near, Scott asked Ted to pray for him. Before the short prayer was over, Billy had died. Now Fleck, although wounded, in pain and (growing numb from the bitter cold, continued his duties under the continuing heavy machine-gun fire.

"Not much later, Pfc. Eddie Porter and Wayne Shook earned Purple Hearts on separate litter teams. Each was hit by sniper fire, ignored his wounds to move wounded GIs out of the incessant mortar and machine gun fire, until finally they evacuated themselves."

Meanwhile replacement Medics had arrived from Regiment. Waterhouse remembers: "On his first mission, Pvt Mike Flores and 'veteran' Peter Kotsovolos were searching for casualties in the hilly terrain above Wingen when they were hurt in a weird accident. That meant that a litter squad had to be assigned to each company. But the unit was under strength because of the Wingen casualties. So many medical technicians volunteered for litter duty.

Among them was a team of T/5 Gerald Wiggins, Pfc.Vern Staley, Waterhouse himself, a Pfc., and an Infantryman who was both bearer and guide. They were called on to evacuate casualties from No.4 pillbox in the Maginot Line fortifications the Americans were using.

T/5 H. Gerald Wiggins, Pfc Vern Staley, Waterhouse and an infantry man. © 1997 by Pete Bennet

"It was a black night and the snow was knee deep and falling steadily," says Waterhouse's account. "A slight wind occasionally cleared a small patch and spots of black dirt showed where recent enemy machine gun fire had poured in. Mines were plentiful and we knew that even a slight deviation off our path could be fatal."

At the pillbox they found their casualty. Now came the equally hazardous return trip complicated by their burden on the litter.

"We had traveled but a few hundred yards when a German flare lit up the area all around us. Our natural inclination was to run. But there was a high ridge in front of us and, keeping in shadows, we cautiously moved to that shelter, step by step, breathing hard. Our hearts lightened a little when we came into sight of the road that led back to our dugouts. There we met a How Company jeep driver who took our patient back to the rear aid station in Niederbronn. Other litter teams were just as successful and, despite the treacherous conditions, we had all the battalion's casualties back into safe medical care."

Early in February, the 70th Division was reunited. The regiments that had made up Task Force Herren came back from other Infantry divisions to which they had been attached and the 'Blazers, now in the province of Lorraine, were preparing to go on the offense for the first time in France. Waterhouse's Medical Section found itself in Kerbach. There they were to follow the attacking 'Blazers and set up forward aid stations as close as possible to the front line.

Aid stations were set up in schoolhouses, churches and civilian homes. Although their stay would be short at any one place, the Medics had to clean up premises that were usually damaged from artillery fire and filthy with accumulated filth of every description. A passing ambulance drove by, striking a road mine. Shell fragments struck both men in the legs. They were evacuated immediately - by that ambulance."

When an Infantryman came under enemy fire, he could vent his fear and anger and frustration by firing back, even if he couldn't see his foes. The aid man was denied this escape valve. And sometimes his total exasperation at the enemy was brought to boil by the fear of "friendly" fire. T/5 Donald Conway had such an experience.

"Conway was attached to Fox Company. His squad took a house in Wingen in a fierce evening fight and occupied it during the night," Waterhouse reports. The next morning the Yanks again attacked the town, this time with the support of tanks. Unaware of the fact that the house was occupied by Americans, the tankers made preparations to blast a hole into the house under the assumption that enemy snipers were holed up there.

"Conway saw this. He ran out of the house into a rain of German bullets, ignoring them, he showed the Red Cross insignia to the tank commander and signaled the lieutenant to hold fire on that target.

Pfc George Brush, 3rd Platoon, G/274. The Battle of Wingen. Drawing by Pete Bennet, ©1997

"Pfc.George Brush was another of our detachment who showed great courage. He was attached to the 3rd Platoon of George Company (Casey Cassidy's). While rendering aid to a fallen American, he was shot at three times by a sniper and then showered with flames from a phosphorous grenade fired from an adjacent house. He found shelter alongside a stone wall and dragged his patient there for more first aid. Only then did he remove his own burning coat. He had just about finished with that initial care when an enemy sniper mortally wounded the patient. Ignoring the continuing dangers, George found and aided other wounded soldiers."

With the Trailblazer victory in Wingen, an advance aid station was set up in Zittersheim. A major task was treatment of gangrene in many German prisoners. Then, in reserve in Oberbronn, the hungry Medics found comfortable quarters in an old Catholic hospital and rested for a couple of days.

During the second half of January, the 274th was in defensive position in the Hartz Mountains northeast of Niederbronn. The terrain was treacherous and wheeled vehicles - including the ambulances - couldn't get near the fox holes of the Trailblazers.

"The Battalion was ready for an attack on Kerbach and the high ground around it. We would follow the attack closely," Waterhouse's account continues.

We had learned that German Tiger tanks were in Etzlingen, a town only a few miles past Kerbach. It was feared that these tanks might make a breakthrough and inflict heavy casualties before we could get our tanks up there. At 6:30 in the morning of Feb. 17 there was dead silence in the aid station. We all were deep in thought - what would be the outcome of this fight for a small French village?

"The first shell whined overhead, opening Divarty's artillery barrage."

The Medics' experience at Wingen showed that it was impractical to send aid men in too close behind the riflemen. Sure, there is a tremendous advantage in giving speedy evacuation of the wounded to aid station care. But the hazards of heavy enemy fire - the kind that had taken out so many litter bearers at Wingen - threatened far too many casualties. Unless a man were most seriously wounded, he would be better waiting a short time for evacuation.

"Now telephone reports of casualties came into the station and the first litter squad was dispatched to their aid.

"We waited for their return, reassured by the fact that less than 30 minutes ago American tanks had cleared the road between Busbach and Kerbach and Infantrymen had cleared the areas alongside the road."

As happens too often in combat, there is often a major discrepancy between reports and reality.

"We watched them come down the road. The team included Pvt. George Brush, Pfc. Joe Gladany, Pfc. George Stallsmith and Pfc. Patrick McBride. They had been pinned down by a machine gun sniper on a nearby hillside in the 'cleared area'. Their only shelter was a creek. They jumped in. Now they were soaking wet, covered with mud and shivering with cold.

"Other teams had met the same fire. One found shelter in a culvert partially filled with the heavy rain of previous days: Capt. Clifford, Lt. Forest Beard, Sgt. Spencer, Cpl. Breezacek, T/5 Max Freeman, Pfc.'s Rybarozyk and Branscum and Pvts. Hoover, Pochepka and Hilton.

"After two days of fighting Kerbach was taken and we moved in. We set up the aid station in an old parsonage. The church, across the street, had taken direct hits that sheared off much of the huge building and destroyed the roof."

The battle of the Heights continued as the 70th ground out its way to Saarbrucken. On Feb. 22 the detachment suffered its first KIA, killed in action.

"James Fouts, just promoted to T/5, was in the midst of action on Hill 88 overlooking Stiring-Wendel when he took a round from a German sniper. One of the outstanding Medics in the Battle of Wingen, he had just returned, the day before, from a pass to Paris. He was awarded the Silver Star, posthumously.

The 70th advance continued slowly and at high cost of casualties. Just as the Infantry prepared for a major attack, so did the Medics. The final push against the high ground of Stiring-Wendel was to start March 3. The aid men found an old German pillbox that would serve as forward aid station and an evacuation route was determined that would avoid the area below Hill 88. It got its name because the Germans had zeroed in on the roads leading into the town and their 88 guns wreaked horrible havoc.

"The battle for the town began. Street fighting was raging where our troops had a hold on the suburban trolley line entering the town. House-to-house fighting intensified. Across the street from the trolley line, treebursts sheared off branches. Now a new weapon, the 'Screaming Meemie', took its toll. Five or six times a day its terrifying wail preceded a concussion that would be felt five miles away. The windows of our aid stations were all blown out. And casualties increased.

"On the night of the 4th, two litter squads were sent forward to augment the teams at work in the town. Pfc. Branscum unloaded a team from his jeep and proceeded to a forward collecting point. He had traveled only a short distance when the vehicle hit a road mine. He was thrown into the air and the jeep was completely demolished. With shell fragments in his leg and one arm badly sprained, he managed to crawl back 200 yards to warn the litter squad about the danger of the situation and the loss of the evacuation jeep.

"Replacements were assigned as litter bearers as a kind of orientation to battle conditions. Then they were sent out as aid men with the riflemen." Pfc. Daniel Hoover had made those transitions after he came to the detachment from the General Hospital in Paris. He had taken cover in a fox hole during an intense enemy barrage. But he left that shelter to assist a wounded Infantryman. An 88 shell fragment hit him in the side but he continued helping the soldier - and other wounded men - until finally he himself was evacuated."

Pfc. Edward Keller, attached to Fox Company as aid man, had missed a Purple Heart at Wingen. A sniper bullet creased his helmet just over the Geneva cross. But on the evening of March 5 it was for real. As he was helping a soldier who had been hit minutes before, Ed took a hit from an 88. He finished dressing the doughboy's wounds under the heaviest artillery fire and then directed walking wounded to the aid station before he was carried to the rear on a litter.

"The cases we saw at the aid station were always different, always gruesome. One fellow had been hit by a shell fragment that ripped open his whole abdominal wall. We could observe his complete intestinal system as it floated in a bath of blood. 'Will he live?' Many, many times we asked that of 'Doc' Clifford. 'There is a slim chance that he will come through.' was always the reply.

"Now two men were carried in; each had his right foot blown off by a shoe mine. One had stepped on a mine and lost his foot. His buddy, attempting to rescue him, stepped on another mine and lost his foot. A pool of blood lay around the litter as we loosened the tourniquet to let circulation ream for a few seconds.

We rapidly changed the dressing and prepared them for immediate evacuation to a hospital in the rear. As I applied a large Carlisle dressing I asked if he had good feeling in his right foot.

"Yes, I can feel it all right."

"That's fine. You'll be OK in a couple of months and back with the gang again."

We looked at each other but never said another word. We knew that he would never see another battle. But a little encouragement in times of such tragedy goes a long way to lift morale on the long road to recovery. And it may even save their lives. (Very seldom did we ever hear of the outcome after the casualties left our aid station. Few men died on the trip to the collecting station, for the use of blood plasma saves many lives by restoring respiration and pulse to normal as the system absorbs replacement of the blood lost on the battle field.)

General Orders - 274th Honor Roll