Mayfield Steelworker aided wounded 'Screaming Eagles' in the Battle of the Bulge
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Cpl. Hargus Haywood of the 101st Airborne Division had no idea where he was going when he got orders to move out from Mourmelon, France, 80 years ago Dec. 18.
"They loaded us into open trucks and drove us all night, "said Haywood, who retired from the big General Tire plant in Mayfield, where he worked as a storekeeper and belonged to United Steelworkers Local 665.
He and the storied "Screaming Eagles" were bound for the Battle of the Bulge, the biggest battle the U.S. Army ever fought. A combat medic, Haywood survived though 341 of his comrades-in-arms were killed, 1,691 were wounded and 516 were reported missing before the battle ended in an American victory by mid-January when the Germans retreated..
The Kentuckian made staff sergeant and came home from World War II with his jump wings and a triple stack of ribbons pinned on his olive drab dress uniform jacket, including a U.S. Presidential Unit Citation and a French Croix de Guerre. He and his wife, Evelyn, both died in 2006. He was 82; she, 84. The Mayfield couple was married for almost 56 years, and they reared a son.
"Unions fight for working people, and union people have fought to keep this country free," said Jeff Wiggins, a Steelworker and secretary-treasurer of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO. "We appreciate and love the dedication that they put forth in the wars the United States has been in, and we greatly appreciate their sacrifices."
The weather was freezing when the Screaming Eagles barreled eastward though the darkness. Their mission was to stop a surprise German offensive through the rugged Ardennes region of Belgium.
It was nearly daylight on the 19th when the long convoy stopped. "I still didn't know where we were, but we started receiving a lot of artillery fire," he said.
Darkness hid from Haywood's sleepy eyes, red, yellow and black signs at the city limits. A bullet-nicked one is in the Pratt Museum at Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the famed "Screaming Eagles," now the helicopter-borne 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). "BASTOGNE" the sign reads.
Haywood was among 12,000 paratroopers who had arrived smack in the middle of the battle named for a deep pocket the enemy drove into the American lines before they were stopped and hurled back.
"I don't know what was worse, the cold or the Germans," said Haywood in a 1994 interview. A Floyd county native, he lied about his age and enlisted in the army in 1940 when he was 16. "I'd never been farther from home than Lexington," he remembered.
A coal miner's son, Hayward volunteered for the paratroops "because I wanted some excitement." Evelyn remembered it differently. "It was that extra $50 a month jump pay," she said, laughing.
Haywood had just turned 21 when the Screaming Eagles found themselves in harm's way in strategic Bastogne, where seven roads converged and the town was also on a rail line. If Bastogne fell, the Germans could advance quicker and easier toward their ultimate objective, Antwerp, the Belgian seaport which supplied the Allied forces on the Western Front.
"We knew we had to hold on, "Hayward said. "We knew we might have to fight to the death."
The enemy launched their attack on early Dec. 16. The German juggernaut consisted of 410,000 troops and 1,400 tanks. Badly outnumbered, the Americans fell back. Bastogne seemed sure to fall before the 101st Airborne arrived.
The weather -- bitterly cold, snowy and cloudy -- was the enemy's ally. The Army Air Force and British Royal Air Force controlled the skies, but their planes could not fly in such poor visibility. "It was so foggy we couldn't fire our howitzers. We couldn't see anything to shoot at," said Haywood who was assigned to the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion.
On Dec. 21, the Germans surrounded Bastogne and its hard-pressed defenders--the Screaming Eagles and a hodgepodge of other soldiers. Food, ammunition and vital supplies -- including medical supplies -- were cut off. Long-range German artillery fire was "almost constant," Haywood said.
The shell-blasted snow was stained with the blood of dead and wounded GIs. "Almost all we had for the wounded were small vials of morphine, some aspirin tablets and bandages. A lot of guys died before we could get them to the hospital."
He remembered Pvt. Howard Hickenlooper of the 463rd. A German rifle bullet had pierced his neck.
"He was a short guy, with kind of a ruddy complexion. About all I could do was comfort him. He didn't make it. His wife just had twins, too. He never knew it. She told him in a letter that arrived later."
Haywood's thoughts were on Evelyn and their 15-month-old son, Ronnie, back in Buchanan, Tenn., her hometown. "I was afraid I'd never see them again, but I tried to keep my spirits up by talking with the guys about baseball and basketball. I was a big Cincinnati Reds and Kentucky Wildcats fan, even then."
Foxhole conversations often were interrupted by incoming German artillery or mortar fire or by the rumble of enemy tanks struggling through the deep snow. "They got pretty close, too, those tanks. You could see the SS troopers coming in their white snow suits."
He said some of the 463rd gunners managed to destroy a few German tanks by using their small 75-milimeter pack howitzers as anti-tank guns.
On Dec. 22, the Germans demanded Bastogne's surrender. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe of the 101st refused with the famous reply, "Nuts." The next day, the weather began to clear, enabling transport planes to resupply Bastogne. At the same time, swarms of U.S. and British fighter-bombers pounced on the Germans, bombing and strafing the vulnerable enemy columns.
The day after Christmas, tanks of the 4th Armored Division smashed through the German lines to relieve Bastogne and its battle-weary defenders. Haywood said Dec. 26, 1944, "was the happiest day of my life. We couldn't thank those tankers enough."