World War II survivor: from a warm dorm to the Battle of the Bulge

By Tony Doris, Reprinted with permission from The Palm Beach Post

George Fisher landed in Normandy 90 days after D-Day, with the 26th Infantry Division of General Patton’s 3rd Army. His unit climbed past empty Nazi pillboxes and burned-out vehicles. They camped in France for a month of training before being ordered to the front lines in the frozen, forested hills of the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Battle of the Bulge began Dec. 16, 1944 and wore on until Jan. 25, 1945. A turning point in World War II, the Americans held back the German advance but at a cost of 80,000 casualties, 19,000 dead.

 
Fisher, now 91 and retired from the real estate business, lives in Palm Beach and serves as president of the Florida Southeast Chapter of Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. The group, down from 400 members to 165, is gathering in West Palm Beach this weekend to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the battle that’s with them every day.

1. You arrived just after D-Day?
2. We got there by September and by the middle of November we were on the front lines and scared stiff. It was very scary for us because basic training doesn’t tell you anything about being on the front lines. I came from college. They had something called the Army Specialized Training Program. That was supposed to teach us how to rebuild Europe after the war. It was a three-year program. Unfortunately it ended after about nine months. Going from a dorm in a college to a mudfield in Tennessee for basic training was like going from heaven to hell.
3. December in northern Europe?
4. There were 200,000 Germans massed behind the lines and they attacked us at 5:30 a.m. The battle started so quickly we never got overcoats, mufflers, gloves, hats. A lot of the guys got frozen feet. It was a terrible situation.

The reason I’m in Florida: I don’t want to see snow in my life anymore. It snowed for 10 or 12 consecutive days. It was so cold you couldn’t dig a foxhole. We couldn’t light a fire because the smoke would give us away. So there was no way to warm up. We urinated on the rifles in a circle to keep the bolts from freezing. Otherwise the rifles would not work.

1. How did it end for you?
2. The entire thing was just one big nightmare. Luckily I was wounded. Shrapnel went through my legs in January — Jan. 3 to be exact. I spent almost a year in a hospital and then I was discharged.
3. Survivor’s guilt?
4. Most of the guys in my unit were either killed or wounded…. We were 19 and 20 years old…. Very few survived. The ones that did, I’ve been in touch with.
5. Does it trouble you that, as you say, most young people these days think the Battle of the Bulge is a diet?
6. I’ve visited many, many schools. I speak to 10th graders, 11th graders. It’s very important to get the younger generation to know what this is about. Ten years from now, you will never ever see a World War II veteran.
7. You lived to tell the tale.
8. I met my wife in college in June of 1947 and we graduated together. We’re celebrating our 68th anniversary. People ask how we stayed together so long. It’s simple. We go out to dinner twice a week. I go Monday and Wednesday and she goes Tuesday and Thursday and it works out very well.