THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512190090
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
All of George D. Naylor Jr.'s Christmas wishes came true in 1945, when he was able to spend the holiday at home with his wife and baby.
Naylor was a machine gunner with the U.S. Army's 83rd Infantry during the Battle of the Bulge, one of the European Theater's bloodiest and most intense battles. Many of his comrades never made it back home to enjoy that Christmas.
Despite the fact that he had been wounded twice during the course of the war, Naylor was one of the lucky ones.
``I thought it was a dream come true,'' the 75-year-old retired Norfolk Naval Shipyard sheet metal worker said. ``None of us thought we'd get back. When we got through, we had only three men left in our machine gun section. We started out with 11. During that time if you didn't believe in Jesus, you just never got back, you know?''
The previous Christmas was also memorable for the Deep Creek resident. One day of good living almost did him in.
``Christmas of 1944 I spent in Holland,'' Naylor said. ``We were all at the front but for that Christmas they picked one guy from each platoon to celebrate the holiday. They pulled us back off the line and sent us to spend Christmas in some hotel in Holland.''
Naylor said he and his mates were wined and dined with rich foods, fine wines and extreme comfort.
``But we ate so much rich food, we got sick,'' he said. ``Actually, it was a miserable night.''
But Naylor's wartime luck was far removed from the misery he experienced during that 1944 yuletide celebration.
He was wounded twice during fierce fighting and survived. Some of his buddies didn't fare as well.
``We went in with a full company, that's about 180 people,'' he said. ``We came back with only about a platoon's worth (about 40 people).''
After training at Camp Atterbury, Ind., and going on extensive maneuvers ``fighting'' units of the 101st Airborne in Tennessee, Naylor and his mates were shipped to England in April 1944.
While in England, Naylor and his mates slept in pup tents and marched and trained in the mud and rain. He watched the D-Day invasion on newsreel in an English movie house and 12 days later was onboard another troop carrier bobbing up and down the French coast, weathering a five-day storm.
He and his fellow troops landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy to relieve the 101st Airborne.
``I got hit the first day we were on the beach,'' he recalled. ``It was July 4, 1944. I was hit with a bullet in the hip and minutes later got hit with shrapnel from enemy mortar fire. I still carry a souvenir of that inside me. The shrapnel's still there.''
Naylor was sent back to England and in the span of just two months was patched up, healed and sent back to his same platoon.
Then he saw even more action.
His unit moved to the eastern part of France near the Luxembourg border with the objective to break out into the Ruhr River valley. The Battle of the Bulge soon began.
``We lost a good many men,'' he said. ``We even fought some hand-to-hand. One time we kept moving and fighting for 10 days straight. There was no stopping and if you did, you dug in. And try digging in as if your life depended on it with the ground completely frozen.''
Soon after some of the bloodiest, fiercest and coldest fighting in Europe, the Allies were able to cut off the German supply line. Naylor and his fellow troops were sent to cross the Rhine and reach Dusseldorf with the Second Army.
``We were headed for Berlin,'' Naylor said.
But he never made it to the capital of the Third Reich.
``On April 4 I got hit with four machine gun bullets,'' he said. ``I got hit in the groin and the hand. They thought for sure I was a goner.''
But Naylor hung on and eventually found himself in a hospital in England. Spring of 1945 came and soon the war in Europe ended. On July 5, 1945, he boarded a hospital ship in Southampton, England, bound for Charleston, S.C.
``My wounds were healing and I soon learned to walk again on that ship,'' he said.
After arriving back in the States, Naylor was eventually discharged from the Army at Camp Butner, N.C., near Durham, on Sept. 26. His wife was waiting for him in nearby Spring Hope, N.C.
``I finally got to look at the son I had never seen,'' he said.
Naylor and his family were able to find a low-cost home in Portsmouth. He finally celebrated his first Christmas away from the cold, blood and violence of the war.
``It was wonderful, no question about it,'' he said. ``I thought a lot about what went on before, and it was really something, you know? The best present of all was being home for Christmas.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
George D. Naylor Jr., a Chesapeake resident, recalls his days as an
Army machine gunner during the Battle of the Bulge.
by CNB