Winston-Salem's Horace Barrett, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, celebrates his 100th birthday

Today, December 7, is the 82nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that prompted America’s entry into World War II. Winston-Salem resident Horace Barrett watched the day unfold, following the events through radio and newspaper reports, on what was also his 18th birthday. The Hanes High School graduate later volunteered for military service as a paratrooper, parachuted into France on D-Day, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Along the way, he was awarded four Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars before returning home to Winston-Salem. Today Barrett celebrates his 100th birthday.

Interview Highlights

On being the only living member of the 508th regiment of the 82nd airborne:

"I had some competition, but the guy was 102 and he died. It's hard to believe that many people, an airborne battalion — and each company, airborne is about between three and 400 depending on what their function is, but most of it is infantry — and it's hard to believe that all those guys I knew well, slept in the snow with them, all that, all of them are dead."

On his experience fighting in the Battle of the Bulge: 

"I lasted 63 days up there. I couldn't even get a cold and had on the same clothes for 63 days. It got to where you just lay down the snow and go to sleep. It snowed every day. It was over Christmas, and we had a big fight Christmas Eve night. They dropped dummy paratroopers on us, but the moon was out, and we could see them coming down. I never had the safety on my rifle. I’d sleep with it and everything else, but we’d go to sleep laying down in the snow. You had to be ready. It was Christmas Eve, and we had an attack. They came across the Somme River, and our CP [command post] was in the house. They came by it before we got started and shot the door off the CP. And I hadn’t had a bath in 63 days."

On going home:

"At the end of the war, they started to breaking the people up to start downsizing the army. And if you had 85 points or better, you’d go home. And my captain called me in and told me that — he called me Rock, Hard Rock, and sometimes it was Rock — and he said, 'I’ll make a deal.' He said, 'Your name’s on the list to go home.' He said, 'I’ll send you to Paris to officers training school and make you a second lieutenant.' I told him I appreciated it, but I said I hadn’t seen my mother in three years. I said I'm going home. You had to have 85 points, and I think I had 90 depending on Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars. And I was pretty well decorated. So, I was one of the first to get home."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Staff Sergeant Barrett was interviewed by historian and author Randell Jones, a former participant in WFDD’s Radio Camp for Adults. Their conversation was recorded outdoors near some ongoing home construction. This conversation was edited lightly for clarity.