![]() On December 16, 1944, the day Adolf Hitler’s great Ardennes offensive began, Captain Leon Scarborough, the officer commanding Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, was told that his battery was being transferred from VII Corps to VIII Corps at 0600 hours the following day and that he was to report to his new headquarters at St. Nevertheless, many corroborated facts are known and a careful analysis of these facts can bring us closer to the truth of what happened. The secret lies with the guilty and the dead. It is unlikely that we shall ever know the precise sequence of events at the Baugnez crossroads, near Malmédy, on December 17, 1944, or the reasons for them. Few of these accounts are based on fact, and most are embellished and inaccurate. ‘Nazis Turned Machine Guns on GI POWs wrote Hal Boyle in his January 1945 Stars and Stripes article, and from that first graphic account sprung a plethora of books and articles about the so-called Malmédy Massacre. And yet, but for the presence of an Associated Press correspondent there in early January 1945, it is doubtful that this terrible incident would have ever achieved international notoriety. The delightful Belgian town of Malmédy will forever be associated with the most infamous massacre of American troops in World War II. ![]()
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