Early Life and Family

Barnett was born in Pleasant Hill, Maryland on October 27, 1913, the son of Albert Stanley (1892–1969) and Myrtle Barnett (1896–1925). By June 5, 1917, the family had moved to Newark, Delaware. Census records provide regular glimpses into his life. By January 14, 1920, the family had moved to Cleveland Avenue in Newark, Delaware. His military records recorded his religion as Protestant.

George was only 11 years old when his mother died. He dropped out of school after completing eighth grade. On April 2, 1930, he was living with his father and grandparents at 30 East Cleveland Avenue. Father and son were laborers in a fiber mill. (It may have been Continental Diamond Fibre, the vulcanized fiber factory where Albert was working when he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917 and again on April 27, 1942.) As of April 12, 1940, he and his father were lodgers living at 151 East Cleveland Avenue in Newark. The younger Barnett’s occupation was listed as auto mechanic.

When Barnett registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he was working for the Fader Motor Company. He was described as standing 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighing 180 lbs., with brown hair and gray eyes. An annotation to his draft card indicated that he subsequently moved to Elkton, Maryland before he was drafted.

Barnett married Frances Ann Hitchens (1919–1978) on an unknown date, probably between October 16, 1940 and December 1942. A notation in Private Barnett’s Individual Deceased Personnel File (I.D.P.F.) indicates that the couple had one daughter.

Military Career

Barnett was drafted and entered the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey on June 18, 1942. His civilian occupation at the time of induction was recorded as filling station or parking lot attendant. By December 1944, Private Barnett was a member of Company “C” of the 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion, a unit equipped with M18 tank destroyers. During operations in Northwest Europe during the fall of 1944, Company “C” had been attached to Combat Command-B, 10th Armored Division.

On December 18, 1944, two days after the Battle of the Bulge began, his company was assigned to the defense of Bastogne, Belgium. According to a battalion document (“Historical Record of 609 Tank Destroyer Battalion for Period 20 September [1944] to 1 January 194[5]”), Private George G. Barnett and Technician 5th Grade Harry D. Greene were “wounded 21 December but were killed by a direct bomb-hit on the aid station, 24 December.”

According to a summary of the case in a postwar document, GREE 293.9 (Headquarters 7887th Graves Registration Detachment Registration Division), “Information contained in a letter of the 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion indicated that; subject casualties were detained in the aid station, due to the combat situation which prevented their evacuation.” Indeed, Bastogne had been encircled by German forces.

The incident was mentioned on page 156 of S.L.A. Marshall’s book Bastogne: The First Eight Days: “That night the town was bombed twice. During the first raid, in the late evening, a bomb landed on the hospital of the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion near the intersection of the main roads from ArIon and Neufchâteau. It caved in the roof, burying 20 patients and killing a Belgian woman [Renée Lemaire] who was serving as a nurse.”

In an account of the bombing, Dr. Jack T. Prior wrote:

“At 8:30 p.m. Christmas Eve, I was in a building next to my hospital preparing to go next door and write a letter for a young lieutenant to his wife. The lieutenant was dying of a chest wound. As I was about to step out the door for the hospital one of me men asked if I knew what day it was, pointing out that on Christmas Eve we should open a Champagne bottle. As the two of us filled our cups, the room, which was well blackened out, became as bright as an arc welders torch. Within a second or two we heard the screeching sound of the first bomb we had ever heard.”

Dr. Prior continued: “We hit the floor as a terrible explosion next door rocked our building. I ran outside to discover that the three-story apartment serving as my hospital was a flaming pile of debris about six feet high. The night was brighter than day from the magnesium flares the German bomber pilot had dropped. My men and I raced to the top of the debris and began flinging burning timber aside looking for the wounded, some of whom were shrieking for help. At this juncture the German bomber, seeing the action, dropped down to strafe us with his machine guns. We slid under some vehicles and he repeated this maneuver several times before leaving the area. Our team headquarters about a block away also received a direct hit and was soon in flames. A large number of men soon joined us and we located a cellar window (they were marked by white arrows on most European buildings). Some men volunteered to be lowered into the smoking cellar on a rope and two or three injured were pulled out before the entire building fell into the cellar. I estimated that about twenty injured were killed in this bombing along with Renee Lemaire.”

According to his I.D.P.F., Private Barnett was listed as missing in action from December 24, 1944 until March 22, 1945, “when evidence considered sufficient to establish the fact of death was received by the Secretary of War from the Commanding General, European Area.” In 1950, government officials determined that his remains, like those of a number of other soldiers in the hospital, were nonrecoverable. For that reason, Private Barnett was memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial near Liège, Belgium as well as on the Barnett headstone in Newark Cemetery. His widow did not remarry.

Other Men Killed in the Aid Station Bombing on December 24, 1944

The following nine men were among the approximately 20 servicemen who died when the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion aid station was bombed. They were listed in a document in Barnett’s I.D.P.F. (GRRE 293.9, Headquarters 7887th Grave Registration Detachment Registration Division) and like him, their bodies were not recovered. Grade, name, service number, and unit are listed.

Staff Sergeant Paul F. Finnegan, 31248313 (Company “H,” 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion, 9th Armored Division)
Sergeant Robert C. Brechko, 32476700 (Company “C,” 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division)
Sergeant Robert C. Houghton, 32553423 (Headquarters Company (?), 20th Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division)
Technician 4th Grade John H. Schmitz, 36271547 (Headquarters, 2nd Tank Battalion, 9th Armored Division)
Corporal Franklin O. Wallow, 36408717 (Company “B,” 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion, 9th Armored Division)
Corporal Alexander M. Giles, 37236964 (Company “D,” 2nd Tank Battalion, 9th Armored Division)
Technician 5th Grade Harry D. Greene, 35381588 (Company “C,” 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which was attached to the 10th Armored Division)
Private 1st Class Clarence C. Ochszner, 37317243 (Headquarters Company, 20th Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division)
Private David Siegel, 32964764 (Headquarters, 796th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion, which was attached to 10th Armored Division)

Note: I have corrected incomplete or inaccurate units listed above. The only major correction is that Sergeant Houghton was erroneously listed as a member of the 20th Armored Division on original document, which can be viewed by clicking the images below.

Headquarters 7887th Grave Registration Detachment Registration Division GRRE 293.9 Pg. 1 (Courtesy of Geoffrey Roecker)

Headquarters 7887th Grave Registration Detachment Registration Division GRRE 293.9 Pg. 2 (Courtesy of Geoffrey Roecker)

Special thanks to Geoffrey Roecker, Webmaster & Lead Researcher at Missing Marines (www.missingmarines.com) for providing Private Barnett’s I.D.P.F. Thanks also to the Newark History Museum for the use of their photograph.

This piece was written by Lowell Silverman as part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/), with the goal of eventually honoring all 400,000 American service members who were killed during World War II. Additional tributes by the author can be viewed here.

Notes

When this article was originally published in June 2020, I was unaware that Barnett was married. In December 2020, I obtained his I.D.P.F., which listed his beneficiaries as “Mrs. Francis [sic] Ann Barnett, wife, 138 E. High St., Elkton, Md.” as well as a daughter at the same address. They likely married in Elkton, Maryland, but it’s not clear if any records survive. My presumption is that the wedding occurred after October 16, 1940 (when Barnett was living in Newark and listed his father as next of kin) and December 1942, when the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index recorded her name as Frances Hitchens Barnett. I have not been able to find any trace of the daughter listed in the document.

Because individuals often moved several times during their lives, it complicated postwar efforts to add names to the appropriate honor rolls. Barnett was born in Maryland and living in Cecil County when he entered the U.S. Army. However, he lived in Delaware for at least 23 years, representing the majority of his 31 years of life. Private Barnett's name was included in the War Department honor list for New Castle County, Delaware published in June 1946 rather than Cecil County's. However, he was described as being from Maryland on the Tablets of the Missing at the Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial.

Bibliography

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“After Action Report for Period 1 to 31 Dec 1944 Inclusive.” Headquarters 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion, dated January 1, 1945. Tank Destroyer.net. http://tankdestroyer.net/images/stories/ArticlePDFs/609th_AAR_Dec_44-14_pages_incl._S-3_Rpts.pdf

Barnett, George G. 32269923 Individual Deceased Personnel File. Courtesy of Geoffrey Roecker

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GREE 293.9 (Headquarters 7887th Graves Registration Detachment Registration Division). Document in George G. Barnett I.D.P.F. Courtesy of Geoffrey Roecker.

“Historical Record of 609 Tank Destroyer Battalion for Period 20 September [1944] to 1 January 194[5].” Tank Destroyer.net. http://tankdestroyer.net/images/stories/ArticlePDFs/609th_Hist_Rcd_Dec_15_41-Jan_1_45-15_pages_incl._commanding_off.__casualties.pdf

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Article last updated December 24, 2020