Brussels: A 93-year-old Belgian nurse who saved hundreds of wounded GIs during the Battle of the Bulge has received an award for valour from the US Army.
The US ambassador says there was a 67-year delay in presenting the award because it was assumed that Augusta Chiwy had herself perished in the battle.
"She helped, she helped, and she helped," Ambassador Howard Gutman said Monday as he presented the medal.
Chiwy volunteered to help in an aid station in the town of Bastogne, where wounded and dying US soldiers were being treated by a single doctor during the German offensive in December 1944.
Bastogne was besieged and left without medical supplies. Gutman said that Chiwy combed battlefields, often coming under enemy fire, to collect the wounded.
PTI
First Published: Monday, December 12, 2011, 23:14