[Dargo]

The last known survivor of a 1944 SS massacre of American prisoners of war has died. According to his family, 99-year-old Harold Billow died unexpectedly last week. He will be buried tomorrow at an undisclosed location in Pennsylvania.

Billow was captured along with other American soldiers by an SS unit, the Kampfgruppe Peiper, on December 17, 1944, during the Ardennes offensive near Malmedy. The prisoners were led to a field where other Americans had already been assembled.

When some POWs tried to escape, the Germans started shooting. They shot 84 Americans dead; 43 prisoners survived. Billow said afterwards that he dropped as soon as he heard gunfire. He then remained dead still, face down in the snow. The Germans shot anyone who still gave a sign of life, but Billow successfully managed to keep himself from dying.

After a few hours, the Germans moved on. Billow then managed to get to safety with the other survivors behind the American lines. The event came to be known as the Malmedy Massacre. Billow was a witness in the trial of the perpetrators, which was held by a U.S. military court in 1946 at the former Dachau concentration camp. 43 Germans were sentenced to death, 22 received life sentences.

The death sentences were never carried out, as the convicts would not have received a fair trial. In 1956, Commander Peiper himself was the last to be released. Years later, he was murdered by members of the former French resistance.