Schmidt lies in a depression, ravine-like, through which runs the small Kall Valley and a river. The offensive as undertaken placed the American forces at a severe disadvantage in the forest. The Battle of the Huertgen Forest was first published in 1963. What medics and commanders of the time called “combat fatigue” led to many soldiers having to be taken off the line. They swept the story aside and focused on fighting elsewhere. The focus of the fighting shifted away from the Hurtgen. In the fall and winter, heavy rain and snowfall and a lack of roads made it extremely difficult to penetrate, either by foot or in vehicles. Map showing the area of the battle. Combat fatigue, pneumonia, and trench foot claimed another 9,000 men. When the battle finally fizzled out, all the Americans had to show for their sacrifices were a few miles of tree stumps, shell holes, shattered buildings, and swamps. The critics questioned Bradley’s wisdom in choosing to make his main effort through the Hürtgenwald instead of using the more open, easier going farther north on the Ninth Army front between the U.S. First and British Second Armies. During the autumn and winter of 1944/45, the longest battle of the Second World War on German soil took place in the Hürtgen Forest. The forest has returned, and the tree lines are much as they were. Some did not withdraw until Christmas Eve. Still the fighting ground on. Not until early February was this attack renewed; the dams were captured after several days of heavy fighting. Allied forces were eager to get into Germany. Commanders of the three line companies had been either killed or wounded.”. These had to be covered with logs and sod because of the tendency of artillery shells to explode in the treetops, showering them with shrapnel. … In four days’ time, three company commanders lost their commands. Two regiments suffered losses equaling 100% of their fighting strength. Soldiers of all ranks broke down under the strain of continuous combat. When all was ready on November 16, soldiers of the 22nd Infantry Regiment’s forward companies waded across the Roter Weh stream and began climbing a fir-clad ridge toward the Roer River plain, five miles ahead. With German pillboxes spread throughout the forest, the Americans had to advance cautiously when they could advance at all. The Hürtgen campaign mirrored the best and the worst in the American foot soldier. Yet, despite the many hardships and appalling losses, the U.S. infantry there were able somehow to maintain unit integrity and to persevere. (PFC G. W. Goodman/U.S. American soldiers faced no greater odds under such harrowing conditions in World War II than did the riflemen, machine gunners, and mortarmen who struggled through the Hürtgenwald. There are moments in military history that forever alter the flow of human events. Some men shot themselves in the foot to get out of combat. Concentrate your attention to the town of Schmidt, just kilometers from the Siegfried Line, with its dragons' teeth tank stoppers. Model spent the first year of World War II as a chief of staff, first of IV Corps during the invasion of Poland, and then of Sixteenth Army during the Battle of France. HURTGEN FOREST TOURS . “Tubby” Barton’s 4th Infantry (Ivy) Division on June 6, 1944, and suffered heavy casualties in the Normandy campaign. But many men were not found, and so lay dead or dying out among the trees. There, the Germans were able to delay and wear down the Americans, providing security and buying critical time to prepare for the Ardennes counteroffensive. Siegfried Line bunker in the northern Eifel. This film told the story of the battle of the Hürtgen Forest. The German offensive in Belgium in mid-December, the Battle of the Bulge, halted any further advance into the Hürtgen forest. Despite heavy artillery support, it cost the regiment 2,806 casualties to advance 6,000 yards—averaging just over 300 yards a day—during 18 continuous days of action. As fall drew on, endless drizzle turned the ground to mud. The 2nd Ranger Battalion and the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment emerged from the bloody forest as skeletal units. It was a miserable season for both sides, but particularly for the Americans. Hello, welcome to The AceDestroyer and welcome to the ‘Hell in the Hürtgen Forest’ series. It would not be until February 1945 that Hodges had control of the dams and was able to confidently place troops on the eastern bank of the Roer River. The Allies could not launch a broad, massive attack across the Cologne Plain to the Rhine as long as the enemy held the dams and could threaten to flood the Roer River Valley. In the end, the campaign absorbed some 17 divisions, caused dreadful casualties, and proved a heavy strain on troop morale. Despite this, the American commanders were confident that they could break through. Hürtgen Forest Battle Helmet Hey guys! The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a series of fierce battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944 between American and German forces, it was the longest battle on German ground during World War II, and is the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought. A private in the latter days of WWII on the German front struggles between his will to survive and what his superiors perceive as a battlefield instinct. The overall aim was an attack on the Aachen-Cologne axis designed to close with the River Rhine, as a first step toward the envelopment of the industrial Ruhr Valley. At many points, the Americans found themselves unable to break through the German lines. Director Mark Frederick had the opportunity to visit Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial last year to pay tribute to a veteran from his hometown. In the first few days, the infantry of the 84th Division were expected to exist on packets of odd items such as eggs and bacon compressed into tablets, gum and candy, with nothing hot to drink. The Hürtgen Forest area today is little different than it was in late 1944 before the battle started. The regiment, almost at full strength, was commanded by 42-year-old Colonel Charles T. Lanham, a wiry, graying 1924 graduate of West Point and former Infantry School instructor and War Department staffer. The book also explains, in painful detail, why the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest is so little known: it is considered the greatest failure of leadership of US troops in Europe during World War II. The first engagements during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest were fought by Brig. By the end of the sixth day, the regiment had suffered 50 percent casualties, the point at which an infantry unit is considered to have lost much of its effectiveness. It would be their last hot meal for 18 days. The Hürtgen campaign was strictly a foot soldier’s war because the thick, ravine-creased woods, steep ridges, lack of a road net, mud, and weather conditions—rain, fog, sleet, and snow—negated the customary American superiority in armor and air power. Battle in the Huertgen Forest From September 1944 to February 1945, American and German forces fought over the Hurtgen Forest, an area of wooded hills on the border between Belgium and Germany. Booby traps in abandoned foxholes and ditches turned promised sanctuaries into graves for the unwary. Many of them had fought in the forests of Russia and Finland. Battle of Hürtgen Forest, also known as Hürtgen Forest, or simply Hürtgen is a ground forces map available in all modes. In one rifle company, all of the officers were relieved or broke under the strain, while a platoon commander who refused to order his men into the line was put under arrest. The Battle of the Huertgen Forest began in September 1944 and culminated in mid-February 1945. The Germans had jammed open the floodgates. After the unexpected success of the Normandy breakout, the Allied high command believed that the enemy was virtually defeated. The Big Red One and 9th Infantry Divisions had to depend almost entirely on replacements after Hürtgen, and the 4th and 8th Infantry Divisions also had big manpower gaps to fill. The Germans sometimes planted explosives underneath wounded men; one GI lay motionless for 72 hours, struggling to remain conscious so that he could warn whoever might come to his rescue. They stopped where they were, digging foxholes for their own defense. “By mid-December, the three line companies of my armored infantry battalion had left only four officers and 170 enlisted men; at full strength, its complement was 18 officers and 735 enlisted men. But there’s NEVER been anything like THIS before. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_la_forêt_de_Hürtgen_(1944) Taken from the Battle Of The Bulge Campaign supplement. Many rifle companies suffered 50% casualties. WWII Quarterly, the hardcover journal of the Second World War that is not available in bookstores or on newsstands, and can only be obtained and collected through a personal subscription through the mail. Gray skies hung low and a steady drizzle dripped through the tall, dense fir trees near the German-Belgian border on the morning of Thursday, November 16, 1944, during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Use every skill you possess. The Germans prepared it for battle years before the actual battle, during the construction of the West Wall building bunkers and trenches and anti-tank obstacles. More often, little progress was made. The bloodbath in the Hurtgen Forest was a battle that could have been avoided. In the Hürtgenwald, the U.S. First Army encountered a tactical nightmare. The first engagements during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest were fought by Brig. © The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was over. General Schmidt, commander of the German 275th Infantry Division, reported, “The weird and wild surroundings intensified all combat reactions and impressions, especially since the effect of the shells exploding in the treetops was much greater due to the falling and splintering of trees and branches. It was also one of the most heavily fortified areas of the Siegfried Line, some 200 square miles of dense woods, deep ravines, and high ridges. Regular bursts of terrible combat took their toll on men’s minds. The fighting was often at such close quarters that hand grenades were the only decisive weapons. The attack was originally launched to guard the flank of VIII Corps’ advance into Germany. During breaks in the fighting, the two sides called truces to retrieve the dead and wounded. Times when the very landscape appears to shift. Only a mile away, men of the U.S. 22nd Infantry Regiment’s rifle and weapons companies rolled up their blankets and ate breakfast. Several men were awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, and there were many other acts of gallantry that never came to light. He resided in Enfield, Connecticut. The Germans prepared it for battle years before the actual battle, during the construction of the West Wall building bunkers and trenches and anti-tank obstacles. Hürtgen Forest | The Holocaust Encyclopedia battle for the Hürtgen Forest The Hürtgen Forest, 1944: The Worst Place of Any | HistoryNet Intel This Navy admiral pulled an ‘Undercover Boss’ on his sailors. The “Double Deucer” Regiment had landed at Utah Beach with Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Shells bursting in the tops of the 100-foot fir trees and mines planted in the forest floor made life particularly hellish for the American infantrymen in the Hürtgen Forest. The Battle of Hürtgen was undertaken by US commanders trying to pin down German forces in the area to keep them from reinforcing front lines further north (Battle of Aachen, where the Allies were fighting a trench war between a network of fortified industrial towns and … As the name suggests the map is set in the Hürtgen Forest; a roughly 50 square miles (130 km2) in area in the west of Germany, near the Belgium-Germany border. Ironically, some experts saw the disastrous Battle of Hürtgen Forest as having unintended consequences beneficial to the American cause. This would have reduced the casualties and still have accomplished the mission of capturing the dams on the Roer River.”, Lieutenant William Burke, a company commander in the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, agreed: “Some of us with combat experience from the beaches to Hürtgen were hard pressed to understand the tactical wisdom of slogging it out in such an unforgiving environment instead of bypassing it.”, Major General Rudolph Gersdorff, chief of staff of the German Seventh Army, was quoted as saying, “The German command could not understand the reason for the strong American attacks in the Hürtgen Forest.… The fighting in the wooded area denied the American troops the advantages offered them by their air and armored forces, the superiority of which had been decisive in all the battles waged before.”. It lasted nearly five months and it cost the U.S. Army more than 34,000 casualties.i It has largely been forgotten for the past sixty years for several reasons. Evacuated inhabitants returning to their homes at the end of the war saw the labour of generations annihilated. Infantry advanced on heavily defended positions with less support than they had had in the preceding months. The author Charles B. McDonald was a highly decorated junior officer in WWII and was very aware of the conditions and mindset of leadership values utilized on the European battlefield of those times. At least 120,000 U.S. troops took part in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, and an estimated 24,000 were killed, wounded, or captured. While criticism fell inevitably upon the high command, there was no questioning the heroism and determination of the GIs in the foxholes. Snow followed with the arrival of winter. Logan Nye. Its defenses—both natural and man-made—were strong, and it was resisting the Allied crusade more stubbornly than ever. Losses could be very high. Before the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and the campaigns of the winter of 1944-1945, no American soldiers had suffered such hardships as did the men in that nightmarish forest. It was added in Update 1.49 "Weapons of Victory". Army Colonel David H. Hackworth, a distinguished battalion commander in the Vietnam War, called the Hürtgen battle “one of the most costly blunders of World War II.”. The Allies failed to capture the area and the Germans held it until they launched the Ardennes Offensive. The historian of the crack British Guards Armored Division, which exchanged officers and men with the Americans, reported, “Their [the Americans’] methods might be somewhat curious and unorthodox, but there could be no doubt about the excellent results when put into practice. Directed by John Irvin. In total, nearly 30,000 Americans were killed or wounded and thousands more were knocked out of action by combat exhaustion. Early in the morning of September 14th, 1944, elements of the 9th Infantry Division, supported by the 746th Tank Battalion started their advance across the Belgian – German border at the villages of Roetgen and Monschau. The battle sort of ended with the start of the Battle of the Bulge. The 15th Engineer Combat Battalion alone lifted 1,352 mines and neutralized 125 pillboxes under fire during the initial wave of intense fighting. The Hürtgen Forest consisted of thick woodland, bare hilltops and deep gorges. Battle of Hurtgen Forest By September 1944, the Allied offensive in Western Europe had swept from the Normandy beaches all the way to the West Wall, or Siegfried Line, the formidable defensive position along the German border consisting of concrete bunkers fronted by antitank obstacles. The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was fought in an area of heavy forestation, of some 50 square miles in an area that begins about 5 miles south and east of Aachen, Germany and falls into a triangle outlined by Aachen, Düren and Monschau. The battle caused numerous casualties on both sides. In these conditions, hot food once a day is as vital as ammunition. Then they jump off again, and soon there is only a handful of the old men left.”, Colonel Lanham observed wryly, “Up there, it was our troops who combed the tree bursts out of their hair while the Kraut lay snug in his hole.”. The ferocity and horrors of this long running engagement rank near the top for World War II. Like many other units engaged, the Double Deucers fought longer than normally expected in the gloomy Hürtgenwald, and few American combat outfits have ever experienced such severe casualties. When the appalling losses were revealed, some participants and high-ranking officers, both American and German, questioned the necessity of the campaign and regarded it as a major blunder on the part of General Bradley. More divisions, including Maj. Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota’s long-suffering 28th Infantry Division, were fed into the Hürtgenwald maelstrom, and the losses continued to mount. The village of Hürtgen changed hands 14 times during the battle, and the village of Vossenack eight times. Map showing the area of the battle. Part of Monty’s Operation Veritable, the offensive in the Reichswald—the northern anchor of the Siegfried Line—kicked off on February 8, 1945, and involved fierce fighting in heavy rains. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. Plus an insight into the 6 day battle here, the heavy fighting in and around the beautifully restored Merode Castle (39th Infantry) and a … General J. Lawton Collins, dashing commander of the U.S. VII Corps, a veteran of Guadalcanal and liberator of Cherbourg, called Hürtgen a “green hell,” while Maj. Gen. James M. Gavin, the youthful, gallant commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, characterized the forest as an “ice-coated moloch with an insatiable appetite.”. Also a poet and writer, his prewar work on infantry manuals had caught the attention of General George C. Marshall, and the Army chief of staff listed Lanham in his “black book” of up-and-coming officers. Blame for the initial reverses, panic, and confusion in the Battle of the Bulge had also been laid at his door. The generals were determined to have their breakthrough, and kept launching offensives against German positions. The battle of the Hurtgen Forest. It was only late in the battle that U.S. tanks were able to be deployed, and it was left to the infantry to decide the battle. Their target was now the Rur Dam. The Battle of Hürtgen Forest (German language: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) is the name given to the series of fierce battles fought between U.S. and German forces during World War II in the Hürtgen Forest, which became the longest battle on German ground during World War II, and the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought. T/Sgt George Morgan, 1/22-IR said of the Huertgen: the forest up there is a helluva eerie place to fight … Show me a man who went through the battle … and who says he never had a … By that time, all attention from the Allied high command on down was fixed upon the debacle caused by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt’s great breakthrough in the Ardennes on December 16. It was one of the worst reverses for the U.S. Army in the European Theater. Besides the enemy and the weather, the GIs battled exhaustion, hunger, battle fatigue, pneumonia, and trench foot. He told them, “As officers, I expect you to lead your men. Much to the surprise of British troops in the area, the GIs were forced to subsist on cold C-rations. Besides the weather, the Allied armies were plagued by shortages of ammunition and supplies. In some cases, soldiers were found dead in their foxholes from sheer exhaustion.”. For the American soldiers, it’s very name – with its first syllable ‘hurt’ – became a byword for injury and death. US troops who fought in the Hürtgen Forest nicknamed it the "Death Factory." But tree cover would prevent them from providing the support they could in other terrain, and entering the forest immediately lost the Americans one of their advantages. Ill conceived in the Allied high command’s haste to reach the gates of Nazi Germany, the Hürtgen Forest campaign was a strategic blunder that could have been avoided—a five-month waste of American lives and resources. The attack was originally launched to guard the flank of VIII Corps’ advance into Germany. And with the enemy drawing near, now reinforced it further with minefields and barbed wire. The Hürtgenwald was valuable territory to the Germans, and its loss would threaten their entire defense line west of the Rhine. A tree burst would send steel fragments and timber raining down, and foxholes provided scant protection. During six months of fighting, the Americans sent eight infantry divisions, two armored divisions, and several smaller units into the forest. The region provided a shortcut for the Allies to penetrate Germany. HURTGEN FOREST TOURS . The 84th Division suffered 500 casualties from trench foot. 2021 - 2020 Gen. Maurice Rose’s 3rd Armored Division in September 1944. It has been said that the battle for the Hurtgen Forest was based on a plan that was criminally stupid. The truculent Hodges did not press for air attacks on the Roer River dams until late November, but they failed. But there’s NEVER been anything like THIS before. The American high command blundered by not proposing an easier avenue of approach southeast of the Hürtgen Forest, allowing Hodges’ army to seize the dams and then clear the difficult terrain downriver. Concentrate your attention to the town of Schmidt, just kilometers from the Siegfried Line, with its dragons' teeth tank stoppers. Media in category "Battle of Hürtgen Forest" The following 24 files are in this category, out of 24 total. This has become probably my favorite helmet in the collection … The most direct route to the dams lay through the Hürtgen Forest, a man-made forest preserve of densely packed fir trees in rough terrain. It's estimated that as many as 30 thousand US and German soldiers were killed in fighting in the northern Eifel region of Germany in the autumn and winter of 1944 and 1945. Mine fields in the forest were an additional peril, and keeping safe paths through them proved difficult. The other units involved in the grueling campaign were the 1st, 8th, 9th, 78th, and 83rd Infantry Divisions, the 5th Armored Division, the 505th and 517th Parachute Infantry Regiments, and the 2nd Ranger Battalion, led by Lt. Col. James E. Rudder of Pointe-du-Hoc fame. T/Sgt George Morgan, 1/22-IR said of the Huertgen: the forest up there is a helluva eerie place to fight … Show me a man who went through the battle … and who says he never had a feeling of fear and I’ll show you a liar. The Germans had a further advantage in experience. … The forest was not cleared until March 9. One soldier fell for every two yards gained. The Hürtgen Forest, 1944: The Worst Place of Any 28th Infantry Division troops advance through the Hürtgen Forest in Germany on November 2, 1944, at the start of a long, bloody fight. Anxious to move quickly through the West Wall, Major General J. Lawton Collins, commander of the First Armys VII Corps, plotted an advance south and east of Aachen t… The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a series of battles fought between German and American forces in Hürtgen Forest. The Allied high command was eager to breach the German border defense lines, vault across the Rhine, and push into the Reich, but the way was barred by the River Roer and the large forested area south of Aachen. The former said later, “If we would have turned loose of the Hürtgen and let the Germans roam there, they could have hit my flank.”. The attack into the Hurtgen was preceded by air attacks by the USAAF and the RAF. And with the enemy drawing near, now reinforced it further with minefields and barbed wire. The helmet came in that was discussed in a previous thread but I started a new one because I thought the helmet deserved it! You can read more about Private Art Pranger’s wartime adventures at www.private-art.com. The Battle of Hürtgen Forest echoed the horrors of the World War I killing grounds and brought much suffering to the enemy soldiers as well as the GIs. It was followed by the 9th Infantry Division, the 28th Infantry (Keystone) Division, and numerous supporting units as the Americans hammered with little success against the German pillboxes and bunkers deep in the damp, gloomy forest. And it was not alone, for several divisions and regiments were mauled in the campaign. Lasting from September 1944 to January 1945, the campaign was part of a drive by the U.S. First Army, led by white-haired, dependable Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges, to cross the Roer River and eventually capture its vital dams. MERODE – a fine example of extensive German trenches can be clearly seen here, in the now peaceful forest. Everybody is cold and wet, and the mixture of cold rain and sleet keeps falling. Engineers marked cleared paths with white tape, but this was invariably blown away by the wind or obscured by snow and mud. Divisions such as the 29th and 30th Infantry which fought in this battle could have challenged comparison with the finest of our own.”. If the Germans opened its gates, then the Allied advance into Germany would be delayed by flooding. With Ron Eldard, Zak Orth, Frank Whaley, Dylan Bruno. Then, Colonel Lanham’s men fought for another 12 days. As the casualties mounted, inexperienced recruits replaced the veterans who had first entered the forest. The problems in this mission are: no additional ammo and fuel supplies as well as dense forest and hidden enemies. The forest is in the southwest corner of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The mobility and superiority of tanks and aircraft were largely canceled out. Nevertheless, Generals Collins and Hodges decided that it was necessary to clear the Hürtgen Forest. In February, the Americans launched their last substantial attack in the Hurtgen. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. “The forest up there was a hell of an eerie place to fight,” reported Technical Sergeant George Morgan, an armorer-artificer of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment. MERODE – a fine example of extensive German trenches can be clearly seen here, in the now peaceful forest. The roads were also mined, and a disabled tank or truck could block a whole column. By the 17th, the fighting had turned into a slow grind. Euphoria clouded sound strategic judgment, and some rude awakenings lay ahead. The battle claimed 24,000 Americans; killed, missing, captured and wounded, plus another 9,000 who succumbed to trench foot, respiratory diseases and combat fatigue. The little known Battle of Hürtgen Forest was fought from October 1944 to February 1945 south and east of Aachen, Germany. 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