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Battle of the Hrtgen Forest Hurtgenwald

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Title: Battle of the Hrtgen Forest Hurtgenwald


1
Battle of the HĂĽrtgen Forest (Hurtgenwald)
2
  • Battle of HĂĽrtgen Forest is name given to series
    of battles fought in the Hurtgen Forest,
    afterwards known to both Americans and Germans
    simply as the Hurtgenwald.

The snow hit us as we hit Hurtgen.
3
  • The Battle of HĂĽrtgen Forest was overshadowed by
    the American victory in the Battle of the Bulge,
    and as a result, few books and articles have been
    written about it. 

Looks pretty but it ain't.
4
  • The American High Command was flush with success
    after the breakout at Normandy and the race to
    Germany, and therefore overconfident.

Gen. Oliver, Gen Bradley, Lt. Col. MacFarland,
Gen. Eisenhower, Col. Cole, Lt. Col. Entrekin,
Lt. Col.Foss confer near Zweifall, Germany.
5
  • The Battle of  HĂĽrtgen Forest was fought in an
    area of heavy forestation between September 13,
    1944, through February 10, 1945.  

November 2, 1944.  G.I.'s of CO E, 110th IR/28th
ID moving through the forest near the
Raffelsbrand road junction.
6
  • The HĂĽrtgen Forest, was described by those who
    were there, as a "weird and wild" place.  It was
    not a ancient forest but it was hand planted in
    modern times at the order of the Army to take the
    most advantage of every hill and valley using the
    spruce and balsams thick squat limbs like
    football linemen challenging advance.  Here "the
    near one hundred foot tall dark pine trees and
    dense tree-tops gave the place, even in daytime,
    a somber appearance.  

7
  • It was like a green cave, always dripping water,
    the firs interlocked their lower limbs so that
    everyone had to stoop, all the time. The forest
    floor, always in darkness, had no underbrush. Add
    to this gloom, a mixture of sleet, snow, rain,
    cold, fog and almost knee deep mud. This was to
    be setting for the most tragic battle of World
    War II.

This mine exploder on a tank didn't last long
enough.
8
  • And it was fought in a corridor barely 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, Duren and Monchau on
    the border of Germany.

9
  • Although the battle did not officially end until
    February of 1945, the major part of the Battle
    of  Hürtgen Forest was fought during the 3 wet,
    cold, miserable months of  mid-September through
    mid-December 1944.  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

But we couldn't keep them dry..
10
  • The Germans were delighted that the Americans
    wanted to throw their weight into an attack
    against dug-in troops in a forest where the
    American preponderance of artillery and command
    of the air would be of little value.  Also,
    delighting the Germans was that the HĂĽrtgen
    Forest was of little military value and, if lost
    to the Americans, could be flooded since the
    Germans held flood control dams above the level
    of the forest. It was a battle that the Germans
    really couldn't lose.

11
  • The battles were characterized by the American
    High Command not recognizing the true objectives
    of the forest, the dams that controlled the
    height of the Roer River, until December.

Brandenburg and Bergstein are representative of
the edge of the Hurtgen Forest near the Roer
River. The high ground on the north side of the
Roer permitted observation for the enemy
artillery and mortar fires even after the Germans
had been forced across the stream.The area of
the Roer River dams can be seen in the distance.
12
  • Had the Germans blown the dams, they could have
    flooded a region far to the south, delaying
    American advances. Multiple divisions were sent
    in, only to be wrecked and replaced by still more
    divisions.

13
  • British General Horrocks (one of the few
    generals, if not the only general to do so) made
    a surprise front line visit to the 84th division
    and he was disturbed by the failure of American
    commanders and their staffs to ever visit the
    front lines.  He was greatly concerned to find
    that the men were not even getting hot meals
    brought up from the rear, in contrast to the
    forward divisions in the British line.  He
    reported that not even battalion commanders were
    going to the front.  Senior officers and staff
    didn't know what they were ordering their rifle
    companies to do.  They did their work from maps
    and over radios and telephones.  And unlike the
    company and platoon leaders, who had to be
    replaced every few weeks at best, or every few
    days at worst, the staff officers took few
    casualties, so the same men stayed at the same
    job, doing it badly.

14
  • Air, artillery, and armor, all advantages of the
    Americans at this time were nullified because of
    the terrain, and the Germans were happy to delay
    the much stronger force using smaller numbers and
    good defensive positions.

This one came into Gergstein and was captured.
A German self-propelled 75 mm
15
When American troops who had fought in Sicily,
Italy, Normandy and Holland, finally took the
forest, they said they had never seen anything
that could compare to this for the amount of
shattered military equipment scattered throughout
and the countless American bodies.. 
Recovery of American bodies for American Graves
Registration
16
End
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