Vossenack, Bergstein, Kall River trail, Schmidt... - names oblivious to the casual reader, yet the stuff of bitter memory for all those fortunate enough to survive the fighting in the Hurtgen forest in the winter of 1944.

The 'Witch's Lair', as one American historian called it, the dark, forbidding Hurtgen forest takes up an area of 31 square miles, a few miles south of the ancient city of Aachen, near the Belgium-Germany border. Although medieval in appearance and atmosphere, the forest was fairly new in 1944, having been hand-planted a few years earlier under the aegis of a far-sighted German Army General Staff order. Despite its recent birth however, the forest displayed an eerie and frightening visage of gothic proportions. Tall, stately Douglas Firs and other varieties were planted in rows, eight to ten feet apart and full-grown four years later, towered almost 75 to 100 feet high. Some trees had been planted so close together that they formed a natural impenetrable wall. The whole atmosphere of the forest was overpowering in its feel of grief and created claustrophobia amongst even the bravest of soldiers. When the US 9th Infantry Division first entered the forest in September 1944, it found an area of desolation. The tall, thorney firs seemed to stretch on endlessly. Thickly grouped and interlocked, they seemed to claw forever, up towards the grey skies . The forest floor below remained constantly muddy with running water and lurked in perpetual darkness with hardly any underbrush. Then later on, as the weeks passed, descending snow, sleet and freezing temperatures made the already unbrearable forest even more intolerable.

Vintage Hürtgen. US soldiers pick their way through a section of the Hürtegn Forest. Their's is a difficult mission, punctuated by hidden enemy pillboxes and minefields.

Casualties were high, especially for the Americans who also suffered from bad morale stemming from setbacks. Almost 24 000 Americans died, wounded or captured there and yard for yard, the battle represented the highest casualty rate suffered by the US Army during the European campaign. Little wonder, that Major General James M. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne Division likened to the campaign to the bloody battle of Passchendaele of 1917. Hurtgen became the "American Passchendaele", but unlike Passchendaele was forgotten before long. In December 1944, when the Germans launched the Ardennes offensive in Belgium, the Hurtgen campaign became yesterday's news. It's troops became a forgotten army, and the story of Hurtgen, little more than a footnote in the back pages of history. Half a decade on, this is their story of insurmountable courage and despair in that lonely winter of 1944.

 

Author's Note: This chapter was inspired by the HBO original movie, 'When Trumpets Fade. It is interesting that while the movie was released at the same time as 'Saving Private Ryan', and the 'Thin Red Line', it did not garner the same amount of interest, although it is just as intense. The film revolved around the central character of Private Manning (played by Ron Eldard), a run of the mill GI in the 28th Infantry Division. The movie takes the viewer into Manning's mind, who is determined to survive at all costs. The terrifying nature of combat in the Hurtgen is also vivdly portrayed. One can literally feel the despair of the American infantryman eminating from the film - a feeling so pungent and overwhelming that you become a nameless, faceless GI yourself, sharing their hardships and thoughts in a world of mud and rain.

Although the movie itself was a little too short and a little vague for someone with no prior knowledge of the battle, it is well worth a watch. I was one of those who had no prior knowledge and in the course of the movie, and I there were several unanswered questions by the film's end. What were the objectives of the 112th Infantry Regiment (the unit portrayed in the movie), and why were the Americans in such bad morale? The answers were uncharacteristic of what I had believed the wartime US army to be. Staff Commanders, comfortable in the rear were dispatching orders without any real appreciation of the terrain, the stiff German resistance or their formidable defensive lines of bunkers, minefields and barbed-wire. Their callousness cost thousands of GIs their lives. It was only after carefully considering the facts and examining battle maps, that I truly began empathizing with Manning and the other characters. It is unfortunate the Hurtgen campaign is little known in the United States today and little appreciated by the historian community. I sincerely hope that any who reads this chapter feels a certain bond with those soldiers who fought and died there.