Soldiers don't die

"A man dies only when he is forgotten"

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Battle of Hurtgen Forest - America's Forgotten Defeat

November 1944, 76 years ago this month, Staff Sgt Batt with the rest of the 8th Infantry Division was deep in the Hurtgen Forest, a place of unspeakable nightmares known by veterans as "The Green Hell" and "The Death Factory." They were sent in with the 4th Division to relieve the 28th Division, which had been devastated with almost 100% casualties. Hurtgen was the longest single battle America ever fought, and if it had not been overshadowed by the Ardennes offensive in December, it would be remembered as the most significant battle in the European Theater of operations during World War II. The wet, muddy conditions the 28th had faced in early November 1944 had turned to ice and snow by the end of the month, as temperatures fell toward minus 40 degrees fahrenheit. Men froze stiff in their foxholes; frostbite, trenchfoot and hypothermia were unavoidable.

By this time the weeks of constant shelling by German artillery had reduced the thick pine forest to a ruined wasteland of jagged and splintered tree trunks, veterans described them as "like broken toothpicks."



The few roads through the forest known as the Kall Trail were a quagmire of mud, described as "like melted chocolate ice cream, axle deep" Tanks were swamped and Jeeps sank up to their axles in the muck.






The gloom and darkness of the forest weighed heavily on all who struggled to survive in it. The general hopelessness of the situation was worsened by the oversights of the American commanders, who were using maps and radios to coordinate offensives without any physical presence or eyes in the field. Their lack of understanding of the terrain or the positions of German bunkers and minefields led to the eventual loss of some 33,000 American soldiers, a terrible waste of lives. Officers were ordered by their Generals to send in replacements on an almost daily basis; untested and inexperienced soldiers often led by newly promoted Sergeants who had no better idea of the situation than their superiors did.

At the end of the war, all documents and records pertaining to the actions in the Hurtgen Forest were deemed Classified. Veterans silently swore to secrecy about what they saw and did, and it was not until 50 years later the records were declassified and their stories could finally be told. 

The only way to do the grim story of the Hurtgen forest any justice is to read the words of the men who fought in it and the historians who preserved their memories.


"The Hurtgen Forest was (a) horrible place in which to fight. Dark and dense, even the sun’s rays produced only a twilight effect at noon. The weather could not be much worse, rain and temperatures just above freezing during the day, dropping below freezing at night, freezing the water in the men’s foxholes. At night, the soldiers slept shivering in their foxholes wrapped in raincoats and whatever else they could find. Fires weren’t built because they brought down a rain of German artillery. Because of the constant rain and cold, many of them would end up with hypothermia and trenchfoot. Mud was axle deep. Jeeps got stuck and laced boots were pulled off soldiers’ feet. The dense forest made it nearly impossible for either side to adjust their artillery. Artillery shells bursting in the tree tops splintered the trees, showering the soldiers below with fragments of wood and steel.  Those who fought there maintained, 'Show me a man who was in the Hurtgen and if he says he has never been scared, he is lying'."

Robert S. Rush, Historian for the 22nd Infantry Regiment Society




"In the (Huertgen) forest, our gains came inch by inch and foot by foot, delivered by men with rifles-bayonets on one end and grim, resolute courage on the other. There was no battle of Europe more devastating, frustrating, or gory."

Maj. Gen. William G Weaver, Commanding General, 8th Infantry Division.

A captain complained: "We are taking 3 trees a day, yet they cost 100 men apiece."

Pogue's War: Diaries of a WWII Combat Historian by Forrest C. Pogue

The Huertgen Forest was a dense, primordial woods of tall fir trees, deep gorges, high ridges, and narrow trails: terrain ideally suited to the defense. The Germans had carefully augmented its natural obstacles with extensive minefields and carefully prepared positions . . .

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/rhineland/rhineland.htm

"The closely-packed fir trees rise seventy-five to one hundred feet above the damp rigged floor of the forest, allowing little light to filter through.  Orientation within the forest was very difficult.   Not surprisingly, many units lost their way in the woods. Observation was mostly limited to a few yards; adjusting artillery fore by sight was utterly impossible. Movement was severely curtailed: trails and firebreaks were almost invariably blocked by felled trees and infested with anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, often fitted with anti-lifting devices. Booby traps were everywhere.

"The weather was, perhaps the soldier's greatest enemy.  It rained for days on end. Mist and freezing cold made life in the forest miserable. As the autumn progressed, rain turned into sleet, then into snow."

707th Tank Battalion

"It was a place where it was extremely difficult for a man to stay alive even if all he did was be there. And we were attacking all the time and every day."

"In Hürtgen they just froze up hard; and it was so cold they froze up with ruddy faces,"

Ernest Hemingway - Across The River And Into The Trees

"The forest up there was 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. You can't get all of the dead because you can't find them, and they stay there to remind the guys advancing as to what might hit them. You can't get protection. You can't see...Artillery slashes the trees like a scythe. Everything is tangled. You can scarcely walk. Everybody is cold and wet, and the mixture of cold rain and sleet keeps falling. Then they jump off again, and soon there is only a handful of old men left."--

T.Sgt. George Morgan, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry

"Go outside on the coldest, wettest, most miserable day you can find, throw in some snow, ice, fog and mist. Then dig a cold, wet, lonely, muddy hole and live in it like an animal for weeks at a time, that's what the Hurtgen was like."

"I vowed myself during the battle that if I got out alive, I would never be cold or hungry again."

Bob Hyde, .machine gunner with the 109th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division.

"The Hurtgen Forest was the worst. Nobody liked the forest because of the tree artillery. German 88 artillery shells hit the tops of the trees and shrapnel would rain down on the American soldiers in foxholes below. Even guys dug in with tree branches over their foxholes were hit by shrapnel in the Hurtgen Forest."

-Sgt. Ed Irving, ambulance driver 5th Armored Division

"...the near one hundred feet tall dark pine trees and dense tree-tops gave the place, even in daytime, a somber appearance which was apt to cast gloom upon sensitive people."  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, in almost perpetual darkness, was devoid of underbrush. Add to this gloom, a mixture of sleet, snow, rain, cold, fog and almost knee deep mud."

"The Germans patrolled heavily during the very early morning hours, 3 or 4 am, trying to see what we had where. We had many fights through the trees, in the shrubs, not really seeing a damned thing. It seemed like we were there forever, always cold, it was so cold in the trees. And when it was all over, out of my whole company, there was me and an old Sergeant left. That was it. We were the only ones."

Lloyd Askel Dodd: An American Soldier's Experience

"Many of the combat veterans who fought through the D-day landing and later the Hurtgen Forest remarked that Hurtgen was by far the bloodiest, most filthy fight they had encountered. They knew then they were really the front line riflemen. It was in such a battle as this that the true heroism of the infantry doughboy came forth. There is no other branch of the service where the men must eat, fight, and live in the mud. These heroic men fought continuously within fifty yards of the enemy, often with actual physical contact and with sure death only seconds away. These men ate the issue rations when they were frozen, muddy, and stale. Fires were unheard of. These men lived day and night in the bloody slime to be found only in the Hurtgen Forest."

Lt. Col. John Herbert Brill  - by Merrick Shawe

"When survivors retired from the Hürtgen Forest, they crouched in their vehicles, staring straight ahead. If there were heroics to recount, someone else had to talk. The men of this unit (28th Inf.) would not. Too many of their companions remained behind, too many were dead or missing. Too many grievously wounded and shattered in nerves and spirit. If they never saw the Hürtgen Forest again it would suit them. If they never traveled in fragrant ravines, pitched another tent or hewed out a hut to ward off fragments and falling treetops, if they never saw a timbered slit trench, or smelled the tangy odor of burning cones and felt the springy needles underfoot, they wouldn't care. They had enough. They hated the Forest and all it defended. They hated its roads and ridges. They hated its cold and dampness. They hated its lurking death and the constant feeling of unknown danger. Yes, they hated the Hürtgen Forest where the stately Douglas firs with their epaulets of snow, ranged like frosted grenadiers, close ordered on hillsides -- immutable, impenetrable, defiant...."

Combat Reporter Ivan H. Peterman

"For us the Hurtgen was one of the most costly, most unproductive, and most ill-advised battles that our army has ever fought."

Gen. James Gavin, Commander, 82nd Airborne Division, 1944-1945

"The German Command could not understand the reason for the strong American attacks in the Hurtgen 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."

General Major von Gersdorff, Chief of Staff, German 7th Army, 1944-1945


"Our Company was using up one hundred replacements a day.  They told me afterwards that only seventeen men were left in C Company when they were relieved by the 8th Division."
Quote by Pfc Harry C. Foss, Company C, 110th Inf. 28th Div.


"I smell death when I see a pine tree.
I would never have a Christmas tree when I came home."

Stephen J. Butko, 28th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division

"The death and destruction was unbelievable. Dead bodies were stacked, like logs, awaiting recovery. Whole sections of forests were sheared off 50 to 60 feet above ground by incoming artillery tree bursts. D Company, full strength being 193 men, was reduced to 8 men, a sergeant and 7 privates. I was one of 110 replacements. Three months later there would be 10 of us left."

  John R. Weinert, C Company, 12 Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.


Source: http://home.scarlet.be/~sh446368/quotes.html


UNITS INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE FOR HURTGEN FOREST

US Army

German Army Forces

German divisions

  • 85th Infantry Division
  • 6th Infantry Division
  • 275th Infantry Division
  • 344th Infantry Division
  • 347th Infantry Division
  • 353rd Infantry Division
  • 3rd Parachute Division
  • 3rd Panzergrenadier Division
  • 116th Panzer Division
  • 12th Volksgrenadier Division
  • 47th Volksgrenadier Division
  • 246th Volksgrenadier Division
  • 272nd Volksgrenadier Division
  • 326th Volksgrenadier Division


    TOTAL US CASUALTIES: 33,000+ (includes 9,000 friendly fire and non-combat casualties)

    TOTAL GERMAN CASUALTIES: ~28,000



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