The Bloody Forest: Battle for the Huertgen: September 1944–January 1945

by Gerald Astor

  Among the company grade officers and noncoms, the numbers of killed, wounded, missing, or captured were so high that command and control became extremely difficult to maintain, one reason for some panicky retreats. The people at First Army and corps headquarters never seemed to grasp how much this affected performance. When Courtney Hodges griped that better progress could be made if the troops went about their tasks appropriately “buttoned up,” nothing better demonstrated his unawareness of the battlefield. The solution for the problem of slow progress or failures was to berate both lesser commanders and the troops for a lack of soldierly qualities, rather than accept the responsibility for poor strategy and tactics that sapped morale and the will to fight.

  Certainly, those on the firing line can be expected to show some reluctance for advancing toward their potential doom, and it is necessary in war for commanders to push them. George Wilson, as a company commander, at one point wanted to retreat but his superior insisted he hang on. Wilson subsequently agreed the battalion commander had been correct. But in this instance, the order emanated from someone close enough to events for a realistic, if tough-minded, appraisal.

  The distance of command from battle sites contributed to other errors. Charles Haley, the executive officer for George Mabry, leading the 2d Battalion of the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, offered a criticism of the planning and intelligence of the Huertgen operation. “To attack a position a second time from the same direction with the same scheme of maneuver after the first attack has failed, unless unavoidable, is unsound.” He noted that the upper echelons ignored the need for rest and rehabilitation of hard-hit soldiers and the lack of training for replacements. He insisted, “Higher commanders must recognize when a unit has reached the point when it is no longer capable of making a successful attack.” He concluded that, while the enemy paid dearly for his defense, “the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, as bloody and bitter a fight as any of the war, brought no glorious victory. No major breakthrough was made nor large area overrun by our troops.”

  Henry Phillips, who fought with the 9th Division during the latter part of November, pointed out that what appeared effective on paper either did not follow the script or the situation was misjudged. “The concept of the First Army offensive was a good one. Execution of the preparatory air strike was faulty due to extreme caution about friendly casualties à la Cobra [the massive air attack near Saint-Lô, where friendly bombs killed several hundred Americans]. The bombs fell too far behind the German lines to be effective. The 1st [Division] attacked on too broad a front. They should have concentrated their punch on the left, where we were ultimately employed, instead of trying to cover their entire sector with advancing infantry. This produced gaps through which we advanced quite easily at first but also salients of German resistance, which were able to pound our right flank. Such errors of commission or strategy originated with First Army or corps.” In Phillips’s experience, the field grade officers all performed very well.

  One particular problem noted by many analysts was the obvious lack of instruction in how to fight in a heavily wooded area. Training courses in the States taught GIs about beachhead landings, combat in the desert, and house-to-house fighting. But the kind of environment presented by the Huertgen was never part of the curriculum. The usual foxhole offered insufficient protection against tree bursts. Visibility fell to within a few feet in the dense vegetation, a condition exacerbated by fog, rain, and snow. Enemy positions enjoyed great concealment, surprising foot soldiers and denying observers sight lines to guide mortars and artillery. The trees thwarted radio signals. The GIs had to learn on the job, at an exorbitant cost. A more general deficiency that manifested itself in other campaigns was ignorance of the best means to deploy armor and a lack of teamwork between tanks and infantry. Henry J. Schute, Jr., commented that the 28th struck with “insufficient armor to hold its position.” The analyst remarked on the absence of information on how poorly the Kall trail would serve armor or supply vehicles. Preston Jackson, the 112th Regiment’s liaison officer, remarked on that problem. The Keystone Division apparently did not expect to encounter enemy tanks, which played a large role in routing the Americans at Schmidt and Kommerscheidt.

  Foot soldiers regarded tanks as magnets for enemy fire and preferred to stay away from them. For their part, the tankers desperately wanted infantrymen close by to ward off the panzerfausts, to detect mines, and locate targets. Neither tankers nor infantrymen, except in the armored divisions, were adequately schooled in how to work as a team. The contretemps between the commander of a company from the 774th Tank Battalion and the commander of the 3d Battalion of the 311th Infantry in front of Schmidt exemplified the problem.

  The communications gap between the types of soldiers was exemplified by several incidents in the forest. George Wilson of the 22d Infantry denounced a source in an armored unit for insisting that friendly forces held a hill from which his men absorbed deadly fire. On the other hand, the 46th Armored Infantry was falsely assured by 4th Division headquarters about the occupants of a hill, which led to unpleasant encounters with German machine guns.

  The fiasco of the Huertgen campaign passed unnoticed, giving way to the drama of the Battle of the Bulge and then the crossing of the Rhine. In war, unlike the mythology attached to sports, the only question is whether you win or lose. That seems particularly true for the most senior commanders. Judging by what happened in the woods, the top ranks were never called to account for the horrific losses in what can only be described as a huge strategic mistake compounded by tactical errors. There was no one to charge those directly responsible with misfeasance. Above Hodges and his corps and division commanders, there were only Bradley and Eisenhower. Bradley undoubtedly approved the proposals of his First Army chief. Although Eisenhower was more removed from the operations than the others, it would seem that he shares some culpability for not calling for a reassessment of the offensive after the first two months of appalling losses without requisite gains. Several field-grade people and some of the company commanders were relieved for allegedly failing in their assignments, but the generals involved never had to explain their decisions that led to such excessive loss of life.

  The difficulty is in the nature of a military organization. Prosecution of a war requires executive decisions free of the lengthy discussions of a democratic endeavor. An army cannot be run as a democracy but must be authoritarian, with someone issuing the orders and others carrying them out. Within that framework lies the corpse of accountability. There is no means to question the decision-maker. The crush of war and the filter of information through channels easily defeats effective and intelligent civilian oversight. A congressional committee can look into charges of waste, corruption, or stupidity in the training and equipment of the armed forces during peace. There is neither the time nor the requisite intelligence available in a war for such control. The lower echelons of the military, if aware of the sins of their superiors are stifled by the requirements invested in the chain of command. Woe betide any officer who complains of the mistakes of those higher up.

  During World War II, the major case in which someone of the most senior rank was publicly held responsible for failure was that of the two commanders at Hawaii on 7 December 1941. There was no effort to inquire how Douglas MacArthur and his Air Force commander, Gen. Lewis Brereton, were caught with their planes down, some twenty-four hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese raid on the Philippines destroyed 50 percent of the resident American Air Force.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, as supreme commander of the Allied Forces, fired Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall, the II Corps commander in North Africa, because he set up his headquarters sixty miles behind the front while the Germans then rampaged through American positions at Kasserine Pass. The supreme commander also subsequently banished Fredendall’s successor, Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., for abuse of a pair of soldiers afflicted with combat fatigue. He took no action against Maj. Gen. Mark Clark for the slaughter of 3
6th Division GIs in an ill-conceived Rapido River crossing. Patton’s successor at II Corps, Maj. Gen. John Lucas, lost his post because of a stalemate at the Anzio beachhead. Others, guilty of inadequately thinking out the Anzio venture, escaped discipline. On the other hand, several divisional commanders were dismissed because of alleged failings during the Ardennes campaign, although once again those at the top, Bradley and Hodges, remained untouched.

  The sins of strategy and tactics committed by the top brass also resulted from the nature of the chain of command. Officers were aware that their posts and their careers depended upon satisfying the wants of superiors. In the Huertgen, many lesser rank individuals were relieved because of the conviction of their betters that they were underachievers. Because they foresaw the consequences of failure and to meet expectations, some lower echelon individuals supplied false, overly optimistic reports. These in turn fed the wrongheaded approach.

  As much as the story of the Huertgen campaign is a tale of bungled management, it is also a testament to the resolve of the men in uniform on both sides, who risked and gave their lives on behalf of their countries. One cannot hear the accounts of the ordeals, the bloody awfulness experienced by those who participated, without wondering why soldiers continue to fight. It is easier to understand the German behavior after years of propaganda in a dictatorship—the desire to defend the homeland and the readiness of their superiors to shoot anyone whose will appeared to flag. American veterans, if asked why they stayed the course, almost invariably list as the first reason their bonds with their fellow soldiers. Men who live, eat, sleep, train, and face death together develop a strong enough tie so that if one moves forward, the other joins him. The writer Paul Fussell uses the word “inertia” to define this kind of momentum fueled by shared experiences and common backgrounds. Under that rubric should be included at least a modicum of commitment to the United States. Although patriotism is often dismissed as a motivation, since no one talks about country while trying to survive an artillery barrage or is engaged in an attack, according to the people this author interviewed, the impetus to volunteer in many instances was a recognition of a threat to the United States. Those who put on uniforms because of the draft seemed equally desirous of preserving the institutions of the country. The American soldiers in the Huertgen for the most part stolidly accepted their responsibilities and performed well despite their lack of proper instruction and the hash of strategy and tactics foisted upon them.

  No less an authority than Gen. Matthew Ridgway, who commanded airborne troops, remarked that there comes a time when every soldier reaches a breaking point. That some fled the enemy in the Huertgen cannot be denied. There were moments in the Huertgen when an officer or noncom found it necessary to threaten a GI to prevent abandonment of a position but that was not unique to this campaign. According to David Eisenhower, in his biography of his grandfather, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, by late December 1944, 40,000 GIs had been accused of desertion since 6 June. Of these, 2,800 faced a general court-martial. The only American to be executed for desertion during World War II was Pvt. Eddie Slovik, a member of the unfortunate 28th Division. But Slovik’s crime occurred well before the Bloody Bucket entered the woods. However, it may well be that Slovik, who faced a firing squad on 31 January 1945, was the final casualty of the Huertgen campaign. He probably lost any hope of clemency because of perceptions about discipline drawn from the panicky retreat in the Huertgen and, subsequently, during the Battle of the Bulge.

  During war, commanders must have the courage to order the rank and file to engage in actions that may maim or kill them. That is part of the job. But it would be more seemly if those who sent men (and in the future, perhaps women) toward death on a battlefield had some sense of their responsibility beyond just winning. If held accountable not only for what they achieved but what it cost, perhaps the strategists might look harder for a way to gain the objectives. Should that be the lesson of the Huertgen campaign, it would still be too high a price to pay.

  ROLL CALL

  Alexis, Jerry. The B Company replacement with the 110th Regiment of the 28th Division survived a prisoner of war camp. “I’ve often called my combat and POW experiences the defining point of my life. I’m proud of my military record and have no regrets regarding that part of my life.” He became a minister and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

  Alyea, John. The tank driver for the 707th Tank Battalion lives in Munster, Indiana.

  Archer, Clark. The paratrooper with the 517th PRCT has been the historian for the 517th’s alumni organization and makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida.

  Beach, John. The West Point graduate and platoon leader of the 1st Division was treated for his wounds by German doctors before he was liberated from a POW camp. Some years after V-E Day, Beach became convinced that the Medal of Honor awarded to Sgt. Jake Lindsey rightfully belonged to Jim Wood, the lieutenant who assumed command of the handful of men left from his and Wood’s platoon. Beach tracked down several men, who supplied affidavits attesting to Lindsey’s actions. One recanted completely, while another admitted he never saw Lindsey at the time of the action. Nevertheless, the Department of Defense refused to overturn the citation to Lindsey or issue one for Wood. Beach retired as a lieutenant colonel and is deceased.

  Boesch, Paul. The one-time wrestler who led an 8th Division platoon wrote a book on his experiences, Road to the Huertgen: Forest in Hell, which was privately printed. In 1987 he met Hubert Gees, the German soldier who was among the defensive forces in the Huertgen. According to Gees, they “shook hands in reconciliation across the graves” at a military cemetery. Boesch is deceased.

  Boice, Dr. Bill. The chaplain assigned to the 22d U.S. Infantry authored a history of his regiment during World War II. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

  Burghardt, Al. The mortar squad sergeant with the 110th Infantry recovered from trench foot after prolonged stays in hospitals. “In regard to knowing if the orders were realistic in terms of resources, terrain, and opposition, we were not privy to this information. We just did what we were told. We had little idea of where we were going. Pride kept me going. When the struggle for the Huertgen Forest ended, the original soldiers that I started with were gone. I was the only one left in the mortar section who had been in constant combat since the 28th Division went into combat.” After separation from the service, he went into sales and now lives in Tonawanda, New York.

  Burke, William. Originally the holder of an ROTC commission from Oklahoma Military Academy, he served with the 803d TD Battalion from February 1942 until the war’s end. He remained in the service and led combat units in Korea and Vietnam before retiring as a major general. He lives in Apopka, Florida.

  Camm, Frank A. A 1943 graduate of West Point and a lieutenant in the 303d Engineers of the 78th Infantry Division, Camm’s father commanded the division artillery in the Huertgen. “We bivouacked behind the front line divisions for a couple of weeks before entering the Huertgen. During this period, selected officers and noncoms visited our counterparts among 1st Division troops engaged north of us on the Aachen front. They acquainted us generally with the combat environment and fearsome ability of German Tiger tanks to run roughshod over American antitank mines. However, we did not hear that three U.S. divisions in succession had failed to take our division objectives in the Huertgen.” Camm retired as a lieutenant general and makes his home in Arlington, Virginia.

  Carlson, Ernest G. A radio operator in Company D of the 28th Regiment, 8th Division, he said, “We, the lonely infantry man, didn’t know what the objective was. Mainly, it was the next hill or valley. I’ve returned twice to the Huertgen Forest. Visiting the area makes you wonder how it was taken. The Germans had all the high ground and advantage to see all approaches.” As a civilian, he worked himself up to supervisor and manager in a manufacturing company. He lives in Erie, Pennsylvania.

  Carnivale, Jim. The machine gunner with the 46th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 5th Armored Division lives in Massachuset
ts.

  Chernitsky, John. The antitank crewman with the 110th Regiment of the 28th Division helped his wife, Dorothy, compile the book Voices from the Foxholes, which contains oral histories from many 28th Division veterans. He lives in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

  Cohen, Mike. After being wounded by an exploding mine, the lieutenant with the 12th Engineer Combat Battalion went through fourteen months of recovery and married a nurse he met at Rhodes General Hospital in Utica, New York. “There was a lot of pious talk during the war about ‘There are no atheists in foxholes.’ That’s a nice Sunday morning aphorism, but it’s not true. A lot of prayers were said, of course, but there isn’t much else you can do when those shells are bursting all around you, but nobody believed the prayers were going to help. Foxholes don’t convert atheists; they breed them.” Cohen retired from a textile manufacturing company as a division vice president.

  Coleman, Harper. The 4th Division heavy weapons soldier had two brothers who fought in World War II in the Pacific Theater. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

  Collins, J. Lawton. The VII Corps commander rose to chief of staff for the army and died in 1987.

  Crawford, Jack. The recipient of a battlefield commission with the 4th Division reconnaissance unit who met Ernest Hemingway, he endured a year of hospitalization after a mine exploded. An importer, he lives in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

  Cross, Tom. The commander of the 121st Infantry in the Huertgen was the commander of the 8th Division during the Korean War. After retirement, he served as a deputy administrator for the Veterans Administration, then headed by Omar Bradley. According to his son Tom, Cross made up a listing of those officers and men who had been killed under his command in the Huertgen Forest. He then embarked on a “full court press to personally visit as many of their relatives as he could locate. It was a noble thought and deed, but after a considerable number of these personal visits, he had to stop them, because of the emotional drain that ensued and which left him somewhat disillusioned and sad. He told me that some of the parents and wives of the deceased appreciated the gesture, while others were only interested in the insurance benefits or were so bitter as to make his visit a dreadful memory. He told me that it was a mistake to undertake such a mission, even if well intended.” He died in 1963.