Battle of the Huertgen Forest

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by Monty, Mar 18, 2004.

  1. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    At the great risk of being labelled as "Anti-American" I would wish to comment on this lengthy report on MG Cota.....first and foremost was his great actions as the chief of Staff to Terry Allen of the BIG RED ONE in Sicily..Allen was fired in the

    middle of that campaign by Gen Patton- - many of us thought in a jealous rage - Patton was then fired by Eisenhower for slapping two sick GI's.....Then we have Cota- one of the lads at West Point along with Ike - Bradley - Collins - Ridgeway

    and my old friend Mark Clark....Cota went on to become a big hero at the D Day landings earning many honours..then on to Command a division..now about that time IKE had decreed that the Allies should fight on a very broad front....even the

    Germans never did that preferring their "Schwerpunkt und Aufrollen" - which even Montgomery favoured - once he was ready..and it was that Broad Front which led to the failure of Ahrnem - Hurtgen Forest and almost the Ardennes Bulge

    battle as Bradley had failed to reinforce his losses at Normandy.....plus the fact that MANY US Div Commanders were not properly trained for the task of directing 15,000 and discipline was aways in short supply..as we saw in Sicily when Patton

    turned left and captured Palermo - which no one needed - then Clark at both Salerno and Anzio - again turning left to capture ROME in case 8th Army beat him to it - forgetting that his Army was always in the ROME sector - then Patton again

    scaring the hell out of Dempsey at Falaise by threatening to push 2nd army into the sea for another Dunkirk - he then turned right and captured Paris - which again only DE Gaulle needed

    So my thinking is the Cota was dropped into the deep end without too much training - had bad bosses in both Hodge and Gerow and with little support from Ike and Bradley.....

    Now that is my opinion and I have no doubt that others have different opinions- which I have NO objections and hopefully I shall be granted mine

    Cheers
     
  2. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    I don't expect the actual content of the paper to be discussed here but it was fun to write these comments.

    This author makes several surprising statements and it is hard to know whether these opinions are his own or what he believes were held by the battle participants.


    I studied this action and could only describe the situation of the 112th Infantry as strung-out. Three battalions holding villages along the route of advance. The last battalion dependent on the other two. Hardly "defense in depth".


    Along with the division plan (made by V Corps) this has be a major cause for failure. What did they think would happen when a single division attacked over poor terrain?


    This is the an early statement that the Kall Trail was the division MSR. At this point in the battle it was at best the Regiment MSR. The division did not progress enough for the Kall Trail to become the division MSR.


    It always been my understanding that the Assistant Division Commander closely supervised the infantry regiments, the role Cota had when he was known to be a fighting General.


    The terrain conditions continued to worsen from October to November. What was true in October likely changed by November. Armor could have been used better but these unqualified statements don't help the analysis.


    Not enough is said about BG Davis and his relations with MG Cota.


    Wholly agree.


    The 4th Cavalry Group (two squadrons Mecz Cavalry, battalion size) is not suited to make a frontal attack on the West Wall positions. See operations of the 78th ID in December in this area.


    Author fails to use these sources to exam the function of the division staff. Most of this paper treads the same ground as several other full length books.

    *****EDIT*****
    Some additional thoughts....

    The main command pressure on Cota seems to be: that he did not hold Schmidt having seized it relatively easily.

    Once Schmidt was occupied, I can imagine Cota giving Davis a hardy congratulations -- short lived to be sure. And everyone at Corps headquarters feeling their plan was validated.

    Once the objective was seized the division was stretched to reinforce success or even hold the gains. Perhaps one battalion could have been pulled from each of the flank regiments to hold the Kall valley and Kommerscheidt. At the end of a tortuous line of supply, there was no way one or even two battalions in Schmidt could hold off 116.PzD.


    Another theme not touched on is the large amount of territory seized by the 9th ID in September and October had set high expectations for what the "concentrated" 28th ID could do. Little thought was given to the rebounding German strength.
     
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  3. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    The sad thing about the battle for the Huertgen Forest is that even at this point the dams in the upper Rur River were not considered as an objective. Had the Americans gained them early in the autumn campaign, the dams could have been used to cut off the Germans still defending west of the river.

    Cota's attack was to 'merely' gain the high wooded terrain up to the Roer River in order to protect the flank of the US First Army november offensive.
     
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  4. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    At the time of the 28th ID attack, the plan from V Corps was quite ambitious. According to the description in the paper, after taking Schmidt, the 28th ID was to turn south-west and (my interpretation) with 5th AD clear the north-west bank of the Roer to Monschau (attached map).

    How First Army expected this to succeed as the only offensive action in its zone requires explanation.

    Later when the 8th ID, 4th ID and 1st ID (later the 83d ID and 5th AD) attacked through the Hürtgen, this was flank protection for the main VII Corps drive to the Roer. These attacks were every bit as murderous for US infantry as the 28th ID's earlier attack.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Blaming Cota for the fate that befell his division in the Huertgen Forest is rubbish. The failure lay at Corps and Army level. The 28th Div's attack in the original plans was to coincide with the main attack of the US First and Ninth Army, but the latter was postponed to 16 November 1944 due to bad flying weather, which impeded the preliminary aerial bombardment.

    Only in late November (too late IMO) First Army recognised the real importance of the dams in the upper Rur valley. By then the US First Army offensive, which started on 16 Nov 1944, had ran out of steam. At the start of December First Army had not accomplished the planned breakthrough to the Rhine, but instead was gazing at the small stream of the Rur river, whose water level could be controlled by the enemy holding the dams in the upper reaches of the river, thus threatening to cut off any Allied advance beyond this water barrier.

    IMO this late recognition/underestimating of the value of Rur River dams ranges among one of the major (operational) errors of the US command (Hodges/Bradley) during the NWE campaign. Strangely enough, unlike the 'failure' of Montgomery's Market-Garden operation, it never provoked much discussion, though it proved far more costlier. The dams finally were captured in early February 1945, but not before the Germans unleashed the contained water masses, completely frustrating Monty's Rhineland Campaign (Febr/March 1945).
     
  6. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    Picking nits, but your point is taken, the VII Corps offensive was suppose to be right after the start of V Corps.
    Siegfried Line Campaign
    Again given the sudden capture of Schmidt it is a little more understandable why the agony of 28th ID was prolonged even when the VII Corps offensive was delayed.


    So, to capture the dams the fight in the Hürtgen was unavoidable but horribly mis-managed.

    ****EDIT****
    Just to complete the list of divisions that fought through the Hürtgen Forest...

    Mentioned above 9th ID, 28th ID, 8th ID, 4th ID, 1st ID, 83d ID and 5th AD plus a Ranger battalion.

    The 2d ID was part of an offensive in December 1944 to reach the dams from the south assisted by the 78th ID north of Monschau. This hard fought offensive ended after three days when the Germans struck through the Belgian Ardennes.

    In 1945 the 78th ID and 82d Airborne again attacked from the north while the 2d ID and 9th ID attacked from the south. The fighting was not as protracted but equally bitter and hard on the individual rifleman.

    The ordeal of the 28th ID is the most controversial and often gets conflated with the others which were actually well supported and had achievable objectives but still costly in lives.
     
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  7. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Charles B.MacDonald, in his monography on the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, is one of the few (tough not the least) who criticizes the operational mis-management of the US First Army Offensive. As long as the Germans held the dams all of the slogging of November was in vain. Capturing the dams first would have threatened the whole of the German position around Aachen (west of the river) and would have forced them to retire behind the Rur. The V Corps attack therefore should have been given priority and should have been supported by a simultaneous attack from the south from the same direction as the attack which finally got underway in mid-December, but was interrupted by the Ardennes Offensive. Charles B. MacDonald - IIRC - even mentions a major thrust through the northern reaches of the Eiffel.

    These operations probably also would have involved hard fighting, but in the end it would have put the US First Army in a better position, with free access to the Rur plain. This even might have jeopardized the prepartions for the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes, by drawing Sixth Pz Army, which was assembling in that area, prematurely into the battle (but that's a bit 'iffy'). Anyway Monty's Rhineland Campaign in Febr 1945 would have turned out differently.

    The Germans were well aware of the importance of the dams, which explained their response to the capture of Schmidt, which they misinterpreted as an attempt to capture the dams. They hurriedly committed part of their scarce armoured reserve, the 116.Pz Division, which actually was earmarked for the coming Ardennes Offensive.
     
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  8. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    The Allies were limited in resources through November, both in divisions on the front line and supplies still coming from the Normandy beaches. A stronger effort to capture the dams (assuming they realized their importance) would have shifted the fighting from the relatively open Aachen corridor to the Hurtgen Forest with more bands of the Westwall to penetrate. It would have taken a visionary commander to sell that proposal -- which Hodges definitely was not.

    At least one division to help the 28th ID north of the dams and there were no other divisions to attack from the south particularly through another band of the Westwall. Any divisions taken from Aachen allows the Germans to move divisions to the forest as well.

    MacDonald provides this caveat for how the American command evaluated the situation with the Roer dams.

     
  9. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    I've looked up MacDonald's booklet "The battle of the Huertgen Forest", which appeared in 1963. He is even more pronounced, to put it mildly, in his judgment than I recalled.

    On page 197 he writes: "No critical analysis of the battle of the Huertgen Forest, or of the entire campaign around Aachen during the fall of 1944, can be made without mention of the Roer River Dams. For whether or not Hodges, his staff, and his Corps commanders recognized it at the time, the battle of the Huertgen Forest revolved around these dams. Or should have."

    Page 199: "... what might have happened had the Americans early in the frontier fighting captured the dams or forced the Germans to demolish them? With the dams intact in American hands, the Germans hardly would have risked sending large numbers of troops west of the Roer, for they would have been liable at any moment to severed supply and reinforcement. Had the Germans been forced to blow the dams, the Americans would have fought, not against German forces adequately supplied and constantly reinforced by fire brigades committed at just the right point and time, but agianst a force progressively weakening for lack of supply or reinforcement. The conclusion is inescapable: had the First Army gone for the Roer Dams early in the fighting, there would have been no battle for the Huertgen Forest."

    He concludes his work with comparing the battle to 'Passchendaele': "The little American Passchendaele was over. Passchendaele with tree bursts was over. That men must die in war must be accepted, and that some parts of the fighting will be more difficult, more miserable, than others is inevitable. A big push south of the Roer dams might have been just as costly, might have meant just as much misery, but the fighting would have been in quest of an objective that mattered - the dams. The real tragedy in battle is when men suffer and die for objectives that are not commensurate with the cost. Those in the Huertgen Forest fought a misconceived and basically fruitless battle that could have, and should have, been avoided. This is the real tragedy of the battle of the Huertgen Forest".
     
  10. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    "... what might have happened had the Americans early in the frontier fighting captured the dams or forced the Germans to demolish them? "

    That's kinda vague.

    In the improvised dash from the Seine, it would have been a remarkably prescient act for US commanders to aim their advance on Germany through the Hurtgen and the Roer dams. Once they had a partial breach in the Westwall at Aachen in September, operations in October were directed at securing and widening the gap. Future breaks in the Westwall required a massive expenditure of resources. Constraints on available divisions and supplies limited the options all along. By early November the Germans could both hold their line and build their forces for a counter strike.

    The initial improvised battle set the stage for all that followed. I don't see an obvious point where they would have forgone the advantages in front of them and turned toward a more difficult objective. I see it as a slow realization that they had lost the race. Supplies over the beaches and damaged harbors, to support operations and new divisions, could not match the pace of German rebuilding inside her own borders. The belief that one more punch at the German line could achieve a complete break though persisted longer than it should have. It was a running battle with its own momentum.
     
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  11. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    I often wonder why no serious efforts were undertaken to destroy the dams by aerial bombardment.
     
  12. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  13. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Well said. Sadly, you can substitute Huertgen Forest with any number of battles and this quote equally applies. Dieppe, Arnhem and The Scheldt come immediately to mind.
     
  14. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Canuck

    Not to forget Cassino - Anzio - Gothic Line - only ONE man's ego inspired decisions which cost thousands of lives...

    Cheers
     
  15. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    The peacetime equivalent occurred today when Blackberry announced they will lay off 40% of their workforce. Monumental egos and poor leadership are a reality of any large organization. In wartime the cost is in lives, not jobs.
     
  16. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    This battle was mentioned in chat last night, couple of us admitted we didn't know much about it.
     
  17. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    It is very well worth studying, if only as a lesson in How Not to Do It. The only US Army action in Europe which came close in misconception and mismanagement was the assault across the Rapido by the 36th Division, and that was on a much smaller scale than the Hurtgen. Put it this way: the Hurtgen was the American Arnhem, one of those actions that can make you ashamed seventy years on.
     
  18. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Yes, let's beat a hole through this stone wall instead using the windows on either side.
     
  19. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    A marginal case could be made for attacking through the Hurtgen. The so-called Aachen Gap to the north looked tempting but it was actually a geographical choke point, studded with low hills. mining and manufacturing towns, waterways, etc., all of which served as defensive barriers. Despite the consistently over-optimistic predictions of SHAEF and 12th Army Group it took 9th Army a long time to fight its way through this zone, and casualties were serious. A thrust through the Hurtgen or the Eifel to the south would have avoided these defenses and the strength the Germans had concentrated in the gap, but it would only have worked IF:

    1. 1st Army had concentrated for it in greater strength, especially in infantry and artillery. As it was, 1st Army never had more than two divisions fighting in the Hurtgen, which was completely inadequate even to acheive the stated aims.
    2. 1st Army had devoted a massive engineering effort to improving the wretched communications through the forest. Over and over again, poor LOC restricted American operations in the forest.
    3. The American command had appreciated the importance of the Roer dams and made its plans to take account of them.

    There were two ways of dealing with the Hurtgen. The first was a truly major offensive aiming at the dams with adequate planning and resources, as outlined above. The other was to seal it off and not fight there at all. Hodges and his superiors chose a wretched compromise, which guaranteed high casualties and painfully slow progress.

    I generally respect Eisenhower, Collins, and Bradley, but there can be no excuse for their poor generalship in this case. As to some of the others, Hodges was a mediocre army commander at best. He lacked force of character and relied far too much on his two most important subordinates, Collins and Kean, who misled him badly in the Hurtgen. Leonard Gerow's continuance in high command throughout the Northwest Europe campaign is baffling. He was most responsible for the Omaha Beach plan, which nearly led to disaster. He handed down a similarly obvious and rigid plan to Cota and the 28th Division, allowing Cota no flexibility in its implementation. I can't agree with those who excuse Cota, either. As Currey relates in Follow Me and Die, Cota did not get to the front to see what was going on, was consistently out of touch, and misrepresented the facts to his superiors. That nobody in high command was relieved or disciplined as a result of the Hurtgen is a blot on the US Army. I am amazed and filled with respect for the troops who fought there, because despite all this in the end they did take the forest and come within reach of the dams. All credit to them, little or none to many of their generals.
     
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  20. Nijmegen

    Nijmegen Member

    Direct result of Eisenhower's Broad Front strategy. Eisenhower should have never relieved Montgomery, the experienced battle field commander, who had succesfully orchestrated the breakout from the bridgehead in Normandy. Lengthened the war.
     

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