Hell in Hürtgen Forest

"1 Introduction

And the place we were going to fight in, which I had taken a good look at, was going to be Passchendaele with tree bursts. I say that too much. But I think that too much. Ernest Hemingway

Gray November skies hung low over the irregular line of foxholes and bunkers that made up the forward positions of the German 275th Infanterie Division. On 16 November, as a steady drizzle dripped through the trees that stood in dense rows throughout the forest known as the Hürtgenwald, small groups of chilled soldiers patrolled its dark recesses. Mud sucked at boots and the occasional thump of artillery sounded in the distance as the men crisscrossed the land between the Roter and Weisser Weh streams, looking for signs of the expected Ami attack. A kilometer away, American soldiers in the rifle and weapons companies of the 22d Infantry Regiment rolled their blankets and ate what would be their last hot breakfast for eighteen days, while officers and NCOs made last minute preparations for the assault. Later, soldiers in the forward companies crossed the Roter Weh and Began climbing the slope through the firs toward the Rur Plain just five miles ahead, entering into eighteen days of unmitigated hell in the "death factory" of the Hürtgen Forest.

Sehr guter Zustand des Buches!

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University  Press of Kansas

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