Download A Dark and Bloody Ground: The Hurtgen Forest and the Roer River Dams, 1944-1945 AudioBook Free
A victorious American military, having motivated through Belgium almost unopposed, ran head-on into German troops on their own home ground, in some of the most solid country in european Germany - and at the start of the worst fall and winter weather in decades. In overdue 1944, American pushes advanced into the hilly, closely wooded Hürtgen Forest southeast of Aachen, Germany. For weeks, with out a clear-cut reason for attacking through the forest, US commanders nevertheless bought units of as much as seven divisions into the woods to be chewed up by German infantry and artillery. Many companies suffered huge amounts of casualties. The Battle of the Bulge interrupted the Hürtgen Forest battles but didn't end them. The Bulge provided a hiatus for the wartorn countryside across the forest and the Roer River dams. Then, from January 1945, American pushes resumed their offensive and were finally able to break through after one of the bloodiest and, for the US Army, most devastating campaigns of World Battle II. The publication examines uncertainty of command at the military, corps, and division levels and emphasizes the misunderstandings and concern with ground battle at the amount of company and battalion - "where they do the dying." Its gripping explanation of the challenge is based on government records and a wealthy collection of first-person accounts. Forrest C. Pogue Award, provided by the Eisenhower Middle for North american Studies. The publication is released by Texas A&M University Press.
