Battle Of Hurtgen Forest (West Wall) - Hardcover

Whiting, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1580970559 ISBN 13: 9781580970556

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2000

Synopsis

The U.S. Army regards the Hurtgen Forest as one of the most desperate battles it has ever fought. Flanking the key German city of Aachen, the forest was one of the formidable natural barriers interspersed with German fortifications in the West Wall in September 1944.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Whiting served with a reconnaisance outfit in WWII and has since become one of the premier historians of the war. Among his many best-selling works are Patton, The Last Assault, and Death on a Distant Frontier. He currently lives in York, England.

From Publishers Weekly:

From September 1944 to February '45, in the longest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, division after division were sent into the Hurtgen Forest on the Belgian-German border. By the time the smoke cleared, nearly 30,000 GIs had been killed or wounded. Whiting makes it painfully clear that the battle of Hurtgen was unnecessary and had more to do with the maintenance of high-level reputations than strategic imperatives. He argues that Hurtgen was the forerunner of an attitude that became pervasive in Vietnam, where "generals were still throwing away the lives of their young soliders with the same careless abandon." Whiting ( Bloody Aachen ) describes the battle with a sure hand; there is plenty of heroism on these pages, but little glory. As he points out, the only soldier of Hurtgen remembered today is "the one who ran away": Pvt. Eddie Slovik, the first American soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1580970559
• ISBN 13: 9781580970556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312