Bit of an unknown frontier to myself as well.
from the net:
http://www.bayerworld.com/Honor's%20Thesis%20-%20Huertgen%20Forest%20Paper.htm
They are right, when they argue that the forest itself has very little strategically value. However, what makes the forest important is the Roer River. More important than the Roer River are the dams that control the river’s flow. The only way the Americans could capture the dams was to enter the forest. Without control of those dams, the Allies could not move over the Roer River because the Germans could blow up the dams, cutting off any American troops that had crossed it.
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At 1805 hours on 11 September, a patrol lead by Sergeant Warner W Holitzinger crossed into Germany near the village of Stolzemburg, a few miles northeast of Viaden, Luxembourg.
When Holitzinger encountered the Siegfried Line, he and his men found that most of the pillboxes and the defenses were unmanned. General Collins, on reading this report, felt that if they attacked the Siegfried Line now, they could easily break through it, before the Germans had time to reorganize
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During World War I, General Pershing had major problems with German troops attacking his flanks out of the Argonne Forest. Well aware of Pershing’s problem, Collins was adamant on making sure his flanks were protected. To secure his flank Collins decided to move troops to the north and take the hills surrounding Aachen. To protect his right flank Collins would move troops into the northern part of the Huertgen Forest. The goals would be to capture some of the northern towns and keep the Germans in the forest. Collins could then be sure that his flanks would be protected. This is how the battle of the Huertgen Forest began.
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The Americans’ initial success was due to the fact that the Germans believed the main American attack would focus on Aachen and had left the Stolberg Corridor and the Huertgen with minimal defenses. When the Germans realized their mistake they were able to counterattack and throw the Americans off base. By 13 September more German reinforcements had also begun arriving in the forest to further improve the defense. The ill supplied Americans were inexperienced and did not know how to fight against pillboxes. Their training at home had not taught them the techniques they would need to survive in the wooded areas. “When the Germans, secure in their bunkers, saw the GIs coming forward, they called down presighted artillery fire, using shells with fuses designed to explode on contact with the treetops. When men dove to the ground for cover, as they had been trained to do and as instinct dictated, they exposed themselves to a rain of hot metal and wood splinters. They learned to survive a shelling in the Huertgen by hugging a tree.That way they only exposed their steel helmets.”
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After General Collin’s failure to break through the Stolberg Corridor, there was no question as to why American troops should attack into the Huertgen Forest. There were Germans in the forest and Hodges wanted them cleared out.
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The Americans were making the right attack for the wrong reasons. The Americans often underestimated the Germans’ will to defend the forest. Hitler came to this conclusion after meeting with his Generals: “In subsequent discussions about which terrain might be relinquished with least impunity, it was decreed that holding in Aachen sector was paramount. The Allies must not be allowed to cross the Roer River. In Particular, the Germans were to maintain at all cost bridgeheads west of the Roer at Juelich and Dueren.”
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By judging all of the sources, it can be concluded that the American commanders probably realized the threat the dams posed by the end of October. All of the attacks into the forest from the beginning of November to the end of February were made with the dams in mind.
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The 28th is the oldest division in the armed forces of the United States, and its nickname was the Keystone Division, because of the Keystone patches that members wore on their shoulders. After its fighting in the forest, it was called the Bloody Bucket Division.
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November attack:
There are two main reasons that the attack failed. First, the Germans controlled Hill 400 or Castle Hill, which was located north of Schmidt in the Brandberg-Bernstein Ridge. From this hill the Germans were able to view the American troops’ movement and could easily call down artillery fire upon them and order counterattacks. “The Germans were on the high ground looking down on us,” reported Lt. Preston Jackson
The other big problem the Americans had was their inability to move armor through the forest to reinforce Schmidt. Try as they might to clear the Kall trail, the Germans found a way to mine it again.
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The American attacks into the forest during November were conducted to achieve two goals: have the 28th Infantry Division capture the town of Schmidt, and clear a path through the forest so that once the dams were captured, the Americans could march across the Roer and into the heart of Germany. The first goal was a complete failure while the second had achieved some success. To defeat heavily entrenched German troops, the Americans really needed a combination of infantry, armor, and airpower. The bad weather had severely limited the air attacks in November. Most of them were either delayed or canceled and the ones that were launched had limited effect. The Americans also had trouble with their tanks. They could not effectively move them through the forest. When they did managed to use armored units, the battles were successful, but without them, they were failures.
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On 20 October General Patton was worried that a dam near Metz could be used by the Germans to flood a river and isolate his troops from support. Therefore he ordered American aircraft to blow up the dam so it could not be used by the Germans. General Hodges tried the same thing with the Roer River dams. If he could blow up the dams, it would isolate the Germans on the west side of the river, away from reinforcements and supplies in Germany. By the time the Americans had cleared out the Germans east of the Roer, the river would have moved back to its normal size and the American troops could cross it. The Royal Air Force would be put in charge of the mission. The attacks kept being postponed due to the bad weather. The dams were bombed on 3, 8, and 11 December. Minimal damage was done to the Urft and Schwammenauel Dams and the Allies concluded that the only option they had would be to capture the dams.
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December battle: castle Hill
Instead of an artillery bombardment to weaken German resistance, the Rangers opted to surprise the enemy. At dawn on December 7th they charged the hill.
At first light, shouting “Let’s go get the bastards!,” and firing from the hip, the Rangers charged. They got through the snow-covered field despite the small arms and mortar fire, and started up the hill. Four machine guns were firing point blank on the Rangers, who kept moving up the hill, yelling and firing. Sgt. Bud Potratz remembered hollering, “Hi ho, Silver!”
By 0830 they had managed to chase the remaining German soldiers down the hill and began reinforcing it. Germans began firing their artillery on the Rangers and German infantry made five counterattacks to retake the hill. They also launched an attack against Bergstein, where the American command center supporting the Rangers lay. The Rangers in the city thwarted the German counterattack, and the Hill and Bergstein remained in American possession. In 1995 a Ranger by the name of Lieutenant Lomell who had stormed Point Du Hac in Normandy and Castle Hill remarked, “June 6, 1944 was not my longest day. December 7th 1944, was my longest and most miserable day on earth during my past 75 years."
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By 12 December the tanks managed to break the siege and Gey and Strauss were firmly in American hands. With the towns under American control the Americans could begin the move west to the Roer River. It had taken the Americans from 16 November to 12 December to clear a way to the Roer River. The dams had still not been captured but when the attack against Schmidt came, the Americans would not have to worry about fire targeting them from Castle Hill. The new attack could be launched from the captured towns in the north as well as from the southwest of the forest and the Americans no longer had to worry about German reinforcements from the north.