A Dark and Bloody Ground: The Hurtgen Forest and the Roer River Dams, 1944-1945

By Edward G. Miller

Book Overview

A victorious American army, having driven through Belgium almost unopposed, ran head-on into German soldiers on their own home ground, in some of the most rugged country in western Germany-and at the beginning of the worst fall and winter weather in decades. In late 1944, American forces advanced into the hilly, heavily wooded H?rtgen Forest southeast of Aachen, Germany. For weeks, without a clear-cut reason for attacking through the forest, U.S. commanders nevertheless ordered units of as many as seven divisions into the woods to be chewed up by German infantry and artillery. Small units, cut off by the rugged terrain and trees, unable to employ tanks or artillery effectively, fought entrenched and camouflaged Germans in the woods and villages of the region. The troops were exposed to rain, sleet, and freezing temperatures without proper winter clothing. Many companies suffered huge numbers of casualties. The Battle of the Bulge interrupted the H?rtgen Forest battles but did not end them. The Bulge provided a hiatus for the wartorn countryside around the forest and the Roer River dams. Then, beginning in January, 1945, American forces resumed their offensive and were finally able to break through after one of the bloodiest and, for the U.S. Army, most disastrous campaigns of World War II. For many years after the war the full extent of the disaster was not well known outside army circles. Eventually the story of the campaign spread, but it remained overshadowed by the fame of the Bulge. Only in the last decade have military historians begun to look at the fighting in the H?rtgen Forest. The book examines uncertainty of command at the army, corps, and division levels and emphasizes the confusion and fear of ground combat at the level of company and battalion-"where they do the dying." Its gripping description of the battle is based on government records, a rich selection of first-person accounts from veterans of both sides, and author Edward G. Miller's visits to the battlefield. The result is a compelling and comprehensive account of small-unit action set against the background of the larger command levels. The book's foreword is by retired Maj. Gen. R. W. Hogan, who was a battalion commander in the forest. Maj. Edward G. Miller is a retired army ordnance officer stationed in Germany. His most recent assignment was to the army's Command and General Staff College, where he completed most of this study in his off-duty hours. He earned the B.A. and M.P.A. degrees from Western Kentucky University and has completed several military training programs. His previous publications include articles in Armor and Ordnance magazines concerning development of U.S. armor doctrine.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585442585
• ISBN13: 9781585442584
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Military history at its best!

I was very interested in the nightmarish battle of World War II which is not so well known and in this book I found more than I ever hoped to discover. The tactical, operational and strategic analysis is simply excellent, as are the details about the experiences of the poor soldiers who fought, suffered and died in Huertgenwald. With the help of some very good b & w maps and some b & w photos, the author who is a military man himself, achieves a fine connection between the various neighboring battlefields and Huertgenwald itself and shows how and why the US troops suffered such a heavy casualty rate, throwing one division after the other in the maelstrom. The plans are very well analysed (although more on the US side than on the German) and the same is true about the lessons learned. Highly recommended!

Top Rate Professional Job

I echo what others have said about this book. It is not a fun or easy book to read but it is an excellent study of one of the most useless wastes of American soldiers in the ETO. How 28th Division CG Coda, one of the heros of D-Day, could turn into such a poor operational commander is sobering. I was also struck by how the author pointed out the weakness of the US policy (continued thru Vietnam) of plugging individual replacements into front line units with predictable disastrous results. Our current rotation of units is 100% more effective. He does all this in about a page and a half. This is indicative of the insights the author brings to the work.

If you want the facts, this is it!

My father was a combat engineer in World War II and served north of Aachen at the time of the Huertgen Forest battles. He has always wanted to go see the forest and, thus, this past father's day I invited him on a self-guided 'Normandy-to-the-Rhine' visit to europe. In preparation for the trip, we found plenty of information on Normandy, the Bulge, Remagen and many other better-known battles and battlegrounds, but found very little useful information on one of WWII's bloodiest battles: The Battle of the Huertgen Forest. That is, until I came across Edward Miller's, 'A Dark and Bloody Ground'. The book, while somewhat dry reading, is a must for anyone who really wants to know about the initiation, escalation and ultimate conclusion of this battle. While citing facts and figures which seem well authenticated and footnoted, Miller avoids editorializing for the most part. Where he does opine, it is seemingly not without sound military reasoning. From a personal standpoint, I used the book in order to pinpoint very specific locations within the forest. If you've ever visited there, you won't find many historical markers to guide you. You better come with some sort of roadmap and knowledge of the battle or your trip will be worthless! The maps that are contained in the book, and the anecdotal descriptions that are provided, gave us excellent references with which to locate places which were strategically important during the battle. In one instance, my father and I ventured down an old logging road (probably 'Road W' as Miller described it) and ventured by foot off the path toward the Wieser Weh creek. The east bank of this creek was the sight of numerous assaults by the americans in an effort to take the Duren-Simerath road and the town of Huertgen. My dad and I located foxhole after foxhole with some bunker remnants along this incline that were just as we imagined they would have been installed there by the germans. They had obviously been a bit weathered over the course of 55 years, but if you've ever seen this forest, the sight of so many ordered impressions in this otherwise dark, smooth ground definitely left you with the impression that something significant happened there. We visited Hill 400, the Wilde Sau minefield and the town of Schmidt. We saw remnants of the 'dragons teeth' associated with the Siegfried line. Almost all of this was due to having read Miller's account of this battle and the excellent detail provided therein. After reading this book, I have two recommendations for anyone interested in the subject of the Huertgen Forest battle: (1)read this book and dog-ear any pages which describe locations & events in detail and, (2)go visit the forest for yourself. You will get the feeling of accomplishment associated with the fact that you did your homework and saw something historic that few people have taken the time to see. For that, I salute the work that Mr. Miller has

This should be a text nook at West Point

My comments on DARK AND BLOODY GROUND by LTC Edward Miller are lifted from a five page letter sent to then Major Miller 3.5 years ago. Tom Clancy wrote in DEBT OF HONOR, "If it isn't written down, it never happened." Now with his book, we know the battle(s) in the Hürtgen Forest occurred. However, after battle reports etc. may be incomplete, inaccurate, and `sanitize and/or fictionalized' by rear echelon scribes. In some respect, reading this book is like reading about a war on another planet, and as in all the others I've read, hindsight is 20/20. This book is a monumental work, and Colonel David H. Hackworth (Ret) is right, he wrote; "***- a must for professional soldiers [members of Congress] and a good, exciting read for anyone interested [and survivors] in one of the most costly blunders of WW II." Those high echelon generals responsible for this debacle, unlike Robert McNamara, did not confess to their errors or say they were sorry. This book, and Colonel Hackworth's observation were too late for those 55,000 plus names listed on the Vietnam Memorial. LTC Miller indicted generals for their misdeeds like Colonel Hackworth indicted generals in his book ABOUT FACE for their misdeed in Vietnam.I survived eight campaigns with the 45th Infntry Division in Europe.