[jmacusa]

The somewhat vague objective to the Hurtgen forest campaign was to seize a series of hydro-elecrtic plants and dams in the Ruhr Valley ostensibly to cut off power to German munitions plants. So in mid October 1944, after having captured the city of Aachen, the Army's VI Corps made a right flank turn into a fifty by fifty mile dark and gloomy forest at a time of the year, in the words of German General Walter Model, ''It doesn't get light until seven in the morning and it gets dark at three in the afternoon.'' The Germans themselves couldn't understand why in the world the American Army choose to do this but they were happy to oblige by killing thousands of American soldier. The American High Command should have been court-martialed. The Hurtgen wasn't combat-- it was murder.

[Chainmail]

Could not agree with you more. It was a completely ill-conceived operation and a disgraceful bloodbath. Our GIs were pushed into a killing box that could've been bypassed, isolated and then reduced.

Inadequate leaders are the bane of our existence and so many good young men were squandered because of them.

People may say what they will about the idiosyncrasies of George Patton or Douglas MacArthur - but they would never have allowed this atrocity to happen the way that it did.