I’ve been to the Hürtgen Forest, and it is still nightmarish from the infantry perspective. The Hürtgen Forest cost the U.S. First Army at least 33,000 killed and wounded, including both combat and non-combat losses, with upper estimates at 55,000; German casualties were 28,000.
The battle was so costly that it has been described as an Allied “defeat of the first magnitude.”
The Hurtgen Forest campaign was a costly and futile attack by the US Army that began in mid October of 1944. It was called off on December 14, 1944.
Two days later the supposedly beaten German Army launched the Battle of The Bugle and the American Army was in the fight of it’s life.
It was stupid to ever go in there. We should have gone around it where our superior mobility and complete air dominance would have played a much bigger role. These were both negated by fighting in that thick forest which suited the Germans just fine.