Late 1944, as weary Allied troops edge ever closer to the German border, they can all but taste the end of the war.

But before victory is theirs, the Americans will fight the single longest battle on German soil.

It’s one of the largest, bloodiest battles of World War II.

Yet, it’s virtually unknown.

It makes no tactical sense.

It would have been quicker to go around.

This was the wrong fight to pick in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Whole units are completely decimated and the responsibility has to be lane at the door of the senior commanders who are sending these units in to carry out completely impossible missions.

It’s called the meat grinder.

So many lives are wasted ultimately for nothing, but very few people know anything about it.

[Music] September 1944, the Allied pursuit of of the German army has slowed down due to the distance from supply lines and increased German resistance.

Both the American and Russian armies have their sights set on Berlin.

The Soviets are coming in from the east.

There’s desperation on the part of the Americans and the allies.

You got to get to Berlin before the Red Army.

Waiting would have cost them.

That was the logic in in the fall of 1944 is that if we wait, you know, the Russians will be in Germany and even past Berlin and we won’t even be in the game.

From the western side, the next strategic objective is to move up the Ryan River and prepare to cross it.

The Ryan River is a deep, cold, wide river.

Hitler is ordered that the bridges be blown up.

You got to get to the Ryan before the bridges are destroyed.

The other sense of desperation is this war is exacting such a horrific toll.

Holocaust, civilians, starving soldiers dying on the battlefield.

The sooner we can end the war, the better.

But what General Courtney Hodes, who planned this, what he underestimated was the sense of desperation on the German side.

Commander of the German 7th Army, General Eric Brandenburgger, favors falling back behind the Ryan River.

But Hitler himself has assured him that reinforcements are on the way and the Aken region instead becomes increasingly fortified.

The US army faces two problems in its campaign through the Herkin.

One, this is the first time it’s fighting on German soil and however tough the Germans have been, they are bound to up their game when it gets to defending Germany.

And the second problem is that they’re up against a formidable defensive system in a terrain they simply have no experience of.

Located about 5 km east of the German Belgian border, the triangular-shaped Herkin Forest, known to the Germans as the Herkinva, is 140 km of stateowned forest.

There are kind of straight lines because it’s a managed forest.

So, you know, even if you were trying to run and hide, the enemy can conceivably see you.

In 1938, Herkin Forest is fortified by the Germans as part of their western wall, known to the Allies as the Sig Freed line.

So, it forms a near perfect canopy under which you can build fortifications under which tanks and airplanes are inoperable.

But the man in command has extensive experience fighting through difficult terrain.

General Courtney Hodgeges is a decorated World War I veteran and wellrespected commander.

Hodgees definitely knew a lot about fighting this type of battle.

He’s partially blinded during the First World War.

He gets a purple heart for that action and he throws his purple heart out because he doesn’t think he deserves it.

This is the mentality of this man.

He comes from quite a wellto-do Georgian background.

It would have been natural for him to go into the army as an officer, but he joins up as an enlisted man.

And so for him to go from that to left tenant general in 1944 is really pretty impressive.

In August 1944, Hajes succeeds Omar Bradley as commander of the first army.

With a quarter of a million soldiers, it’s America’s largest fighting force, comprising 18 divisions, subdivided into brigades, battalions, and companies, all the way down to thousands of platoon of a few dozen men.

On September 14th, 1944, the American 9th Infantry Division enters Herkin Forest.

These few thousand men are the battleweary 39th, 47th, and 60th regiments commanded by Major General Lewis A.

Craig.

The 9inth Infantry Division has been pretty battle tested for a very long time.

Prior to Herkin, these units took part in long combat missions throughout North Africa and France and are severely depleted.

These battle hardened troops have seen almost everything.

and they know what to expect and now they’re being pushed into the Hurricane forest.

Most military science says that you don’t attack in a forest, especially an enemy who’s very well fortified and well defended, which is the great conundrum for anyone who studies tactics.

Why doesn’t Hajis go around the forest is a question we still debate to this day.

It showed the American determination to advance.

It told the Germans that they were not going to be able to scare the Allies away no matter what they did.

This was also a resounding message to to the German high command.

This is the mentality of one of General Haj’s closest advisers.

Fellow World War I veteran Jay Lton Collins has distinguished himself at the Battle of Guadal Canal, and he’s earned the nickname Lightning Joe.

When Hajes plans to halt for 2 days to allow reinforcements to catch up, Collins argues to begin recon immediately.

He sets the pace of the offensive and they’re sent into the Hurricane to see who is in there, if anyone, and try to pierce out the other side and hit that Sigfried line.

The Allies enter the forest with several goals.

Pin down German troops to prevent them from reinforcing their efforts further north at the Battle of Aken and capture the town of Schmidt.

It was like a crossroads town.

You can fan out into the countryside and it was a great place to have your communications as well.

So Schmidt is a very very important position for either side to hold.

The 39th and 47th regiments are ordered to divide and conquer.

A lot of military training is about following orders, doing what you’re told, getting to where you need to be.

You don’t need to worry about what the goal is.

You don’t need to worry about exactly what’s happening or what the overall situation is.

Here is your job.

So, you’re starting off in that type of mentality.

As long as you and your mates survived another day, it was a good day.

The initial advance by the 47th Regiment goes smoothly.

In fact, for two days, they don’t see anyone.

And eventually, they spot a staff car with a German colonel in it, and they kind of report back, you know, this is what we’ve seen.

And they find a lone German officer trying to figure out what’s going on.

So, what do these men do? They take him prisoner.

They rob him and then they send him back to the German lines.

They don’t even think they have time to deal with prisoners.

The 39th attacks through the forest and meets resistance.

They do not have as easy time as the 47th does.

The Germans have had time to recoup.

They’re back behind their own front line and they are digging in.

It’s one giant booby trap, but you’re probably not going to lay the booby trap right on the edge, the further western perimeter of the forest, are you? You’re going to bed in behind your own lines.

The 39th Regiment begin pressing forward at Lammersdorf at the edge of the forest.

But unbeknownst to them, they are entering a deadly trap.

The terrain and the forest itself is utterly impassible for the Americans to come in.

The Germans had built defensive positions throughout, strewing mines all across the forest, building machine gun nests, bunkers.

They start taking casualties almost immediately.

This makes them realize that this isn’t going to be a cakewalk through this wood lot.

They don’t know where everyone is around them.

They don’t know where the enemy is.

The Germans do not expect the Allies attempt to breach the Herkin forest.

The Germans were dumbfounded as to why the Americans would do such a maneuver.

They thought it was crazy.

It was insane.

And they could not believe their luck that someone would try this.

It must have seemed odd to them that this fortified forest, impregnable is what we’d call it, impossible to pass through virtually, is going to be the focus of an American campaign which up until that point had relied on armor, mobility, and aircraft.

You can’t use any of those three things in a dense forest.

This is like a gift to the Germans.

I’m sure they were surprised.

The density, the thickness of this forest also undermines the Americans in terms of communications.

It’s hard to see and radar systems, more primitive radar back then aren’t working properly.

One baker one.

This is bacon 6.

At one point, the only sound coming over the radio is a German warning of Akung Akum as the nearby town of Zifel sounds their air raid sirens.

As soon as the radio goes out, you’re in a feeling of isolation, that you don’t have any support, that you’re no longer part of the greater hole.

Radios tended to malfunction regularly.

Sometimes a battery would die out.

Sometimes a signal wouldn’t get over a hill.

In fact, one officer said that he had to resort to the old hand signals that they were taught in basic training to move men around the field in front of him.

What began as recon has turned into a full-fledged battle.

The Americans are on the defensive and wolffully under supplied.

[Music] Americans and the allies have pushed in so quickly that they have outrun everything that they need.

They don’t have water.

Some men don’t have rations for days.

You can’t deploy men into a force if they haven’t eaten for 2 or 3 days.

After two agonizing weeks, the 39th Division takes control of the town of Lamersdorf.

huge losses for tiny gains, but the need to win, the need to advance was so overwhelming that these losses were deemed acceptable.

General Hajes has these objectives.

He wants this town or this key intersection or this part of the forest.

In hindsight, it seems rather arbitrary and he is not willing to change his mind.

The problem is at what cost? and America.

The Americans are suffering thousands of casualties for each seemingly arbitrary objective.

By this point in the war, General Courtney Hajes expects the Germans to quickly surrender due to low morale, but this is absolutely not the case.

The Germans have every advantage with the forest fortifications.

The way that I think most commanders would do it if they had a second chance was to to wait until you had full concentration of your supplies and then to bring the brunt of your highly favorable ratio of soldiers and and tanks and planes to bear and crush the Germans.

It was a 5:1 tactical advantage in terms of military strength that the allies had.

And it’s just wasted, utterly wasted.

The Battle of Herkin Forest is intended to build upon the successful push that began with D-Day.

The Allies attacked the coast of Normandy in a massive amphibious assault of 150,000 soldiers.

They face resistance as they storm the beaches, achieving victory, finally on June 11th.

This changes the tide of the war and provides the launchpad to liberate France and Western Europe.

We’ve got neverending resources.

It’s just a matter of getting the resources up to the front.

We’ve got almost 2 million Allied troops match fit and ready to go.

The British second army liberates Brussels on September 3rd and Antworp on September 4th.

Hitler starts acting out in desperation.

He appoints Field Marshal Carl Van Runstead as the commanderin-chief of the German army in the west and orders him to attack the advancing allies.

Soldiers are called upon to fight to their death rather than surrender.

So many committed Nazis go on fighting right to the end.

And I’m not just talking about the top like Gerbles.

All the way down to the ordinary prison guards who will not let go of their authority and their murderous policies until literally the guns are taken from their hands.

With German forces decimated, their approach is more deadly the closer they come to defeat.

Hitler informed all of his commanders that if they gave up ground, many of them would be dead.

You weren’t supposed to give ground.

You were supposed to hold your ground at all costs, especially when you got to the Sig Freed line because that’s German territory.

So Hitler says that you will be killed if you fall back.

On the German side, it’s desperate.

There is no choice.

You’re probably going to die fighting, but you fight cuz if not, you’re going to get a gun in your back or you’re going to be caught marshaled and killed.

And these little kids and these older men by now they’re recruiting middle-aged men as well.

They’re going to damn well do what they’re told.

This is Hitler’s Germany.

You don’t have a choice.

You know, you dig in and protect your country.

The Americans decide to push through the northeast to capture the towns of Herkin and Kleinhow.

But the number of American soldiers in the Herkin is quickly depleting and the mood is grim.

General Hodgees calls in tanks from the Third Armored Division to support the 39th and 60th regiments.

The tanks must overcome fortifications known as Dragon’s Teeth just to reach the embattled troops.

Armored divisions were trying to get into the forest to help out and support these American units.

And men had to have axes issued to them from the sides of the tanks to go out and physically chop the trees down because the trees were too large for the tank to run over and the tank couldn’t run over any of them.

So these men have to go out there by hand and chop down a road.

What was General Haj’s thinking when he was deploying the tanks? It’s not clear why such a decision was taken, but the tanks were a resource and they were deployed.

What you actually got in the forest of Herken are tanks being stranded in mud, broken down, being knocked out, and becoming a problem.

You know, the tanks are attracting fire and causing casualties.

Far from them being the solution to the problem, they actually make it worse.

After you’ve lost a couple of divisions, you might consider rethinking the game plan.

But the danger is you think, “Well, I’ve already lost two divisions.

I’m just going to keep going.

You know, I’m going to reinforce that defeat.

It’s a classic military error that so many make.

Hodges ain’t the first and he won’t be the last.

Despite continued heavy casualties, by September 20th, the Americans reached the Viser Valley, closing in on their objective, the Schmidt hub.

Schmidt is like a merrygoround.

It’s like a it’s a kind of roundabout of death.

All the villages, incidentally, have been evacuated.

You know, you can’t live there.

It’s not a place where you live any longer.

It’s just a bunch of rubble.

It’s just a place where you might get picked off by sniper fire if a pillbox isn’t taking you out first if you haven’t stumbled over a dragon’s tooth.

I mean, the whole place is like a landscape of terror.

Can you imagine? You come out of the forest and you land up in Schmidt.

It’s like, my god, who cooks up a place like that? The planning for the German defenses go back to 1938 when they construct the seed freed line.

Now, it’s not used, of course, for most of the Second World War because the Germans are on the offense.

But when they do come on the defense, all these measures they put in place in 1938 suddenly come to fruition and are incredibly valuable.

They’ve been building bunkers and pill boxes so that they create a kind of killing zone in which it’s going to be very difficult for you to to get past.

And yet, Hodgeges and other top brass all believe that Schmidt is an important town to capture.

The question is, how do you get there? You’ve got to come through the wood, funneling you into a field of fire in which you’re going to find it very difficult to maneuver.

The logic of attacking Schmidt gets completely removed when you think that a flanking attack could have done the same thing.

October 6th marks the Americans first attack on Schmidt.

Between October 6th to 16th, the 9th Infantry Division gains 3,000 m at a cost of 4 1/2,000 casualties.

This is First World War numbers.

This is this is losing a man for every meter and a half.

It’s a crazy number to think.

How can this persist? [Music] [Music] How can you have all these losses and not see that we have a problem? Bullets and tree shrapnel decimate the 9inth division.

Those kind of losses that the Americans absorb in Schmidt are um monstrous.

So, you waste thousands of lives uh over a multi-day fight for nothing.

Schmidt’s importance to the overall offensive on the Ves fall, but not at that cost.

The battle to take Schmidt is a failure, but despite the beatings, the Americans do advance to the crucial supply hub of Manchow, but again, they pay a high price.

The 9inth Infantry Division is reduced to a small fraction of itself and cannot continue fighting in the forest.

On October 16th, the nearly obliterated 9inth Division gets some relief.

First Army Commander Courtney Hodes calls on Major General Norman Dutch Cota to renew the drive toward Schmidt.

The 28th Infantry Division arrives in Herkin and they dive into the woods.

These are men of the Old Pennsylvania National Guard and they are sent into the woods to try to break this stalemate.

They think they’re going to be able to do it.

They’re battle hardened.

They’re ready to go.

They get into the woods and they see the destruction from months of terrible fighting.

You are literally stepping on the bodies of men who died a week beforehand.

It hits you in the psyche when you think about what these men are treading on, laying upon, being around every single day in the hurricane.

Fresh from his triumph at Omaha Beach, Dutch Kota has become accustomed to victory.

But the German defenses here are surprisingly strong.

Pillbox attacks prove to be deadly.

American losses reached the thousands in a matter of days.

For those who were in her forest, the entire world is reduced to basically a green inferno, a meat grinder.

On October 18th, a battalion from the 28th Infantry Division arrives in Aen as reinforcements.

And after a brutal battle, the Germans capitulate on October [Music] 21st.

After a is captured, the 28th Infantry breach the Sigreed line in the Stolberg corridor.

General Haj’s men are to press forward 10 miles to the Roar River, capture the town of Duran before continuing to Cologne and the Rine.

The war at this point from an Allied point of view is we need the Germans to surrender.

We need them to realize the war’s over.

If Germany doesn’t have access to its industrial heartlands, then it’s hobbled.

It will have to capitulate.

So that’s a very clear clean target really.

So there is this huge push to move forward into the roar.

A lot of the power plants are located down river.

It runs Germany.

If you can take out that area, you can seal off that asset.

If you don’t do that, Germany still has a lifeline.

But General Hajes continues to pursue other less productive goals.

He insists on repeated attempts to capture the town of Schmidt, an ongoing goal that is as elusive as it is deadly.

Continue reading….
Next »