It becomes sort of myopic obsession to capture it and then guess what? To recapture it.

You know, if you’ve got compromised supply lines, it’s very difficult to hold a place like Schmidt.

You’re making incremental gains and you’re losing them again.

One step forward, two back.

One step forward, two back.

and it’s losses on a scale that the Americans weren’t used to.

On November 2nd, the Americans begin their second attack on Schmidt, led by the 28th Division.

There’s no way that they didn’t know how bloody and painful it was after the first group went in.

If you were a new battalion coming in, you saw thousands coming back out as 300.

The Americans spent much of October uh in desperation trying to take this small village of of Schmidt and suffered thousands of casualties.

What do they do? They try it again in November.

On November 3rd, the first and third battalions of the 112th Infantry Regiment move across the K Valley in hopes of capturing Commerite and Schmidt and cutting the Germans off from their supplies.

However, the terrain of the call trail makes movement of any kind very difficult.

One particular unit, 2,000 strong, is eventually battered down to just 300 men.

You know, can you imagine a couple of days in which 70% are casualties? You know, how do you rebuild the, you know, the morale of that unit? It’s almost impossible.

After their first loss at Schmidt, the Germans rely heavily on Panzer tanks.

On November 4th, the 166th Panzer Division tanks unload their fire on the third battalion at dawn, ejecting them from Schmidt and leaving them unable to counterattack.

The battalion descends into chaos.

133 are captured by the Germans.

And again, you have to remember the Germans have had time to fortify.

They’ve got back behind their natural defensive barriers.

They’ve been given time to regroup.

They’ve laid their hands on anything they can that goes up in a puff of smoke.

It’s just do what you need to do.

Keep them away.

Stop them getting across.

Keep them out of the fatherland.

Whatever it takes.

Meanwhile, the US 109th Division is tasked with capturing the area north of Gera.

But within 300 yards, they meet an unexpected horror.

I don’t know that any minefield is a pleasant place to be, but that one was just uh horrific, almost impossible to navigate through.

So navigating minefields, pill boxes, trench imp placements, heavy guns, all becomes a a grinder.

It becomes the meat grinder.

The wild pig or wild sa minefield is one of the largest minefields on the western front.

Mines every 2 m stretch over a span of 3 km.

Now, how are you going to get through that? It’s impenetrable.

So they literally have to crawl through and try to find these mines, diffuse them, and keep moving while being shot at.

Ultimately, they have to resort to rolling trees through the forest to try to detonate the mines.

That’s time consuming.

It’s not practical.

And in a forest that’s this dense and thick of of trees, it takes forever.

Even after all of those losses and that loss of territory, machines, men, material, it’s still crazy that Hajes doesn’t understand the totality of the loss.

It is it is a loss at that time.

How are you going to overcome that loss and go back at the enemy is another thing.

Ultimately, General Hajes comes to his senses and approves the withdrawal of American troops from this little hub, this little village of Schmidt.

With Schmidt lost yet again, the focus returns to the Roar industrial area and the Roar River.

There are seven dams at the Roar River headwater for flood control, drinking water, and hydroelectric power.

The Schwab Manal and the Earth dams hold up to 40 billion gallons of water between the two of them.

That’s a huge amount of water.

I mean, if that had been released, it’s it’s a nightmare scenario.

If the Germans had exploded the dams, the advance through Germany would have become not just difficult, but might have become a near impossibility.

On November 5th, General Hodgeges receives a top secret memo from General Simpson of the 9th Army.

He is to refocus on securing the Roar River dams before the Germans unleash a catastrophic flood.

Hodgeges insists that the best path to get there is to continue to press through the deadly forest.

General Hajes yet again ignores the concerns of his officers and the intelligence that the Germans are considering blowing the dams to flood the entire region.

His response is damn the dams.

One of the justifications for going through the forest is to get to the rur dams.

There were seven of them and two in particular are so big in terms of the lakes that they’ve created that the feeling is if they’re if they’re blown by the Germans uh they’re going to unleash a flood tide that’s going to really slow down the advance to the Ryan River and this is going to really impede Allied uh communication.

So we need to get to these dams and we need to take them before the Germans blow them.

But that doesn’t explain the logic of going through the forest.

Yes, the raw dams are at the back of the forest, but they’re not in the forest.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t go round to the southeast if you look at the map and then work your way downstream so that you incrementally pick off each dam that the Germans could have flooded you with.

Hajes created this subobjective.

I can do the dams, but I have to get to this point first.

And that’s where I see this real disconnect.

When you’re making a decision and you have a goal, you tend to plan to get to that goal.

Most people want to plan to get to that goal with the least steps possible.

Hajes is planning to get to that goal by adding additional intermediary steps.

And the only reason that he’s doing that is because those were the steps he took when he was successful in World War I.

You take the towns, you move the line.

And that’s what he was trained in.

That’s what he was successful with.

And that’s what he’s repeating here.

At age 57, Hajes is not the man he once was mentally or physically.

Because of his disconnection from those around him, he’s not hearing alternate plans or alternate viewpoints, which is leading into tunnel vision for his overall strategy.

Hodges, he misunderstands his soldiers.

I think there’s almost a kind of a failure of empathy at this point.

For him to to keep to keep asking this of them and to not step back, it’s a profound failure on his part on a human level.

Hajes is an interesting character when it comes to casualties.

He’s very hard as a commander and likes to drive and keep moving and keep moving.

But his men often say that they’ve watched him break down when he goes to the hospitals.

Any other time he’s hard as a rock.

But when he goes into the medical tents and sees the men, he breaks down and cries.

But meanwhile, the Americans are having a horrible time in the call trail.

Sending in tanks is not a good idea.

It’s an even worse idea when the weather conditions worsen.

You get a lot of rain coming in.

There’s a morass on the on the floor of the forest and the tanks are just incapable of moving and operating.

You either got to get past them, you’ve got to go and rescue people out of them.

Amidst heavy casualties on both sides, a small glimmer of humanity comes from an unexpected place.

German troop doctor Gunter Stoutkin has a history of treating enemy wounded at his field hospitals.

On November 7th, he makes contact with American medical personnel and negotiates what will become the first of three ceasefires.

Combat stops for several hours so wounded can be retrieved and enemy patients exchanged.

Hundreds of men survive the Herkin forest who would have otherwise been left to die.

Years later, Stutkin was honored for his actions, which he explained came from respect that only soldiers who know the horror of war can have for one another.

But in November 44, after the briefest of pauses, those horrors continue unabated.

The weather works to the advantage of the Nazis as well.

It becomes brutally cold.

It snows.

The Germans laid thousands of mines down.

the Americans couldn’t see or detect.

So everything about the forest worked to the advantage of the Nazis and worked against the American invaders.

The American offensive force begins to be affected by a defensive mentality.

And they’re going to be holding their ground, staying still, being in a covered position.

You get that that difference between being aggressive and offensive versus a very defensive type reaction where you’re just trying to survive.

This reaction extends to some of the highest ranking officers.

General Ralph Hubner leads the legendary first division known as the big red one.

He makes the mistake when reporting to Major General Jay Lton Collins of using the phrase keeping the enemy in check.

Collins is furious at the lack of forward momentum and orders Hubner to ramp up the attacks.

For Collins and his superior Courtney Hodes, it’s forward momentum or nothing.

But by mid- November, there is plenty of blame to go around.

And much of it is laid at the feet of General Norman Dutch Kota.

His 28th Infantry Division is relieved of duty and the eighth infantry division is brought in.

On November 16th, Operation Queen begins.

The Herkin Forest campaign really occurs in a couple phases.

The first one begins in September of 1944 and that’s an unmitigated disaster.

Finally, later in November, a second phase, Operation Queen.

It’s most of the same tactics, which again don’t work.

However, they want to try to use American air superiority, which ordinarily would make sense.

But the forest is so dense, so thick that it renders bombers and warplanes completely ineffective.

With no end in sight, the situation is reported on by one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century.

Ernest Hemingway reporting from the front for Collier’s magazine witnesses some of this fighting and he’s completely horrified.

Ernest Hemingway spent 18 days embedded with the 3,000 men of the fourth division.

You have a a kind of chronicler of of the madness on a very personal level.

One of the grimace actions is in late November when a when a regiment is sent to take the uh the village of Gracau.

And in attempting to do so, it loses almost 2,700 of its 3,000 troops.

That’s over 90% casualties.

And of the futility of the tactics being used by the Americans, Hemingway quipped that it would save everybody a lot of trouble if they just shot them as soon as they got out of the trucks and describes it as Passion Dale with tree bursts.

That pretty much says it all.

You got shrapnel starting off the branches above your head.

So if you’re not hit directly, you’re going to be hit with something raining down on you that’s not just freezing wintry water from God’s skies.

I mean, it’s a nightmare.

It’s a hell on earth.

He’s reminding people back in America that this ain’t just headlines.

Oh, Paris, Antwora, Brussels, Aran.

The city of Aken was so well restored that refugees from the nearby internment camp were allowed to return to their homes in the city.

The military government section went to work establishing order.

No passion tree bursts.

You know, let’s break up that narrative, that success story, and remind people success at a cost.

Hemingway will eventually write a novel about what he witnesses.

Across the river and into the trees, it’s called.

A more direct literary account comes from a former professional wrestler.

The machine gun platoon leader of Company G of the 121st Infantry.

That amazing character, Lieutenant Paul Bush, writes a great book about it afterwards.

incredibly visceral descriptions of what he’d gone through, what his men were going through.

Lieutenant Bosch’s memoir captures the horror as he leads the 121st Infantry Regiment through the thick forest.

Bosch sets up a command post and a carrying party to move rations, water, and ammunition for the regiment.

German machine gunners catch them in a brutal crossfire, reigning mortars and artillery.

Bearing witness to the horrors of the forest, the 121st spends Thanksgiving in hell.

Thanksgiving in the Hurricane is a lot different than what you see on any other part of the line.

It is business as usual.

On November 23rd, Lieutenant Bosch receives a message that a hot turkey dinner is on its way to every man in the outfit.

They were looking to build morale, but it’s also a way to remind people what they’re fighting for.

The world is going to be safe, and your family and friends are going to be able to have Thanksgivings because of what you’re doing here.

Bosch objects.

The positions they are in are nearly right on top of the Germans.

A terrible time to eat a hot meal.

and they’ll know where we are and they’re going to shoot at us and let’s, you know, let’s stay low and keep safe.

Despite his protests and appeal to reason, the Thanksgiving dinners are sent in on orders from headquarters.

Privates are called back to distribute the meals.

Hodgeges is playing for a headline game really.

You know, the men were fed on Thanksgiving.

You know, it’s a note home to mom.

You know, I had hot hot hot turkey or whatever it is.

You eat cranberry sauce.

You know, there’s a kind of um there’s a superficiality to his thinking there.

Did he really think a gimmick like that was worth any life? The Germans are lurking closely, and the hot meal service draws attention to Bosch’s men.

[Music] Seven men are wounded and three killed for a dinner no one wanted to eat.

The 121st must move on after Thanksgiving in hell.

But their journey deeper into the woods proves even more deadly.

In only 3 days, the 121st regiment loses 20% of their manpower.

50 killed, 600 wounded.

You’ve got mines going off.

You’ve got trees exploding.

How many times can you jump? How many times can you have that adrenaline rush before you’ve wiped it out? You just don’t have the resources anymore to engage with it.

But throughout this vicious string of close-range firefights, Lieutenant Bosch leads his platoon in the village of Herkin amidst heavy enemy fire.

He and his men take cover and abandoned houses while automatic weapons clatter and buildings explode.

In a brutal struggle, Lieutenant Bosch and Company G managed to take the town of Herkin, taking 350 German PS, bodies of both American and German soldiers littered the streets.

For his role in the strategic victory, Lieutenant Bosch is awarded the Silver Star, his second one.

The victory at Herkin allows American troops to begin to make their way to the village of Kleinhow, the next objective.

The 121st gains in Herkin finally place the troops in decent proximity to the Roar River Dams.

The objective all along of Supreme Commander Eisenhower, but the horrible cost to get there is barely reflected upon.

You’ve got this command structure.

So, there’s this distributed lack of accountability for what’s going on here.

Nobody is saying, “Why are you doing this this way?” Even Eisenhower, who wants the dams protected, doesn’t seem to get involved in how to get there.

And maybe that’s not part of his command, but somebody should have been tracking just how many lives were lost.

Instead of dwelling on the casualties, the first army commanders seize on this momentum.

November 29th, orders from General Hodgees come in to take the Brandenburgg Burststein Ridge, securing a launch position for the US First Army to make a direct attack and secure the Roar River dams.

After enduring weeks of heavy fighting, the 28th and 121st regiments clear the approach for the tanks to begin their advance toward Brandenburgg Burstein.

The 28th and 121st infantry reach the ridge, but the Germans have a major defensive advantage.

Positions on Castle Hill.

Castle Hill is one of the high points of the fight, and that’s with no pun intended because Castle Hill is high and it’s a great vantage point.

With only 11 tanks and 140 infantry men left, reinforcements are needed to protect hard one American gains.

The second Ranger battalion shows up.

Very good, well-trained troops.

And this is where you get into the differences between special forces and general infantry where there is more uh independence and decision-m where you can adjust on the fly to meet a goal or objective without a very clear plan necessarily on how to get there.

And so you find special forces training tends to be very different in terms of initiative.

The second rangers begin their advance.

They quickly overwhelm parts of the German defenses and they will engage very violently and quickly with the Germans who are trying to defend Castle Hill.

The Germans fire on the Rangers with increasing intensity, but Company D takes the top of the hill.

The Germans were utilizing it to rain fire down on the Americans, and now it’s in the hands of the Second Ranger Battalion.

Of the Ranger reinforcements, only 22 are still able to walk on their own after this battle.

19 are killed, 107 wounded, and four men are missing.

But due to their sacrifice from Castle Hill, the Americans concede the Roar River Dams.

On December 16th, the battered Rangers on Castle Hill are relieved by the 13th Regiment.

But swapping special forces back to regular troops will prove costly.

And then they weren’t using special forces.

They were using standard infantry troopers who were trained to do what they were told, but they’re doing it in an environment that is really biased against them.

The 13th are unable to hold on to this victory, but the struggle to control the Herkin forest is about to be eclipsed by an even bigger challenge.

And the Americans won’t retake the hill until February of 1945.

One of the reasons the Germans fight as effectively as they do is because they are prepping for what will become the Battle of the Bulge, a position to the south of the Herkin Forest.

Of course, the bigger story is going to be the center of attention.

The Battle of the Bulge became that center of attention.

December 16th, the Germans launched their last ditch offensive into the Arden.

The Allied planners are completely caught off guard.

They were not expecting this overwhelming German regrouping.

When Hitler orders the counterattack, the tanks concentrate their power in just one section of the line, which is an age-old military tactic.

And if you can bust through that one section, it compromises the entire line.

They pushed a bulge out roughly 60 miles in in the American line, thus giving it the nickname the Battle of the Bulge.

On December 27th, the 83rd Division in Herkin Forest enters the Battle of the Bulge.

Both sides sustain horrific uh casualties.

It’s also one of the coldest periods of the entire war.

The weather claims lives also.

But in contrast to the Herkin Forest debacle, Allied forces are now well organized and well supported.

By Christmas, you know, we’ve got our act together.

You’re even seeing a change in the law in Britain where women are drafted overseas.

We need to back up the boys.

You need to feed the boys.

You need to supply the boys.

You need to administer the boys.

And that’s what wins the Battle of the Bulge is this extra manpower, this oomph.

Eisenhower comes up to the front.

You know, there’s another 200,000 plus men.

How can the Germans fight that? Ultimately, Hitler’s last ditch gamble fails.

The Americans win.

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