Document created: 20 August 02
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2002

Hell in Hürtgen Forest: The Ordeal and Triumph of an American Infantry Regiment by Robert Sterling Rush. University Press of Kansas (http:// www.kansaspress.ku.edu), 2501 West 15th Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66049-3905, 2001, 400 pages, $34.95.

The guns had barely cooled from World War II when the US Army’s performance came under scrutiny. Historian S. L. A. Marshall set the tone in 1947 with his Men against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War, which argued that, at best, only 25 percent of soldiers had fired their weapons—and these men were elite troops, like rangers and paratroopers! Later studies such as Col Trevor N. Dupuy’s Numbers, Prediction, and Wars: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles (1979), Russell F. Weigley’s Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944–1945 (1981), Martin van Creveld’s Fighting Power: German and US Army Performance, 1939–1945 (1982), and John Ellis’s Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War (1990) argued that the Allies bludgeoned their way to victory with superior numbers.

Nearly all of these authors criticize the US Army for its replacement system and the number of divisions fielded. Known as the 90-division gamble, the plan involved creating a small number of divisions but keeping them at full strength with a huge replacement pool. In theory this was a great idea, but in practice it did not work well. Fighting on four fronts (Italy, France, the Central Pacific, and the Southwest Pacific) forced commanders to keep units there too long, and the latter rarely had the opportunity to pull back for rest and refit. Consequently, as the argument goes, replacements went directly into combat with little opportunity to acclimate themselves either to the unit or to combat conditions, resulting in a reduction of effectiveness.

With the publication of Keith E. Bonn’s When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944–January 1945 in 1994, this image has undergone reevaluation. The terrain, weather, and enemy strength favored the Germans, yet US troops successfully overcame these disadvantages to defeat a battle-hardened and tenacious foe. Besides Bonn’s work, the University Press of Kansas has published a trilogy that directly challenges the Army’s detractors. Michael D. Doubler’s Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944–1945 (1994) argues that the US Army entered France on D day as a green, untested force, but its ingenuity, imagination, and flexibility enabled it to adapt to new and unforeseen situations quickly and defeat the Germans. Instead of exhibiting a “how stupid they were attitude,” Doubler presents an army that expanded from roughly 160,000 men in 1940 to over 8 million by 1944, successfully invaded France, and within 11 months destroyed the German army in the west.

Peter R. Mansoor’s The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941– 1945 (1999) takes Doubler’s work a step further by examining the performance of US infantry divisions. Contrary to the stance of van Creveld and others, Mansoor maintains that the American Army was more effective than the armies of its adversaries. He agrees that the replacement system was not ideal but argues that the Army took steps to mitigate its disadvantages and generate the combat power necessary to defeat the enemy.

Robert Rush completes the triune with Hell in Hürtgen Forest, which examines the 22d Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division. He argues that the US replacement system, though flawed, was superior to the German system. In the book’s first section, Rush describes the training, terrain, and organizational history before lapsing into the second section’s rather tedious narrative of the battle, which describes in excruciating detail the daily actions of each battalion. In the third and by far the most important and interesting section, he provides a unique view into the tactics and motivation of American fighting personnel, arguing that the regiment remained combat effective as long as a cadre of veterans existed to lead the replacements. Until Hürtgen Forest, this band averaged 35 percent of the total regimental strength. However, the battle slashed that figure to 3.5 percent, destroying the regiment’s effectiveness.

Conversely, by November 1944, the German army found itself on the verge of collapse. The divisions facing the 22d Infantry consisted largely of old men, young boys, military and security detachments, and convalescents. Rush argues that German divisions grew increasingly anemic, remaining in combat without replacements until bled white. At that point, the division headquarters and support troops were pulled back to refit. However, the relieving division simply absorbed the surviving infantry. The German system provided a core of rear-area support troops to rebuild the division but few veterans to train the replacements. To counter the argument that the German army was a more cohesive force, Rush cites numerous examples of the enemy’s cohesion collapsing. For example, during the Hürtgen battle, 22d Infantry lost fewer than 40 men and took over 700 prisoners.

Unfortunately, Rush sometimes stretches his analysis too far. For instance, he asserts a correlation between the number of messages the regimental commander sent to his subordinates and the number of casualties that day. His assertion is dubious at best. A quick statistical analysis shows that very little, if any (less than 3 percent), correlation exists between the two. In fact, further analysis shows more correlation between time and messages. This would not mean that the progression of time caused the regimental commander to communicate with his subordinates; however, it might indicate that as casualties mounted and as the unit absorbed green troops, the commander increasingly had to micromanage subordinate units.

Notwithstanding these statistical problems, Hell in Hürtgen Forest makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the effectiveness of the American soldier. Like other reevaluations of the past decade, Rush’s book accepts that the Army’s replacement system had serious shortcomings but maintains that it was not as bad as historians like van Creveld would have us believe. At least by November 1944, it was better than the German system. Rush’s work belongs on the shelf alongside Marshall’s, van Creveld’s, Doubler’s, Mansoor’s, and all the other studies of Allied and German fighting power.

Maj James Gates, USAF
Washington, D.C.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.