Customer Reviews

Hell in Hurtgen Forest: The Ordeal and Triumph of an American Infantry Regiment (Modern War Studies)

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First, what Robert Rush's book is NOT: It is not one of those popular history books which strings together first-hand accounts into a fast-reading "you are there" look at a historical event. And it is not a narrative of the World War Two battle for the Hurtgen Forest as a whole, asking whether the objectives justified the costs. Instead, Doctor Rush focuses in upon a single US Army infantry regiment -- the 22nd regulars -- and follows them through two-and-a-half weeks of combat hell as day after day they thrust themselves in a German meat-grinder. Their persistence and eventual triumph -- albeit at the cost of virtually destroying the 22nd Infantry -- makes for grim reading. Each day's activities are presented in remorseless succession. Few names of individual soldiers carry through the narrative for the very simple fact that most of the soldiers who started the battle in mid-November, 1944, were with the regiment when it was relieved in early December. All the others had been killed, wounded, or evacuated. A continual flood of reinforcements kept the 22nd functioning effectively as a combat unit until very nearly the end of fighting, but the faces and the character of the regiment had inalterably changed in that brief period of intense battle. Over ninety percent of the men and officers in the 22nd's nine rifle companies at the start became casualties. It is here where Rush's real focus lies: examining the process of replacing combat soldiers during battle so that the unit, if not the individuals, can be kept functioning. Numerous charts and graphs delineate the grim mathematics of war, as day by day the numbers of "original" members of the 22nd decline and the quantity of replacements grow in proportion, even though the replacements too suffered horrendous losses. Rush's own experience as a professional combat infantryman illuminates his analysis of what went on in this tiny patch of German forest nearly six decades ago.

As an avid WWII reader and historian, Rob Rush's "Hell in Hurtgen Forest" ranks at the very top of all the WWII books I have read. Although overshadowed by the Battle of the Bulge, the fight in the Hurtgen Forest in November and early December 1944 was the bloodiest of all fought by the 4th Infantry Division and the 22nd Infantry Regiment. Rob captures in great detail the daily actions of the fight and the challenges of leadership and why the men continued to fight as they were hit with casualties that approached 150% in the rifle companies. I highly recommend this excellent book - you will leave it shaking your head and better understanding why we hold our WWII veterans in such high esteem.

The hell that was the Hurtgen was over shadowed by the battle of the Bulge, however the carnage that was endured needs to be told. The book is a masterful account of the bravery of men who fought in tough terrain and inhospitable climates. The book, which draws from first person accounts, tells in great detail the battle as it unfolded, and the horrors of war. While I have read other books on the subject, this gripping, easy to read book is a must for any ETO scholar.

"Hell in Hurtgen Forest" is a simply wonderful piece of work. This book has multiple layers to provide material for a diverse set of readers and students of WWII history.

First, "Hell" is a thoroughly researched study of the battle of the Hurtgen Forest. The first few chapters detail the 4th Infantry Div, 22d Reg in particular and the opposing German LXXIV Corps - their training, makeup and histories leading up to the battle. Approximately the next half of the book goes through the battle in an organized fashion that one can follow the sequence of events on the different fronts. Dr. Rush uses footnotes liberally to support his work and I found this refreshing - details were present but not "messing up" the flow of the text. Rush (or his editors?) also does something I wish other treatises of this type would do: make clear distinctions between Allied and Axis battle groups in a way a developing student of the field can follow. In "Hell" Rush does this by italicizing all German units - thus it is clear when he is writing about a German vs an American group.

Second, Rush, by detailing a single battle of attrition fought over a limited time span has been able to compare and contrast American and German combat replacement systems and battle effectiveness. Other military historians have previously severely criticized the American troop replacement system of WWII and have proposed that combat effectiveness suffered as a result. Dr. Rush provides ample evidence from his analysis of the Battle of the Hurtgen that this previous thesis is at its heart not accurate. In fact, in this one battle of attrition the American system prevailed and won the battle - and Hurtgen is just one example of this. Thus. "Hell" is also a wonderful work of new thinking that challenges conventional wisdom.

Third, "Hell" is a wonderfully written work. While it is not as "flowery" as books by C. Ryan or S. Ambrose, it is clear, concise and well organized. This book was an absolute pleasure to read. Many historical works with this much depth are quite dry and hard reads, not so with "Hell". Five stars!!!!

Rush's book succeeds admirably in shedding new light on the U.S. Army replacement system during World War Two. However, the book has a number of significant flaws that limit its ultimate value. It is the first salvo in an important new debate, but it misses its target.

The great strength of this book is the job it does in bringing the Army replacement system into a new light. Through careful research, Rush is able to show that the system functioned better than its critics have traditionally assumed. Rush illustrates how the Army training program adapted quickly to incorporate lessons learned at considerable cost on the battlefield. Significantly, he also shows how the system made great efforts to return wounded soldiers to their parent units.

That said, the shortcomings of this book are numerous. First, there is the overall structure of the book. Instead of stating his thesis up-front and then proving it over the course of the book, Rush forces his reader to wait to the very end for his hypothesis on why the 22nd Infantry continued to function despite massive losses. Accordingly, it is like reading a 340 page introduction with a 10 page conclusion.

His conclusion is that it was the unit's surviving veterans who provided a core around which the incoming replacements could crytallize into an effective combat unit. Sadly, Rush provides little actual evidence in support of this, and much of what he does cite is contradictory. Given that his own stats show 92% of the regiment's starting soldiers are killed or wounded, he really needed to discuss how his hypothesis worked in fact. He doesn't do this, and the book suffers accordingly. Moreover, he does not explore other contributing factors, such as the traditional naivete of green troops, or how the war's tangible end impacted the willingness of G.I.'s to fight on.

His critique of the German system is disingenuous, inadequate, and simply misses the point. First, the units that he is comparing are just not equivalent. German type '44 Volksgrenadier infantry divisions were not designed to function in the same manner as U.S. infantry divisions, so he is comparing apples and oranges. In a footnote, he states that his critique does not apply to Waffen-SS, panzer, panzergrenadier or fallschirmjager divisions. So, he stacks the deck by only comparing the dregs of the German army to a quality American unit. The 22nd's opponents in the Hurtgen forest were a motley collection of young boys and old men taken from local police departments and fortress battalions; only a few hundred officers and NCOs had any real experience or training. Furthermore, the German system was plain busted by late 1944. The massive casualties suffered by the Germans, particularly in the summer of '44, had simply overwhelmed the system. Therefore, Rush's argument is the intellectual equivalent of complaining about the engine performance of an automobile that was in a head-on collision at 90 m.p.h. It is no surprise that the engine doesn't run well.

The real failure of the German system takes place at the high command level: After '42, German planners should have adjusted to the new reality of increased loss rates. They did not (until it was too late), and ground up their seed corn as a result. They were also hampered by political in-fighting among Goering and Himmler which further crippled an already collapsing replacement system. Rush does not appreciate the strategic dimension of the German failure.

Finally, Rush is a little manipulative with the data. For example, his graphs give the impression of a more intact cadre of experienced soldiers than actually existed. As his footnotes reveal, many of the 22nd's orginial soldiers were wounded in the first couple of weeks in France. Many of these men returned later that fall, but Rush's graphs give the impression that they were with the unit during the whole five months. Rather, the truth is that they had a couple of weeks of combat, were wounded and spent months recovering, then returned to the 22nd. Nor was there much of a 'band of brothers' at the company level. Rush's own charts show almost impossibly high casualty rates for that to occur. In addition, his stats reveal that returning veterans suffered much higher psychological casualty rates than the new replacements. Finally, the important Stouffer study is cited in a highly selective manner, and only when it supports Rush's argument.

Despite these grave shortcomings, Rush's book is still very good. He should use it as the basis for a more in-depth study of how small unit cohesion functioned in the US Army and enabled it to keep fighting despite punishing losses. Barring that, he has improved the image of the US replacement system from 'criminally negligent' to 'merely awful'. Losing 86% of authorized personnel in a battle against some half-trained, malnourished and demoralized (albeit dug-in) boys and old-men is a rather modest triumph. However, the fact that the 22nd Infantry continued to function under such conditions is an important story, and one that needs to be told. Rush has the data to do it, but it will require a more disciplined approach to small unit cohesion; a gaggle of graphs and caricatures of Martin Van Creveld are not enough. He should probably also ditch the critique of the German system and save that for a book unto itself.

"Hell in the Hurtgen Forest" is a superb book about the timeless nature of infantry close combat. I commend it to both professional soldiers and students of history.

What makes this book most unique is the observation that the US individual replacement system, coupled with the US Army policy of keeping its limited number of divisions in the line almost without any break, produced a very effective organization, especially when compared to the worn out German units. This new interpretation of WWII unit effectiveness is worthy of further examination. It certainly caught my attention.

This is a great example of how history should be written at times. I say, at times, because although the book is brilliantly written, for every act of empirical detail that strengthens Rush's thesis, there is a possibility that empiricism drags the narrative down a little, but only a little in Rush's deft hands. But this is no classical narrative of a battle. It is a specific empirical history of a regiment in some hard fighting.

There is a tendancy that once well-worn furrows of known battles are worked over, historians start looking further afield for more obscure battles or greater detail and interpretive analysis. Of late, a lot of historians have been concentrating on so-called "forgotten" battles --- I do not know if I would go so far as to say that about the Hurtgen, but the subsequent events in the Bulge and the Fall of Germany did relegate this battle to a "lesser order" in the minds of many historians. Rush's attempt to rescue the battle and the valour is well appreciated and represents perhaps the Sterling effort of this campaign.

Along the way Rush does an excellent job of demolishing several myths about the German Army --- akin to a belief that they could do no wrong, and were only beaten by mass weight of firepower and a storm of steel. Rush shows that the US really got it right in the area of replacements, constantly filtering reserves into understrength units instead of pulling units from the line to rest and refit. This made for weary and bleak fighting for those that remained in such units -- there was no rest, only the prospect of death, capture, mutilation and, if lucky, a wound that wouldn't kill one, but put one permanently out of action.

Germans let units run down and then amalgamated them with other units, in some cases they did withdraw and reconsolidate some new units.

The US method of supporting and not withdrawing units meant that the old hands could always be present, with ever building combat experience to call upon and to impart to new fills from the reserves. That meant one tough infantry unit. In the case of the 22nd Reg. some of the "old" soldiers had been fighting since June 06th 44.

It is a depressing prospect to realise that the US really had it right to not withdraw units from the line --- it ironically caused less casualties. That was pretty cold comfort to the old infantryman who sometimes knew that they were going into the "death factory" day after day with no prospect for relief.

Rush is right. The US really did have a superior method. I am not so sure that this dispells other so called "myths" of the German superman. German units could probably not be filled in the same way as Allied units anyway, because they simply did not have the men.

Also British and Canadian units also arrived at the same method of support. In the bloody battles of Caen and latter, they had attrition rates much higher than their US counterparts --- in some cases whole regiments were virtually wiped out after 2-3 days of battle. The US method of replacing casualties was also used by the Allies. It was also resented at the time by all parties. I think that Rush reminds us the alternatives to not withdrawing from the line could have been much, much worse, but were universally not recognised at the time from the Soldier's eye level.

Also there is still the disturbing fact that despite the German reserve method being substandard and the average German Landser being sub-par, they still managed to inflict frightful casualties on the flower of American soldiery for extended periods of time. Rush gives us a fresh look at the battle and the ramifications of the US casualty replacement method. How many myths he dispells will be left to the individual reader.

Hell in the Hürtgen Forest examines the performance of the American 22nd Infantry Regiment (4th Infantry Division), which engaged elements of the German LXXIV Corps during what the book's author identifies as "some of the most brutally intense infantry combat in World War II". The purpose of this book, however, is not merely to relate the story of the 22nd Infantry, but in addition to determine why the regiment survived and fought on while its German counterparts eventually disintegrated during the battle. Rush concludes that the personnel replacement systems of the opposing armies were directly responsible for the outcome of the battle.

The author, Robert Sterling Rush, is a retired U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major and holds a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Following the introduction chapter, he organizes the fourteen remaining chapters of his book into three distinct parts - the Environment, the Hürtgenwald (Hürtgen Forest), and Analysis. Within the five chapters of Part I (The Environment), Rush discusses not only the terrain and weather of the Hürtgen Forest, but also deals with the induction, training, leadership, and organization of the opposing forces. The six chapters of Part II (The Hürtgenwald) deal with the details of the battle itself. Lastly, the three chapters of Part III (Analysis) include Rush's discussion of organizational effectiveness, an attempt to answer the question of `What kept the soldiers fighting?', and his conclusions.

During the eighteen days of the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, the 22nd Infantry suffered more than 2,800 casualties, which is about 86% of its normal strength of 3,250. Despite these terrible losses, the 22nd Infantry survived and continued to fight. Why? Rush believes that the regiment's survival was due, in part, to U.S. Army personnel policies that ensured that troop strengths remained high (i.e., the individual replacement system). The German units in the battle suffered from similar rates of attrition, but Rush believes that the German replacement system, which was based on regional recruitment and unit rather than individual replacement, hurt German combat effectiveness.

Rush has produced a well-written and meticulously researched volume, which includes numerous maps, graphs, and charts. He certainly challenges conventional wisdom by praising the individual replacement system that has been so widely criticized by other military historians for the last 25+ years. I do, however, have three problems regarding Rush's conclusions. First, drawing conclusions regarding the American and German replacement systems based only on the experiences of particular units in a single battle seems to be a bit of a stretch. Second, by late 1944 the Germans had been at war for more than five years and their systems of men and material supply had suffered greatly in comparison with the relatively fresh U.S. Army, which might account for some of the apparent success or failure of the American and German replacement systems. Third, though Rush does not mention the Vietnam War, I am curious how he would explain the disintegration of the individual replacement system during that conflict, since he has concluded that the system worked so well during World War II. Despite the problems that I have identified, I recommend this book and believe that it will spark some interesting debate.

Robert Rush does a good job in detailing the story of the 22nd Regiment in the Hürtgen Forest. At times very dry reading, he none the less is able to give a day by day, blow by blow account of the companies of the 22nd Regiment in the meat grinder called Hürtgen. His comparisons between the American G.I.s and his German counterparts are also very interesting.
The statistical part of the book are less enjoyable, but very enlightening, if you can struggle through them. I can't fault the author on his use of statistics to establish and present his facts, but the meat of the book, the actual combat narrative is much more enjoyable.
An excellent book to add to any collection.

This new book is a super review of the 22nd Infantry Regiment's action in the Hurtgen Forest during WWII. It is extremely well documented. Having researched this unit in the National Archives Unit Records I can attest to the excellent documentation that he provides. His thoroughness includes having researched all of the morning reports for all of the units of the 22nd and comparing this with the casualty lists in the Unit Records. By doing this he was able to document 10 or 12 additional men who were lost but not included on the casualty list.

He has done an excellent job with footnoting his references and has studied not only the American records but the German records for the units facing the 22nd Infantry.