In September 1944, three months after the invasion of Normandy, the Allied armies prepared to push the German forces back into their homeland. Just south of the city of Aachen, elements of the U.S. First Army began an advance through the imposing Huertgen Forest. Instead of retreating, as the Allied command anticipated, the German troops prepared an elaborate defense of Huertgen, resulting in a struggle where tanks, infantry, and artillery dueled at close range. The battle for the forest ended abruptly in December, when a sudden German offensive through the Ardennes to the south forced the Allied armies to fall back, regroup, and start their attack again, this time culminating in the collapse of the Nazi regime in May 1945. In The Battle of the Huertgen Forest, Charles B. MacDonald assesses this major American operation, discussing the opposing forces on the eve of the battle and offering a clearly written and well-documented history of the battle and the bitter consequences of the American move into the forest. Drawing on his own combat experience, MacDonald portrays both the American and the German troops with empathy and convincingly demonstrates the flaws in the American strategy. The book provides an insight into command decisions at both local and staff levels and the lessons that can be drawn from one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

During WW II the Command and General Staff Colleges primary mission was to train large numbers of captains and majors to be staff officers in battalions, brigades, divisions, and corps. To that end, the Army provided copies of documents produced by field units to the College. Operations orders, after action reports, intelligence analyses, logistics appraisals, and similar documents are in the Combined Arms Research Library documents collection. The primary focus was documenting operations at the tactical and operational levels of warfare. This is one of those documents.

Recovering rapidly from the shock of German counteroffensives in the Ardennes and Alsace, Allied armies early in January 1945 began an offensive that gradually spread all along the line from the North Sea to Switzerland and continued until the German armies and the German nation were prostrate in defeat. This volume tells the story of that offensive, one which eventually involved more than four and a half million troops, including ninety-one divisions, sixty-one of which were American. The focus of the volume is on the role of the American armies -First, Third, Seventh, Ninth, and, to a lesser extent, Fifteenth- which comprised the largest and most powerful military force the United States has ever put in the field. The role of Allied armies -First Canadian, First French, and Second British- is recounted in sufficient detail to put the role of American armies in perspective, as is the story of tactical air forces in support of the ground troops.

As a newly commissioned Captain of a veteran Army regiment, MacDonald's first combat was war at its most hellish -- the Battle of the Bulge. In this plain-spoken but eloquent narrative we live each minute at MacDonald's side, sharing in all of combat's misery, terror and drama. How this green commander gained his men's loyalty in the snows of war-torn Europe is one of the great, true, unforgettable war stories.