Siegfried Line 1944-45

The campaign on the German frontier in late 1944 was one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the ETO. The Allies first encountered the Siegfried Line -Westwall- fortifications in September 1944, having pursued the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. The border area around Aachen had been fortified with a double line of bunkers, and both the terrain and the weather made things difficult for the Allies. This book focuses on the involvement of the US First and Ninth armies in the six-month fighting, including the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest. The book explains how the controversial strategic pause in the allied Western offensive, although, partly necessary, with the logistical problems on the front, in the end, it allowed a Wehrmacht at the brink of collapse, regroup and make a stubborn defense (and even perform a counter attack at the Ardennes), and in which it would make the allies pay, with hundreds of thousands lives, before surrendering. This book, as usual with the Campaign series, analyse commanders, the planing, equipments and the armies, before and during the battle and it tells the story from both sides, attacker and defender. Full color 3-D ‘bird’s-eye-views’, battle scenes, soldiers or equipment drawings and maps as well as black and white photographs that support's the text.