"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 along the Belgian-German border in an attempt to reach the plain of Cologne, where armored divisions would have clear access to Berlin. 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, and shell bursts among the treetops sent lethal splinters into the soldiers below. 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."

Originally published: Philadelphia : Lippincott, 1963.