Thirty thousand American GIs were killed or wounded in the longest battle ever fought by the US Army - a battle that should never have been fought. From September 1944 to February 1945, eight infantry and two armoured divisions were thrown into the "green hell of Hurtgen"--Fifty square miles of hilly, thick woods on the Belgian-German border, full of German soldiers in a deadly network of concrete bunkers. As the butcher's bill mounted, the High Command refused to admit there had been a mistake and the slaughter continued; to capture an objective that had long since lost any strategic importance.

Originally published: London : Leo Cooper, 1989.