Great Quick Notes for the U.S. Army Campaign

books:


	• Siegfried Line 1944-45: Battles on the German frontier (Campaign) Steven Zaloga Osprey Publishing, 2007 - 96 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Siegrried Line

After being part of this campaign, I found this book, very interesting and accurate, a must for History Buffs or someone that was there, its like a Diary of those dark days.

Typical good quality from Osprey

This book is up to the typical high quality expected from Osprey books. It was concise and read well.

My only negative comment would be that the layout of the maps could have been better. I would rather have the maps corresponding to each section BEFORE the words or referenced in them.

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Another Excellent Campaign Summary

Steven J Zaloga's The Siegfried Line Campaign 1944-45, number 181 in Osprey's Campaign series, provides another interesting chapter in his coverage of Western Front battles in the Second World War. This volume primarily covers the U.S. 1st Army's initial efforts to crack the German Westwall defenses in the fall of 1944, resulting in the Battles of Aachen and the Hurtgen Forrest, two actions that were painful attritional slugfests for both sides. Zaloga's narrative is crisp, clean and informative as usual, resulting in another solid campaign summary. This volume nicely complements earlier Osprey volumes on the Lorraine Campaign and the Rhineland, and should be very useful for readers seeking an explanation of events in this area prior to the Battle of the Bulge.

The introductory sections are a bit briefer than usual, probably because this is fairly well covered ground. The exception is the section on Opposing Armies - always a strong point in Zaloga's volumes - and he spells out why U.S. advantages in artillery and air support were reduced by logistic shortages, terrain and weather in the fall of 1944. Field Marshal Model's ability to cobble together a coherent defense of the German border from units shattered in the fighting in France is also nicely presented. For example, there is a photo of a former German S-Boat sailor pressed into infantry service and some discussion of the extreme methods used to cull replacements for the front-line from every nook and cranny of the Third Reich. Also pertinent is General Eisenhower's decision to keep the pressure on the weakened Wehrmacht by a series of limited offensives. The first major narrative piece deals with the U.S. 1st Army efforts to encircle and capture the city of Aachen. Although the U.S. Army succeeded in capturing this first major city in Germany, it should probably be viewed as a German tactical victory of sorts. Model conducted an economy of force defense with a handful of divisions and tied up the bulk of the U.S. 1st Army for nearly six weeks reducing a single fortified city, which gave the bulk of the German 7th Army a period to recuperate.

The next major narrative piece covers the U.S. efforts to clear the Hurtgen Forrest. Although the author does criticize the 1st Army's inability to fully understand the terrain difficulties of fighting in the forest and he regards the diversion of so much effort as wasteful, he avoids outright condemnation. However, the loss of over 20,000 U.S. casualties to clear a non-strategic chunk of forest such as the Hurtgenwald should be viewed as a significant operation-level blunder by the U.S. Army in the Second World War and a clear indication of the poor leadership by senior officers such as General Hodges (1st Army Commander). American senior commanders in the war were virtually all hand-picked by the Chief of Staff (Marshall) and he valued training ability over tactical judgment, which resulted in commanders such as Hodges who were content to fight meat-grinder battles instead of understanding that they needed to apply their army's strengths against the enemy's weaknesses. In retrospect, the U.S. 1st Army was able to penetrate the Siegfried Line and gain some terrain, but Hodges and Bradley lost sight of the fact that their mission was primarily counterforce - to keep the pressure on the German army so it couldn't regroup - not just to seize terrain. The fact that the 1st Army failed to seize the Roer River dams prior to the German Wacht Am Rhine counteroffensive only emphasizes the expenditure of 48,000 U.S. casualties had not captured key objectives or prevented the Germans from re-grouping.

This volume includes five 2-D maps (the strategic situation August 25 - September 11, 1944; the Westwall Defenses in the Aachen Sector; the First Battle of Aachen, September 12-29, 1944; Operation Queen, 16 November - 9 December 1944; the Final Push by VII Corps, 10-16 December 1944) and three 3-D BEV maps (the Second Battle of Aachen; the Hurtgenwald, 2-7 November 1944; Operation Queen). Although the 2-D maps are very good, there are significant chunks of the narrative that are difficult to follow on the maps providing. Furthermore, the 3-D maps are not as good as in other recent Osprey Campaign titles and they have the appearance of a swirled chocolate-colored mush. Compared to the beautiful 3-D maps in Zaloga's Remagen volume, these are not up to par. On the other hand, the three battle scenes by Steve Noon (Aachen street fighting; the Hurtgenwald Defenses; the tank battle at Puffendorf, 17 November 1944) are superb and outclass some of the artwork in other recent Osprey volumes. The author also includes an excellent bibliography.

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Great Quick Notes for the U.S. Army Campaign

As the U.S. Army defines the Siegfried Line, Zaloga and Osprey have done an excellent job of boiling down the essence into less than 100 pages. I consider it a good addition to the Osprey Library and to my own.

Certainly the 600+ page official Army history of this campaign, "United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations - The Siegfried Line Campaign" by Charles B. MacDonald, is a more in-depth and definitive study (available used and new from the U.S. Government Printing Office). However, that said, Zaloga has produced an excellent Cliff Notes version of the official history. In typical Osprey Fashion, the book has excellent illustrations, maps, and photographs. There is even a photo of Kesternich that others and I have tried to pry from the hands of NARA and have failed ...so, once again, many kudos on the photos!

I take exception to the comment that the book is all about Aachen. It is not. I covers the "official" designation of the campaign quite well. Perhaps others will be disappointed that it does not spend more time of the German Westwall fortifications. (See Osprey's "Germany's West Wall - The Siegfried Line for details on the construction of the fortifications themselves.) Or, perhaps it is felt by some that all the combat along the Siegfried Line, which stretched from Nijmegen in the Netherlands to Basil in Switzerland, was not portrayed. However, Zaloga has stayed within the bounds of the "official" U.S. Army History and has written a very creditable account.

Perhaps Osprey's "The Rhineland" by Ken Ford would satisfy those with a desire for a greater scope of the fighting along the German Western Frontier. Or, Osprey's "Arnhem 1944" by Badsey in the north or "Lorrraine 1944" by Zaloga in the south would fulfill those wishing a broader scope. Maybe I'm sounding like an Osprey salesman, I'm not, but I do have to admit that what they have done with military history is one of the great publishing feats of our time.

My one wish is that this book would have one of those Great Osprey illustrated aerial perspective maps of the Huertgen like the one in "The Rhineland."

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Where's the Siegfried Line in here?

I picked up this book because I have a great interest in the battles that took place in the Hurtgenwald and along the Siegfried Line. This time though I was a little disappointed in the work. Why you ask. Well, Mr. Zaloga did a little deception on us. Rather than telling us about the battles for the Siegfried Line (I was hoping for the battles all along the front honestly), Mr. Zaloga focused on the battles for Aachen and the towns surrounding Aachen. The chapters follow the traditional Osprey Campaign format. What I should have looked at though was the section titled The Campaign. In there, Mr. Zaloga tells us what his focus was; The First Battle of Aachen, North of Aachen, Encircling Aachen, the Second Battle of Aachen, Prelude to Operation Queen (really this was the 28th ID's battle for Schmidt, covered very nicely in Follow Me And Die), Operation Queen, Operation Clipper, and Operation Queen: the December Cleanup. Incase you couldn't tell, focus was on the taking of Aachen rather than on the Siegfried Line.

Ok, I've complained enough about how this book should have been labeled the Aachen Campaign. As always, Osprey has great photographs and drawings. I've questioned several of the labels on the pictures (I've seen then labeled differently in other books), specifically the tank destroyers on page 68, but who knows, I can't make out the markings and I wasn't there. For the different sections, Mr. Zagola's strongest were dealing with Operations Queen and Clipper. I was highly disappointed in his section on the 28th ID. He failed to mention Lt. Fleig, the conditions labored under, or how 5th Corp directed the attack to occur. I also found his description on the battles for Aachen to be weak. Sorry.

Rating wise, this book is a 3 star book. My reasons for this includes; limited mentioning of how units breached the Siegfried Line (I wanted to read about the change in tactics), not identifying that the book focused on operations around Aachen, and minor inaccuracies.

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Siegfried Line 1944-45

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