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Date of the event: December 7, 1941

Description of the event: The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941. The attack hit pearl harbor Hawaii in the united states, just before 8:00 a.m. On Sunday. Rationally, Japan attacked pearl harbor Hawaii because the U.S. had severed all economic relations with japan and was providing material and financial support to China. Japan had been at war with China since 1937. The Japanese believed that once the U.S Pacific fleet was neutralized, all of southeast Asia would be open for conquest. Over the next half hour, Pearl Harbor airfields and and docked ships were subjected to assault with bombs, guns, and torpedoes. The strike resulted in a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan.

Outcome of the event: Following the devastating attack, Congress declared war on Japan, bringing America officially into World War II. The attack killed 2,403 U.S, including 68 civilians, and destroyed or damaged 19 U.S Navy ships, including 8 battleships.

Key Medical issues faced/treatments: From the first realization of the strike, the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen were excelled in personal bravery and in their capacity to put into practice their put together plans. Pearl Harbor had been fortunate in receiving unusual attention from the Surgeon General and the officers who assisted at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in making plans for the Medical Department. When the facilities of the Pearl Harbor hospital had become overcrowded, every effort had been made to add to the bed capacity, equipment, supplies, and personnel of the Hawaiian area. Although the U.S. Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor had a normal bed capacity of approximately 250 beds and was one of the best equipped and staffed of the eighteen hospitals then in commission, a new hospital that would be removed further from military installations and be less subject to destruction in case of air attack had been planned and was actually under construction at the time of the Japanese attack. A total of 132 patients were admitted aboard the Solace in December. About 80 men were given first-aid treatment only. Twenty-eight patients, 26 of whom were not identified, died. The final census on 7 December showed 177 beds occupied and 253 unoccupied.

Links: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/p/pearl-harbor-navy-medical-activities.html

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Midway Atoll, United States Minor Outlying Islands

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Date of the event: June 4 - 7 1942

Description of the event: The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, six months after the Empire of Japans attack on Pearl Harbor. Early on the morning of June 4, aircraft from four Japanese aircraft carriers attacked and severely damaged the US base on Midway. Unknown to the Japanese, the US carrier forces were just to the east of the island and ready for battle. The main force of Japanese ships headed toward Midway include 4 craft carriers,seven battleships, 150 support ships, 248 carrier aircraft and 15 submarines. A force of 109 Japanese aircraft appears over the Atoll they tear into the American base 7:00 a.m. reports of the attack on Midway reached the enterprise, the Flyers scrambled to prepare for the launch, they'll have to fly nearly two hours to reach the Japanese ships. Japan hoped to defeat the US Pacific Fleet and use Midway as a base to attack Pearl Harbor. The main reason for the Japanese attack on Midway was to draw American aircraft carriers out from Pearl Harbor and defeat them in decisive battle.

Outcome of the event: The Japanese lost approximately 3,057 men, four carriers, one cruiser and hundreds of aircraft, while the U.S. lost approximately 362 men, one carrier, one destroyer, and 144 aircraft. The American success at Midway was a major victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy. At the root of the American victory at Midway was U.S. Navy intelligence successfully broke Japanese codes and discovered the Japanese Navy ´ s plan to attack Midway Atoll.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: A doctor remembers the Battle of Midway and began treating the wounded individuals including the Navy. Wounded were everywhere. Some men had one foot or leg off, others had both off. Some were dying, some were dead. Everywhere there was a need for morphine, tourniquets, blankets and first aid. The doctor called for stretcher bearers to get the more seriously wounded to the sick bay where they receive plasma. But the the passageways had been blocked off due to the bomb hits. So they gave the patients morphine, covered the patients with blankets, and did the best they could.

Links: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Midway

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Date of the event: August 7, 1942 - Feb 9, 1943

Description of the event: On August 7, 1942, the U.S. landed Marines on Guadalcanal. The U.S. surprises the Japanese and the landing were easy. The Japanese wanted the Guadalcanal and strove desperately to take it back. Carrier duels and in curious close range, knight actions the U.S. The Navy slugged it out with the Japanese. The U.S. forces were numerically inferior but they hung on, little by little they chopped away at the ships until by the end of the year they have gained command of the sea approaches to the southern Solomon's.

Outcome of event: The Allies success in Guadalcanal ended Japanese expansion effort in the Pacific and placed the Allies in a position of supremacy. The Allies victory had decisively stopped the enemy advance, throwing them from offense to defense. The U.S. forces had reversed the war time strategy of the Japanese Empire.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: The soldiers, sailors, and Marines fighting to hold Guadalcanal. Many of whom had survived the attacks on Pearl Harbor eight months earlier, found themselves battling not only the enemy, but also suffocating heat, intense food shortages and tropical diseases such as dysentery and malaria. The Japanese lost a total of 24,000 men killed in the Battle of Guadalcanal, while the Americans sustained 1,600 killed, 4,200 wounded, and several thousand dead from malaria and other tropical diseases. Morphine was used to treat the wounded soldiers.

Links: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Guadalcanal

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Leyte Gulf Store, Catarman, Northern Samar, Philippines

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Date of the event: October 23 - 26, 1944.

Description of the event: The Battle of Gulf was the largest Naval battle in World War II and by some criteria the largest Naval battle in history, with over 20,000 naval personnel involved. It was fought in waters near the Philippines islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon. Combined American, Australian and Filipino forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy, as part of the invasion of Leyte which aimed to isolate Japan from the colonies that it had occupied in Southeast Asia a vital source of industrial and oil supplies. Battle of World War II that crippled the Japanese Combined Fleet, permitted U.S. invasion of the Philippines, and reinforced the Allies' control of the Pacific. Japan wanted to reclaim the Philippines Island.

Outcome of the event: The combined battles of Leyte Gulf destroyed the Imperial Japanese Navy as an offensive force and decisively led to the defeat of Japan. The U.S. Navy destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers, damaged other ships, and shot down approximately 600 Japanese aircraft, leaving the Japanese Navy with very little carrier-borne air power and few experienced pilots.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: In the end, the aims of the Battle of Leyte Gulf were achieved, but there were heavy U.S. casualties. 16,043 soldiers and 7,270 sailors were killed. The Japanese also suffered tremendous losses, with 419,912 deaths and those injured. Medical supplies stored in locker bunks were used to treat wounded soldiers.

Links: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Leyte-Gulf

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Date of the event: March 26, 1945 - Sep 7, 1945

Description of the event: Okinawa was the site of the last big battle of World War II, the Battle of Okinawa. A lot of Okinawan people died during the battle. Now, the United States has some military bases for soldiers on the different islands of Okinawa. Consisting of four U.S. Army divisions, and three U.S. Marine divisions, the U.S. The Tenth Army executed Operation Iceberg to take the island of Okinawa in preparation for the invasion of mainland Japan. Soldiers and Marines fought for 82 days, finally capturing the island and destroying all resistance on June 22, 1945.

Outcome of the event: The Battle of Okinawa was a victory for the US but resulted in massive casualties on both sides. Japanese forces fought with the same fanaticism the Americans had witnessed in battles. Rather than be taken prisoner, defenders often chose suicide.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: Victory at Okinawa cost more than 49,000 American casualties, including about 12,000 deaths.When the guns fell silent, more than 240,000 people had lost their lives in the campaign for Okinawa. The American loss rate was 35 percent of the force, totaling 49,151 casualties. Of those, 12,520 were killed or missing and 36,631 were wounded in action. Blood and plasma transfusions were used to treat the wounded soldiers

Links: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/okinawa-costs-victory-last-battle#:~:text=Victory%20in%20the%20largest%20battle,and%20the%20costs%20were%20high.&text=On%20June%2022%2C%201945%2C%20the,of%20US%20victory%20on%20Okinawa.

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Anzio beach, Anzio, Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Italy

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Date of the event: Jan 22, 1944 - Jun 5, 1944

Description of the event: Battle of Anzio, World War II battle, fought during the Italian Campaign. Some 50,000 Allied troops staged an amphibious landing at Anzio, 33 miles south of Rome, in an effort to bypass the strong German defenses along the Gustav Line. The British Prime Minister Winston concept was to land two divisions at Anzio, bypassing German forces in central Italy, and take Rome, the strategic objective of the current Battle of Rome.

Outcome of event: The Anzio landing were clearly a failure. While the VI Corps succeeded in outflanking the Gustav Line, the decision to delay the advance on Rome played defensive strengths. As a result, the Allied forces were pinned in the bridgehead for four months.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: During the Battle of Anzio, campaign VI Corps suffered 29,200 combat casualties 4,400 dead, 18,000 wounded and 6,800 missing or captured. There were a further 37,000 non-combat casualties. US Army and German medics attend to a wounded German soldier

Links: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Anzio#:~:text=Battle%20of%20Anzio%2C%20(January%2022,defenses%20along%20the%20Gustav%20Line.

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Battle of Anzio

Part of the Winter Line and the battle for Rome of the Italian Campaign of World War II

Men of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division landing in late January 1944.

Belligerents

United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Kingdom of Italy

Germany
Italian Social Republic

Commanders and leaders

Harold Alexander
Mark W. Clark
John P. Lucas
Lucian K. Truscott

Albert Kesselring
Eberhard von Mackensen

Units involved

5th Army

Army Group C
14th Army

Strength

Initially:
36,000 men
2,300 vehicles
2,700 aircraft
Breakout: 150,000 soldiers and 1,500 guns

Initially:
20,000 men
4,600 men
337 aircraft
Breakout: 135,000 German soldiers + two Italian battalions

Casualties and losses

43,000 men
(7,000 killed, 36,000 wounded or missing)

40,000 men
(5,000 killed, 30,500 wounded or missing, 4,500 prisoner)

The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that took place from January 22, 1944 (beginning with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle) to June 5, 1944 (ending with the capture of Rome). The operation was opposed by German forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno.

The operation was initially commanded by Major General John P. Lucas, of the U.S. Army, commanding U.S. VI Corps with the intention being to outflank German forces at the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome.

The success of an amphibious landing at that location, in a basin consisting substantially of reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended on the element of surprise and the swiftness with which the invaders could build up strength and move inland relative to the reaction time and strength of the defenders. Any delay could result in the occupation of the mountains by the defenders and the consequent entrapment of the invaders. Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, understood that risk, but he did not pass on his appreciation of the situation to his subordinate,[citation needed ] Lucas, who preferred to take time to entrench against an expected counterattack. The initial landing achieved complete surprise with no opposition and a jeep patrol even made it as far as the outskirts of Rome. However, Lucas, who had little confidence in the operation as planned, failed to capitalize on the element of surprise and delayed his advance until he judged his position was sufficiently consolidated and he had sufficient strength.

While Lucas consolidated, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German commander in the Italian theatre, moved every unit he could spare into a defensive ring around the beachhead. His artillery units had a clear view of every Allied position. The Germans also stopped the drainage pumps and flooded the reclaimed marsh with salt water, planning to entrap the Allies and destroy them by epidemic. For weeks a rain of shells fell on the beach, the marsh, the harbour, and on anything else observable from the hills, with little distinction between forward and rear positions.

After a month of heavy but inconclusive fighting, Lucas was relieved and sent home. His replacement was Major General Lucian Truscott, who had previously commanded the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. The Allies broke out in May. But, instead of striking inland to cut lines of communication of the German Tenth Army's units fighting at Monte Cassino, Truscott, on Clark's orders, reluctantly turned his forces north-west towards Rome, which was captured on June 4, 1944. As a result, the forces of the German Tenth Army fighting at Cassino were able to withdraw and rejoin the rest of Kesselring's forces north of Rome, regroup, and make a fighting withdrawal to his next major prepared defensive position on the Gothic Line.

At the end of 1943, following the Allied invasion of Italy, Allied forces were bogged down at the Gustav Line, a defensive line across Italy south of the strategic objective of Rome. The terrain of central Italy had proved ideally suited to defense, and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring took full advantage.

Operation Shingle was originally conceived by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in December 1943, as he lay recovering from pneumonia in Marrakesh. His concept was to land two divisions at Anzio, bypassing German forces in central Italy, and take Rome, the strategic objective of the current Battle of Rome. By January he had recovered and was badgering his commanders for a plan of attack, accusing them of not wanting to fight but of being interested only in drawing pay and eating rations. General Harold Alexander, commander of the Allied Armies in Italy, had already considered such a plan since October using five divisions. However, the 5th Army did not have the troops nor the means to transport them. Clark proposed landing a reinforced division to divert German troops from Monte Cassino. This second landing, however, instead of failing similarly[clarification needed ], would hold "the shingle" for a week in expectation of a breakthrough at Cassino, and so the operation was named Shingle.

The Anzio beachhead is at the northwestern end of a tract of reclaimed marshland, formerly the Pontine Marshes, now the Pontine Fields (Agro Pontino). Previously uninhabitable due to mosquitoes carrying malaria, in Roman times armies marched as quickly as possible across it on the military road, the Via Appia. The marsh was bounded on one side by the sea and on others by mountains: the Monti Albani, the Monti Lepini, the Monti Ausoni and further south the Monti Aurunci (where the allies had been brought to a halt before Monte Cassino). Overall these mountains are referenced by the name Monti Laziali, the mountains of Lazio, the ancient Latium. Invading armies from the south had the choice of crossing the marsh or taking the only other road to Rome, the Via Latina, running along the eastern flanks of the Monti Laziali, risking entrapment. The marshes were turned into cultivatable land in the 1930s under Benito Mussolini. Canals and pumping stations were built to remove the brackish water from the land. These canals divided the land into personal tracts with new stone houses for colonists from north Italy. Mussolini also founded the five cities destroyed by the battle.

When Lucian Truscott's 3rd Division was first selected for the operation, he pointed out to Clark that the position was a death trap and there would be no survivors. Agreeing, Clark canceled the operation, but Prime Minister Churchill revived it. Apparently the two allies had different concepts: the Americans viewed such a landing as another distraction from Cassino, but if they could not break through at Cassino, the men at Anzio would be trapped. Churchill and the British high command envisioned an outflanking movement ending with the capture of Rome. Mediterranean Theatre commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, leaving to take command of Operation Overlord, left the decision up to Churchill with a warning about German unpredictability.

The final plan called for Lucas to lead the US VI Corps in a landing in the Anzio area, followed by an advance into the Alban Hills, to cut German communications and "threaten the rear of the German XIV Panzer Corps"[citation needed ] (under Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin). It was hoped that such an advance would draw German forces away from the Monte Cassino area and facilitate an Allied breakthrough there.

Planners argued that if Kesselring (in charge of German forces in Italy) pulled troops out of the Gustav Line to defend against the Allied assault, then Allied forces would be able to break through the line; if Kesselring didn't pull troops out of the Gustav Line, then Operation Shingle would threaten to capture Rome and cut off the German units defending the Gustav Line. Should Germany have adequate reinforcements available to defend both Rome and the Gustav Line, the Allies felt that the operation would nevertheless be useful in engaging forces which could otherwise be committed on another front. The operation was officially canceled on December 18, 1943. However, it was later reselected.

Clark did not feel he had the numbers on the southern front to exploit any breakthrough. His plan therefore was relying on the southern offensive drawing Kesselring's reserves in and providing the Anzio force the opportunity to break inland quickly. This would also reflect the orders he had received from Alexander to "...carry out an assault landing on the beaches in the vicinity of Rome with the object of cutting the enemy lines of communication and threatening the rear of the German XIV Corps [on the Gustav Line]." However, his written orders to Lucas did not really reflect this. Initially Lucas had received orders to "1. Seize and secure a beachhead in the vicinity of Anzio 2. Advance and secure Colli Laziali [the Alban Hills] 3. Be prepared to advance on Rome". However, Clark's final orders stated "...2. Advance on Colli Laziali" giving Lucas considerable flexibility as to the timing of any advance on the Alban Hills. It is likely that the caution displayed by both Clark and Lucas was to some extent a product of Clark's experiences at the tough battle for the Salerno beach head and Lucas' natural caution stemming from his lack of experience in battle.

Neither Clark nor Lucas had full confidence in either their superiors or the operational plan. Along with most of the Fifth Army staff they felt that Shingle was properly a two corps or even a full army task. A few days prior to the attack, Lucas wrote in his diary, "They will end up putting me ashore with inadequate forces and get me in a serious jam... Then, who will get the blame?" and "[The operation] has a strong odour of Gallipoli and apparently the same amateur was still on the coach's bench." The "amateur" can only have referred to Winston Churchill, architect of the disastrous Gallipoli landings of World War I and personal advocate of Shingle.

One of the problems with the plan was the availability of landing ships. The American commanders in particular were determined that nothing should delay the Normandy invasion and the supporting landings in southern France. Operation Shingle would require the use of landing ships necessary for these operations. Initially Shingle was to release these assets by January 15. However, this being deemed problematic, President Roosevelt granted permission for the craft to remain until February 5.

Only enough tank landing ships (LSTs) to land a single division were initially available to Shingle. Later, at Churchill's personal insistence, enough were made available to land two divisions. Allied intelligence thought that five or six German divisions were in the area, although U.S. 5th Army intelligence severely underestimated the German 10th Army's fighting capacity at the time, believing many of their units would be worn out after the defensive battles fought since September.

Task Force 81

Allied forces landed: approx. 40,000 soldiers, and 5,000+ vehicles

Naval losses: 2 light cruisers, 3 destroyers, 2 minesweepers, 1 hospital ship

"Peter" Force

Rear Admiral Thomas Hope Troubridge
Comprising 2 light cruisers (HMS Orion, HMS Spartan), 12 destroyers, 2 anti-aircraft/fighter director ships, 2 gunboats, 6 minesweepers, 4 transports, 63 landing craft, 6 patrol craft, 1 oiler, 1 net tender, 2 tugs, 4 hospital ships, 1 submarine

Landed "Peter" Beach, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Anzio:

British 1st Infantry Division (Major General W.R.C. Penney)

2nd Infantry Brigade

3rd Infantry Brigade

24th Guards Brigade

1st Reconnaissance Regiment, Reconnaissance Corps

2/7th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment

2nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

19th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

67th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

81st Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery

90th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery

23rd Field Company, Royal Engineers

238th Field Company, Royal Engineers

248th Field Company, Royal Engineers

6th Field Park Company, Royal Engineers

1st Bridging Platoon, Royal Engineers

1st Divisional Signals Regiment, Royal Corps of Signals

46th (Liverpool Welsh) Royal Tank Regiment

2nd Special Service Brigade (partial) (Brigadier R.J.F. Tod)

No 1, 2 & 3 Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps

Ranger Group

Captain E.C.L. Turner, RN
Comprising 1 transport, 1 submarine chaser, 7 landing craft

Attacked the port of Anzio:

Rear Admiral Lowry
Comprising 2 light cruisers (USS Brooklyn, HMS Penelope), 11 destroyers, 2 destroyer escorts, 24 minesweepers, 166 landing craft, 20 subchasers, 3 tugs, 1 submarine, multiple salvage ships

Landed "X-Ray" Beach on the coast east of Nettuno, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Anzio:

The Fifth Army's attack on the Gustav Line began on January 16, 1944, at Monte Cassino. The operation failed to break through, but it partly succeeded in its primary objective. Heinrich von Vietinghoff, commanding the Gustav Line, called for reinforcements, and Kesselring transferred the 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions from Rome.

Initial landings

The landings began on January 22, 1944.

Although resistance had been expected, as seen at Salerno during 1943, the initial landings were essentially unopposed, with the exception of desultory strafing runs.

By midnight, 36,000 soldiers and 3,200 vehicles had landed on the beaches. Thirteen Allied troops were killed, and 97 wounded; about 200 Germans had been taken as POWs. The 1st Division penetrated 2 miles (3 km) inland, the Rangers captured Anzio's port, the 509th PIB captured Nettuno, and the 3rd Division penetrated 3 miles (5 km) inland.

In the first days of operations, the command of the Italian resistance movement had a meeting with the Allied General Headquarters: it offered to guide the Allied Force through the Alban Hills territory, but the Allied Command refused the proposal.

It is clear that Lucas' superiors expected some kind of offensive action from him. The point of the landing was to turn the German defences on the Winter Line, taking advantage of their exposed rear and hopefully panicking them into retreating northwards past Rome. However, Lucas instead poured more men and material into his tiny bridgehead, and strengthened his defences.

Winston Churchill was clearly displeased with this action. He said: "I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat into the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale".

Lucas' decision remains a controversial one. Noted military historian John Keegan wrote, "Had Lucas risked rushing at Rome the first day, his spearheads would probably have arrived, though they would have soon been crushed. Nevertheless he might have 'staked out claims well inland.' "However, Lucas did not have confidence in the strategic planning of the operation. Also, he could certainly argue that his interpretation of his orders from Clark was not an unreasonable one. With two divisions landed, and facing two or three times that many Germans, it would have been reasonable for Lucas to consider the beachhead insecure. But according to Keegan, Lucas's actions "achieved the worst of both worlds, exposing his forces to risk without imposing any on the enemy."

Kesselring was informed of the landings at 3 a.m. January 22. Although the landings came as a surprise, Kesselring had made contingency plans to deal with possible landings at all the likely locations. All the plans relied on his divisions each having previously organised a motorized rapid reaction unit ( Kampfgruppe) which could move speedily to meet the threat and buy time for the rest of the defenses to get in place. At 5 a.m. he initiated Operation "Richard" and ordered the Kampfgruppe of 4th Parachute Division and the Hermann Göring Panzer Division to defend the roads leading from Anzio to the Alban Hills via Campoleone and Cisterna whilst his plans expected some 20,000 defending troops to have arrived by the end of the first day. In addition, he requested that OKW send reinforcements, and in response to this they ordered the equivalent of more than three divisions from France, Yugoslavia, and Germany whilst at the same time releasing to Kesselring a further three divisions in Italy which had been under OKW's direct command. Later that morning, he ordered General Eberhard von Mackensen ( Fourteenth Army) and General Heinrich von Vietinghoff ( Tenth Army - Gustav Line) to send him additional reinforcements.

The German units in the immediate vicinity had in fact been dispatched to reinforce the Gustav Line only a few days earlier. All available reserves from the southern front or on their way to it were rushed toward Anzio and Nettuno; these included the 3rd Panzer Grenadier and 71st Infantry Divisions, and the bulk of the Luftwaffe's Hermann Göring Panzer Division. Kesselring initially considered that a successful defence could not be made if the Allies launched a major attack on January 23 or January 24. However, by the end of January 22, the lack of aggressive action convinced him that a defence could be made. Nevertheless, few additional defenders arrived on January 23, although the arrival on the evening of January 22 of Lieutenant General Alfred Schlemm and his 1st Parachute Corps headquarters brought greater organisation and purpose to the German defensive preparations. By January 24, the Germans had over 40,000 troops in prepared defensive positions.

Three days after the landings, the beachhead was surrounded by a defence line consisting of three divisions: The 4th Parachute Division to the west, the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division to the center in front of Alban Hills, the Hermann Göring Panzer Division to the east.

Von Mackensen's 14th Army assumed overall control of the defence on January 25. Elements of eight German divisions were employed in the defence line around the beachhead, and five more divisions were on their way to the Anzio area. Kesselring ordered an attack on the beachhead for January 28, though it was postponed to February 1.

Liberty ships, which were never intended as warships, were involved in some fighting during the battle of Anzio. On 22 to 30 January 1944 the SS Lawton B. Evans was under repeated bombardment from shore batteries and aircraft throughout an eight-day period. It endured a prolonged barrage of shrapnel, machine-gun fire and bombs. The gun crew fought back with shellfire and shot down five German planes.

Further troop movements including the arrival of U.S. 45th Infantry Division and U.S. 1st Armored Division, brought Allied forces total on the beachhead to 69,000 men, 508 guns and 208 tanks by January 29, whilst the total defending Germans had risen to 71,500. Lucas initiated a two-pronged attack on January 30. While one force was to cut Highway 7 at Cisterna before moving east into the Alban Hills, a second was to advance northeast up the Via Anziate towards Campoleone.

Campoleone - In heavy fighting British 1st Division made ground but failed to take Campoleone and ended the battle in an exposed salient stretching up the Via Anziate.

Cisterna - The main attack by the U.S. 3rd Division captured ground up to 3 miles (4.8 km) deep on a seven-mile wide front, but failed to break through or capture Cisterna. On the right, ahead of the main assault, two Ranger battalions made a daring covert advance towards Cisterna (see Battle of Cisterna). Due to faulty intelligence, when daylight arrived they were engaged and cut off. A brutal battle with elements of the Hermann Göring division followed. Rangers began surrendering individually or in small groups prompting others, acting on their own authority, to shoot them. Of the 767 men in the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions, 6 returned to the Allied lines and 761 were killed or captured.

By early February, German forces in Fourteenth Army numbered some 100,000 troops organised into two Army Corps, the 1st Parachute Corps under Schlemm and the LXXVI Panzer Corps under Lieutenant General Traugott Herr. Allied forces by this time totalled 76,400 (including the recently arrived British 56th Infantry Division, under Major-General Gerald Templer, which arrived complete on February 16). After making exploratory probes on the Campoleone salient on the afternoon of February 3 the German forces launched a full counterattack at 23:00 in order to reduce the salient and "iron out" the front line. Von Mackensen had planned for the salient to be ground away rather than employing a rapid, focused thrust to cut it off. Some hours after the attack started the coherence of the front line had been completely shattered, and the fighting for the salient had given way to small unit actions, swaying back and forth through the gullies. In the morning of February 4 the situation was becoming more serious, with the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards (of 24th Guards Brigade), only having one cohesive rifle company left and on the opposite side of the salient, the 6th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders (of 2nd Brigade) was beginning to crumble and later lost three complete companies as prisoners.

Even though the base of the salient was nearly broken, Lucas was able to bolster the British 1st Division's defenses with the newly arrived 168th Brigade (from the 56th Division, containing 1st Battalion, London Irish Rifles, 1st Battalion, London Scottish, 10th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment). The 3rd Brigade had been tasked with holding the tip of the salient 2 miles long and 1,000 yards wide on the road going north of Campoleone, but after the German attacks in the early hours of 4 February, the 2nd Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, 1st Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry and 1st Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment (all of 3rd Brigade) had been cut off and were surrounded in the pocket. They held the line all day, taking heavy casualties, but were eventually ordered to pull back and made a fighting retreat at 5pm to the Factory with the aid of artillery, and a successful assault launched by the London Scottish, of 168th Brigade, supported by the 46th Royal Tank Regiment (46 RTR).

From February 5 to February 7 both sides employed heavy artillery concentrations and bombers to disrupt the other side and at 21:00 on February 7 the Germans renewed their attack. Once more the fighting was fierce and they managed to infiltrate between the 5th Battalion, Grenadier Guards (24th Guards Brigade) and the 2nd Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment (2nd Brigade) and nearly surrounded them; it was during this period that Major William Sidney, a company commander in the 5th Grenadier Guards, was awarded the Victoria Cross. Slowly the Allies were forced to give ground and by February 10 they had been pushed out of the salient. Lucas ordered attacks on February 11 to regain the lost ground but the Germans, forewarned by a radio intercept, repelled the Allies' poorly coordinated attack.

On February 16, the Germans launched a new offensive ( Operation Fischfang) down the line of the Via Anziate, supported by Tiger tanks. They overran the 167th Brigade, of the recently arrived 56th (London) Division, and virtually destroyed X Company of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, which was reduced from around 125 down to a single officer and 10 other ranks and Y Company was down to one officer and 10 men. One of the men killed was Second Lieutenant Eric Waters, whose son Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, created a song (When the Tigers Broke Free) in memory of his father and describes his death.

By February 18, after desperate fighting, the Allies' Final Beachhead Line (prepared defenses more or less on the line of the original beachhead) was under attack. Numerous attacks were launched on 1st Battalion, Loyal Regiment (2nd Brigade) and they lost a company, overrun, and the day after had suffered 200 casualties. On the same day Major-General Ronald Penney, General Officer Commanding (GOC) British 1st Division, had been wounded by shellfire and the division was temporarily commanded by Major-General Templer, GOC 56th (London) Division, which had arrived complete. However, a counterattack using VI Corps' reserves halted the German advance, and on February 20, Fischfang petered out with both sides exhausted. During Fischfang the Germans had sustained some 5,400 casualties, the Allies 3,500. Both had suffered nearly 20,000 casualties each since the first landings, and it was "far the highest density of destruction in the Italian campaign, perhaps in the whole war". Also on February 18 while returning to Anzio the light cruiser HMS Penelope was struck by two torpedoes and sunk with a loss of 417 men. Despite the exhausted state of the troops, Hitler insisted that 14th Army should continue to attack. Despite the misgivings of both Kesselring and von Mackensen, a further assault was mounted on February 29, this time on LXXVI Panzer Corps' front around Cisterna. This push achieved little except to generate a further 2,500 casualties for the 14th Army.

Some RSI Italian units fought in the Anzio-Nettuno area, especially since March; the land units were part of the German 14th Army: only the paratroopers of the "Nembo" Battalion were there since February, participating in the German counterattack. In March the infantrymen of the "Barbarigo" Battalion (from Decima Flottiglia MAS) joined the frontline along the Canale Mussolini.

Churchill had continued to bridle at Lucas' perceived passivity. He had written on February 10 to General Alexander encouraging him to exert his authority and Alexander had visited the beachhead on February 14 to tell Lucas he wished for a breakout as soon as the tactical situation allowed. After his visit Alexander wrote to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke, saying:

I am disappointed with VI Corps Headquarters. They are negative and lacking in the necessary drive and enthusiasm to get things done. They appeared to have become depressed by events.

Lucas wrote in his diary on February 15:

I am afraid that the top side is not completely satisfied with my work... They are naturally disappointed that I failed to chase the Hun out of Italy but there was no military reason why I should have been able to do so. In fact there is no military reason for Shingle.

On February 16 at a high level conference hosted by Alexander and attended by Mark W. Clark and Henry Maitland Wilson, commander Allied Force Headquarters it was decided to appoint two deputies under Lucas, Lucian Truscott and the British Major-General Vyvyan Evelegh. On February 22, Clark replaced Lucas with Truscott, appointing Lucas deputy commander Fifth Army until such time as a suitable job could be found for him back in the United States.

Both sides had realised that no decisive result could be achieved until the spring and reverted to a defensive posture involving aggressive patrolling and artillery duels whilst they worked to rebuild their fighting capabilities. In anticipation of the following spring, Kesselring ordered the preparation of a new defence line, the Caesar C line, behind the line of beachhead running from the mouth of the river Tiber just south of Rome through Albano, skirting south of the Alban Hills to Valmontone and across Italy to the Adriatic coast at Pescara, behind which 14th Army and, to their left, 10th Army might withdraw when the need arose. Meanwhile, Lucian Truscott, who had been promoted from the command of U.S. 3rd Infantry Division to replace Lucas as commander of VI Corps on February 22, worked with his staff on the plans for a decisive attack as part of a general offensive which Alexander was planning for May and which would include a major offensive on the Gustav Line, Operation Diadem. The objective of the plan was to fully engage Kesselring's armies with a major offensive and remove any prospect of the Germans withdrawing forces from Italy to redeploy elsewhere. It was also intended to trap the bulk of the German 10th Army between the Allied forces advancing through the Gustav Line and VI Corps thrusting inland from Anzio.

In March, the 2nd Italian SS "Vendetta" Battalion and 29th Italian SS Rifle Battalion were sent to fight against the Anglo-American forces at the Anzio beachhead. Dispersed among German battalions, the German commanding officers later gave the Italians companies favourable reports. Members of former Blackshirt Lieutenant-Colonel Degli Oddi's "Vendetta" helped defeat a determined effort by the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division to overrun their positions and captured a number of prisoners.[citation needed ] Their performance at Anzio led to designation as units of the Waffen-SS, with all the duties and rights that that entailed.

The next few weeks saw many changes in divisions on both sides. The U.S. 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had fought with distinction but suffered heavy losses, was withdrawn to England on 23 March 1944. Also in March the U.S. 34th Infantry Division and in early May, U.S. 36th Infantry Division, had arrived at Anzio. On the British side the 24th Guards Brigade of British 1st Infantry Division was replaced in the first week of March by 18th Infantry Brigade (from British 1st Armoured Division in North Africa). The Guards Brigade had suffered devastating casualties (nearly 2,000 of an initial strength of over 2,500) in just less than two months at Anzio. In late March the 56th (London) Infantry Division had also been relieved, after sustaining very heavy losses (one of its battalions - 7th Ox and Bucks of 167th (London) Brigade - had been reduced from 1,000 to 60), by British 5th Infantry Division. By late May, there were some 150,000 Allied troops in the bridgehead, including five U.S. and two British divisions, facing five German divisions. The Germans were well dug into prepared defenses, but were weak in numbers of officers and NCOs and, by the time of the late May offensive, lacked any reserves (which had all been sent south to the Gustav fighting).

Despite Alexander's overall plan for Diadem requiring VI Corps to strike inland and cut Route 6, Clark asked Truscott to prepare alternatives and to be ready to switch from one to another at 48 hours' notice. Of the four scenarios prepared by Truscott, Operation Buffalo called for an attack through Cisterna, into the gap in the hills and to cut Route 6 at Valmontone. Operation Turtle on the other hand foresaw a main thrust to the left of the Alban Hills taking Campoleone, Albano and on to Rome. On May 5, Alexander selected Buffalo and issued Clark with orders to this effect.

However, Clark was determined that VI Corps should strike directly for Rome as evidenced in his later writing: "We not only wanted the honor of capturing Rome, but felt that we deserved it... Not only did we intend to become the first army to seize Rome from the south, but we intended to see that people at home knew that it was the Fifth Army that did the job, and knew the price that had been paid for it." He argued to Alexander that VI Corps did not have the strength to trap the German 10th Army and Alexander, instead of making his requirements clear, was conciliatory and gave the impression that a push on Rome was still a possibility if Buffalo ran into difficulties. On May 6, Clark informed Truscott that "..the capture of Rome is the only important objective and to be ready to execute Turtle as well as Buffalo".

Truscott's planning for Buffalo was meticulous: British 5th Division and 1st Division on the left were to attack along the coast and up the Via Anziate to pin the German 4th Parachute, 65th Infantry and 3rd Panzergrenadier in place whilst the U.S. 45th Infantry, 1st Armored and 3rd Infantry Divisions would launch the main assault, engaging the German 362nd and 715th Infantry Divisions and striking towards Campoleone, Velletri and Cisterna respectively. On the Allies' far right, the 1st Special Service Force would protect the American assault's flank.

At 5:45 a.m. May 23, 1944, 1,500 Allied artillery pieces commenced bombardment. Forty minutes later the guns paused as attacks were made by close air support and then resumed as the infantry and armour moved forward. The first day's fighting was intense: the 1st Armored Division lost 100 tanks and 3rd Infantry Division suffered 955 casualties. The Germans suffered too, with the 362nd Infantry Division estimated to have lost 50% of its fighting strength.

Mackensen had been convinced that the Allies' main thrust would be up the Via Anziate, and the ferocity of the British feint on May 23 and 24 did nothing to persuade him otherwise. Kesselring, however, was convinced that the Allies' intentions were to gain Route 6 and ordered the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, resting 150 miles (240 km) away at Livorno, to Valmontone to hold open Route 6 for the Tenth Army, which was retreating up this road from Cassino.

In the afternoon of May 25, Cisterna finally fell to 3rd Division who had to go house to house winkling out the German 362nd Infantry which had refused to withdraw and, as a consequence, had virtually ceased to exist by the end of the day. By the end of May 25, 3rd Infantry were heading into the Velletri gap near Cori, and elements of 1st Armored had reached within 3 miles (4.8 km) of Valmontone and were in contact with units of the Herman Göring Division which were just starting to arrive from Leghorn. Although VI Corps had suffered over 3,300 casualties in the three days fighting, Operation Buffalo was going to plan, and Truscott was confident that a concerted attack by 1st Armored and 3rd Infantry Divisions the next day would get his troops astride Route 6.

On the evening of May 25, Truscott received new orders from Clark via his Operations Officer, Brigadier General Don Brand. These were, in effect, to implement Operation Turtle and turn the main line of attack 90 degrees to the left. Most importantly, although the attack towards Valmontone and Route 6 would continue, 1st Armored were to withdraw to prepare to exploit the planned breakthrough along the new line of attack leaving 3rd Division to continue towards Valmontone with 1st Special Service Force in support. Clark informed Alexander of these developments late in the morning of May 26 by which time the change of orders was a fait accompli.

At the time, Truscott was shocked, writing later

...I was dumbfounded. This was no time to drive to the north-west where the enemy was still strong; we should pour our maximum power into the Valmontone Gap to ensure the destruction of the retreating German Army. I would not comply with the order without first talking to General Clark in person. ... [However] he was not on the beachhead and could not be reached even by radio... such was the order that turned the main effort of the beachhead forces from the Valmontone Gap and prevented destruction of the German Tenth Army. On the 26th the order was put into effect.

He went on to write

There has never been any doubt in my mind that had General Clark held loyally to General Alexander's instructions, had he not changed the direction of my attack to the north-west on May 26, the strategic objectives of Anzio would have been accomplished in full. To be first in Rome was a poor compensation for this lost opportunity.

On May 26, while the VI Corps was initiating its difficult maneuver, Kesselring threw elements of four divisions into the Velletri gap to stall the advance on Route 6. For four days they slugged it out against 3rd Division until finally withdrawing on May 30, having kept Route 6 open and allowed seven divisions from 10th Army to withdraw and head north of Rome.

On the new axis of attack little progress was made until 1st Armored were in position on May 29, when the front advanced to the main Caesar C Line defences. Nevertheless, an early breakthrough seemed unlikely until on May 30 Major General Fred L. Walker's 36th Division found a gap in the Caesar Line at the join between 1st Parachute Corps and LXXVI Panzer Corps. Climbing the steep slopes of Monte Artemisio they threatened Velletri from the rear and obliged the defenders to withdraw. This was a key turning point, and von Mackensen offered his resignation which Kesselring accepted.

Raising the pressure further, Clark assigned U.S. II Corps which, fighting its way along the coast from the Gustav Line, had joined up with VI Corps on May 25 to attack around the right hand side of the Alban Hills and advance along the line of Route 6 to Rome.

On June 2 the Caesar Line collapsed under the mounting pressure, and 14th Army commenced a fighting withdrawal through Rome. On the same day Hitler, fearing another Stalingrad, had ordered Kesselring that there should be "no defence of Rome". Over the next day, the rearguards were gradually overwhelmed, and Rome was entered in the early hours of June 4 with Clark holding an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Town Hall on the Capitoline Hill that morning. He ensured the event was a strictly American affair by stationing military police at road junctions to refuse entry to the city by British military personnel.

Although controversy continues regarding what might have happened if Lucas had been more aggressive from the start, most commentators agree that the initial plan for Anzio was flawed. They question whether the initial landing of just over two infantry divisions, with no supporting armour, had the strength to achieve the objectives: of cutting Route 6 and then holding off the inevitable counterattacks that would come, as Kesselring redeployed his forces.

Volume 5 of Churchill's The Second World War is riddled with implied criticism of Lucas, blaming the failure on his caution. After the war, Kesselring gave his evaluation:

It would have been the Anglo-American doom to overextend themselves. The landing force was initially weak, only a division or so of infantry, and without armour. It was a halfway measure of an offensive; that was your basic error.

Furthermore, Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander, in his Official Dispatch, stated, "The actual course of events was probably the most advantageous in the end."

Churchill defended the operation and believed that sufficient forces were available. He had clearly made great political efforts to procure certain resources, especially the extra LSTs needed to deliver a second division to shore, but also specific units useful to the attack such as with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He argued that even regardless of the tactical outcome of the operation, there was immediate strategic benefit with regard to the wider war. After the landings, the German High Command dropped its plans to transfer five of Kesselring's best divisions to Northwestern Europe. That obviously benefited the upcoming Operation Overlord. Churchill also had to ensure the British-dominated forces in Italy were contributing to the war at a time when the Soviet Red Army were suffering tremendous losses on the Eastern Front.

Because of Clark's change of plan, Operation Diadem (during which the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army sustained 44,000 casualties) failed in its objective of destroying the German 10th Army. It also condemned the Allies to another year of bloody combat in Italy, notably around the Gothic Line from August 1944 through March 1945.

The greatest loss was that if the U.S. Army VI Corps main effort had continued on the Valmontone axis from May 26, Clark could probably have reached Rome more quickly than by the route northwest from Cisterna. The VI Corps could also have cut Highway 6 and then put much more pressure on the 10th Army than it actually did.

Alan Whicker who as a war correspondent with the British Army's Film and Photo Unit, and who was present during the fighting, later said:

After breaking out of Anzio, Alexander's plan was for the Fifth Army to drive east to cut Kesselring's escape route to the north and trap much of his Tenth and Fourteenth Armies. The operation started well, but then suddenly, when leading troops were only six kilometers from closing their trap at Frosinone, the Fifth Army was re-directed and sent north towards Rome. The trap was left open. General Mark Clark was so eager that the world should see pictures showing him as the liberator of Rome, that he allowed the armies of a delighted Kesselring to escape.

He had ignored the orders of Field Marshall Alexander in a decision as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate.

This, vain-glorious blunder, the worst of the entire war, lost us a stunning victory, lengthened the war by many months and earned Mark Clark the contempt of other American and British generals. They saw an operation that could have won the war in Italy, thrown away at the cost of many Allied lives, because of the obsession and vanity of one man.

If General Mark Clark had been in the German Army, Hitler would have had him shot.

Brigadier General (Lieutenant colonel at the time) Felix L. Sparks 3rd Battalion-157th infantry regiment-45th infantry division, arguably the most vital soldier to the success of the battle of Anzio, principal character of historically accurate book titled "The Liberator" and one of the first US Army members to arrive at Dachau.

British Actor Christopher Lee Participated in this battle in the No. 260 Squadron RAF.

James Arness, actor best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon on the television series for 20 years. Arness served in the United States Army during World War II and was severely wounded on the frontline of Anzio, leading to a lifelong slight limp.

James Chichester-Clark, Baron Moyola, a newly commissioned officer serving in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards of 24th Guards Brigade of British 1st Infantry Division, who was later the fifth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and eighth leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Chester Cruikshank, twice United States hammer throw champion, received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in the Anzio-Nettuno area.

Denis Healey, later a Labour Party Defence Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the Military Landing Officer for the British assault brigade at Anzio.

Hamish Henderson, noted Scottish communist and folklorist, was an intelligence officer at Anzio, where he interrogated German prisoners. It was at Anzio that he heard the tune "The Bloody Fields of Flanders", to which he later set alternative Scottish national and internationalist anthem "Freedom Come-All-Ye".

Bill Mauldin, noted cartoonist, creator of Willie and Joe, who appeared in the American Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, was in the Anzio-Nettuno area, serving with the 45th Infantry Division.

Audie Murphy, Hollywood actor. Murphy became the most decorated United States combat soldier in United States military history. He received the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest award for valor, along with 32 additional U.S. medals. He served with Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.

Major William Sidney, awarded the Victoria Cross for actions with the 5th Battalion, Grenadier Guards in the Anzio beachhead. Sidney's father in law, Lord Gort, also had been awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

BBC reporter Alan Whicker was at Anzio as a member of the British Army Film and Photo Unit. His 2004 documentary Whicker's War describes his experiences there.

William Woodruff (1916-2008), writer and historian, was a Major in the 24th Guards Brigade of the British 1st Infantry Division at Anzio. His book 'Vessel of Sadness' is based on his experience of the battle.

Eric Fletcher Waters (1913-1944), the father of Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters and a 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers, died at Anzio. Waters' death and the battle inspired his musician son to write several songs over his career, including "When The Tigers Broke Free" for the band's 1982 film, Pink Floyd - The Wall.

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Battle of Anzio Part of the Winter Line and the battle for Rome of the Italian Campaign of World War II Men of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division landing in late January 1944. Belligerents United States United Kingdom Canada Kingdom of Italy Germany Italian Social Republic Commanders and leaders Harold Alexander Mark W.

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Date of the event: June 6, 1944

Description of the event: Early on 6 June, Allied airborne forces parachuted into drop zones across northern France. Ground troops then landed across five assault beaches -Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a foothold along the coast and could begin their advance into France. The D-Day operation of June 6, 1944, brought together the land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history.

Outcome of event: Fighting by the brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the allied forces western front, and Russian forces on the eastern front, led to the defeat of German Nazi forces.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: The paratroopers were badly scattered. Many were injured and killed during the attack, and much of their equipment was lost, but the brave paratroopers fought fiercely, causing confusion among the German commanders and keeping the German's troops occupied. Armed with litters and unit medical kits, hospital corpsmen of the beach battalions administered first aid battle dressing, tourniquets, morphine injections, applying casualty tags and then moved the wounded down to the water's edge so they could be evacuated aboard landing craft heading back out to the transports.

Links: https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/world-war-ii-d-day-invasion-normandy#:~:text=The%20D%2DDay%20operation%20of,the%20beaches%20of%20Normandy%2C%20France.

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The D-Day operation of June 6, 1944, brought together the land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history. The operation, given the codename OVERLORD, delivered five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France. The beaches were given the code names UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, and SWORD. The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. Almost 133,000 troops from the United States, the British Commonwealth, and their allies, landed on D-Day. Casualties from these countries during the landing numbered 10,300. By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed on the Normandy shores. Fighting by the brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the allied forces western front, and Russian forces on the eastern front, led to the defeat of German Nazi forces. On May 7, 1945, German General Alfred Jodl signed an unconditional surrender at Reims, France.

Order of the Day, June 6, 1944:

General Eisenhower's determination that operation OVERLORD (the invasion of France) would bring a quick end to the war is obvious in this message to the troops of the Allied Expeditionary Forces on June 6, 1944, the morning of the invasion.

"Order of the Day" - statement as issued to the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force on June 6, 1944 [Museum Manuscripts transferred to the Library FY69, Box 1; NAID #12000995]

"Order of the Day" - draft of statement [Ray W. Barker Papers, 1942-46, Box 1, Papers Pertaining to COSSAC and SHAEF, 1942-1945 (1); NAID #12010107]

In Case of Failure of the D-Day Operation:

Following the decision for the cross channel invasion, General Eisenhower wrote a press release on a pad of paper, to be used if necessary. The handwritten message by General Eisenhower, the "In Case of Failure message," is mistakenly dated "July" 5 instead of "June" 5.

In Case of Failure Message [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 168, Butcher Diary June 28 - July 14, 1944 (2); NAID #186470] Transcript

Prelude to Operation Overlord:

The Trident Conference, May 1943 [Combined Chiefs of Staff: Conference Proceedings, Box 2, Trident Conference May 1943 Papers and Minutes of Meetings; NAID #12005142]

The Quadrant Conference, August 1943 [Combined Chiefs of Staff: Conference Proceedings, Box 2, Quadrant Conference August 1943 Papers and Minutes of Meetings; NAID #12005143]

Harry Butcher, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, Diary Entry, October 5, 1943 [Eisenhower's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 167, Diary-Butcher Oct. 1 - Dec. 30 1943 (1); NAID #12004922]

The Sextant and Eureka Conferences, November-December 1943 [Combined Chiefs of Staff: Conference Proceedings, Box 2, Sextant Conference November-December 1943 Papers and Minutes of Meetings; NAID #12005144]
Handwritten note from President Roosevelt to Marshal Stalin appointing General Eisenhower to command Operation Overlord. General George Marshall added a note to Eisenhower on December 7, 1943
Overlord - Anvil Papers, December 1943 - April 1944 Part 1 [Walter Bedell Smith Collection of World War II Documents, Box 21, Overlord-Anvil Paper (1); NAID #12009137]

Overlord - Anvil Papers, December 1943 - April 1944 Part 2 [Walter Bedell Smith Collection of World War II Documents, Box 21, Overlord-Anvil Paper (6); NAID #12005073]

Operation Policy Memoranda, January 29, 1944 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 136, Conferences Supreme Commanders (Jan-June 1944); NAID #12005223]

British Assault Area - Naval Operation Orders, May 15, 1944 [Walter Bedell Smith Collection of World War II Documents, Box 48, British Assault Area - Naval Operation Orders Operation Neptune (1); NAID #12004565]

Minutes of the SCAEF 21st Meeting, June 2, 1944 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 136, Conferences Supreme Commanders (Jan-June 1944); NAID #12004923]

Conditions in Normandy, June 3, 1944 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 137, Crusade In Europe (Documents) (3); NAID #12005079]

Reports:

Report of the 8th Air Force, Normandy Invasion, June 2-17, 1944 [Walter Bedell Smith Collection of World War II Documents, Box 48, Eight Air Force Tactical Operations in Support of Allied Landings in Normandy June 2-17 1944 (1); NAID #12005069]

Report of the Amphibious Operations, Invasion of Northern France, Western Task Force, United States Fleet, June 1944 [Walter Bedell Smith Collection of World War II Documents, Box 48, Amphibious Operations Invasion of Northern France - Western Task Force June 1944; NAID #12005066]

Report of the 82nd Airborne Division, "Operation Neptune" at Normandy, June 6 - July 8, 1944 [U.S. Army Unit Records, Box 6, 82nd Airborne Division in Normandy France - Operation Neptune; NAID #12004816]

After Action Report, 115th Infantry, June 1944 [U.S. Army Unit Records, Box 867, 115th Infantry Regiment After Action Report June 1944; NAID #12004462]

After Action Report, Headquarters, 22nd Infantry, July 21, 1944 [U.S. Army Unit Records, Box 791, HQ 22nd Infantry Regiment After Action Report June 1944; NAID #12004463]

SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces) Messages:

SHAEF Incoming Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall concerning the first reports of the Normandy landing, June 6, 1944 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 133, Cables Official (GCM/DDE February 19 - October 18, 1944) (4); NAID #594652]

SHAEF Message from General Eisenhower reporting on the D-Day landing area, June 8, 1944 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 130, Cables-(C.C.S. October 1943 - July 1945) (2); NAID #12009139]

Journal Entries:

Journal entries from the 16th Infantry Regiment Journal, June 6-17, 1944 [U.S. Army Unit Records, Box 1264, 16th Infantry Regiment Journal June 6-17 1944; NAID #12004868]

Additional Information:
D-Day: Planning Overlord Subject Guide D-Day: The Invasion Subject Guide
Photographs:

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World War II: D-Day, The Invasion of Normandy

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The D-Day operation of June 6, 1944, brought together the land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history. The operation, given the codename OVERLORD, delivered five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France.

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Date of the event: September 19, 1944 - Feb 10, 1945

Description of the event: The U.S. commanders' initial goal was to pin down German forces in the area to keep them from reinforcing the front lines farther north in the Battle of Aachen. While the battle in the Hurtgen Forest was a tactical defeat for Allied forces, the action of the 28th Division denied the German Army terrain they had been ordered to retake at all costs. The division took 1,100 prisoners, inflicted 4,000 enemy casualties and destroyed 50 enemy armored vehicles.

Outcome of the event: The battle of the Hurtgen ended in a German defensive victory and the whole offensive was a dismal failure for the Allies. The Americans suffered 33,000 casualties during the course of the battle which ranged up to 55,000 casualties, included 9,000 non-combat losses and represented a 25 percent casualty rate.The division took 1,100 prisoners, inflicted 4,000 enemy casualties and destroyed 50 enemy armored vehicles.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: Within the armies, medical supply distribution presented few difficulties beyond those inherent in the conditions of combat.

Links: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-battle-of-hurtgen-forest-a-tactical-nightmare-for-allied-forces/

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The Battle of Hürtgen Forest ( German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest, a 140 km ² (54 sq mi) area about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Belgian-German border. It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought.

The U.S. commanders' initial goal was to pin down German forces in the area to keep them from reinforcing the front lines farther north in the Battle of Aachen, where the US forces were fighting against the Siegfried Line network of fortified industrial towns and villages speckled with pillboxes, tank traps, and minefields. The Americans' initial tactical objectives were to take the village of Schmidt and clear Monschau. In a second phase the Allies wanted to advance to the Rur River as part of Operation Queen.

Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model intended to bring the Allied thrust to a standstill. While he interfered less in the day-to-day movements of units than at the Battle of Arnhem, he still kept himself fully informed on the situation, slowing the Allies' progress, inflicting heavy casualties, and taking full advantage of the fortifications the Germans called the Westwall, better known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line. The Hürtgen Forest cost the U.S. First Army at least 33,000 killed and wounded, including both combat and non-combat losses, with upper estimates at 55,000; German casualties were 28,000. The city of Aachen in the north eventually fell on 22 October at high cost to the U.S. Ninth Army, but they failed to cross the Rur river or wrest control of its dams from the Germans. The battle was so costly that it has been described as an Allied "defeat of the first magnitude," with specific credit given to Model.

The Germans fiercely defended the area because it served as a staging area for the 1944 winter offensive Wacht am Rhein (known in English-speaking countries as the Battle of the Bulge), and because the mountains commanded access to the Rur Dam at the head of the Rur Reservoir (Rurstausee). The Allies failed to capture the area after several heavy setbacks, and the Germans successfully held the region until they launched their last-ditch offensive into the Ardennes. This was launched on 16 December and ended the Hürtgen offensive. The Battle of the Bulge gained widespread press and public attention, leaving the battle of Hürtgen Forest less well remembered.

The overall cost of the Siegfried Line Campaign in American personnel was close to 140,000.

By mid-September 1944, the Allied pursuit of the German army after the landings at Normandy was slowing down due to extended supply lines and increasing German resistance. The next strategic objective was to move up to the Rhine River along its entire length and prepare to cross it. Courtney Hodges′ First Army experienced hard resistance pushing through the Aachen Gap and perceived a potential threat from enemy forces using the Hürtgen Forest as a base.

The U.S. 1st Infantry Division arrived in early October, joining elements of the XIX Corps and VII Corps, which had encircled Aachen. Although the 1st Infantry Division called for the surrender of the German garrison in the city, German commander Gerhard Wilck refused to capitulate until 21 October.

The Allies also thought it was necessary to remove the threat posed by the Rur Dam. The stored water could be released by the Germans, swamping any forces operating downstream. In the view of the American commanders, Omar Bradley, Hodges, and J. Lawton Collins, the direct route to the dam was through the forest.

Some military historians are no longer convinced by these arguments. Charles B. MacDonald -a U.S. Army historian and former company commander who served in the Hürtgen battle-has described it as "...a misconceived and basically fruitless battle that should have been avoided."

The Hürtgen Forest occupies a rugged area between the Rur River and Aachen. In the autumn and early winter of 1944, the weather was cold, wet, and cloudy, and often prevented air support. Apart from the poor weather, the dense forest and rough terrain also prevented proper use of Allied air superiority, which had great difficulties in spotting any targets. The dense conifer forest is broken by few roads, tracks, and firebreaks; vehicular movement is restricted. Conditions on the ground became a muddy morass, further impeding vehicular traffic, especially heavy vehicles such as tanks.

The German defenders had prepared the area with improvised blockhouses, minefields, barbed wire, and booby-traps, hidden by the mud and snow. There were also numerous concrete bunkers in the area, mostly belonging to the deep defenses of the Siegfried Line, which were also centers of resistance. The dense forest allowed infiltration and flanking attacks, and it was sometimes difficult to establish a front line or to be confident that an area had been cleared of the enemy. The small numbers of routes and clearings in the forest had also allowed German machine gun, mortar, and artillery teams to pre-range their weapons and fire accurately.

The American advantage in numbers (as high as 5:1), armor, mobility, and air support was thus greatly reduced by weather and terrain. In the forest, relatively small numbers of determined and prepared defenders could be highly effective. To exacerbate matters, as the American divisions took casualties, inexperienced replacements had to be fed directly into combat.

The densely forested terrain also limited the use of tanks and provided cover for German anti-tank teams equipped with Panzerfaust shaped-charge grenade launchers. The Allies made improvised rocket launchers, using rocket tubes from aircraft and spare Jeep trailers. Later in the battle, it proved necessary to blast tank routes through the forest. Transportation was similarly limited by the lack of routes: at critical times, it proved difficult to reinforce or supply front-line units or to evacuate the dead and wounded.

The Germans were hampered by much the same difficulties, worsened because their divisions had already taken heavy losses on the retreat through France and were hastily filled up with untrained boys and old men, often unfit for normal military service. Transportation was also a problem, because of the difficult roads and the lack of trucks and fuel; most supplies had to be manhandled to the front line. Nonetheless, despite increasing numbers of replacements lacking experience, German defenders had the advantage in that their commanders and many of their soldiers had been fighting for years and had learned the necessary tactics for fighting efficiently in winter and forested areas, whereas the Americans were often well-trained but inexperienced.

The Hürtgen Forest lay within the area of the U.S. First Army under Hodges. Responsibility fluctuated between the V Corps and VII Corps.

At the start, the forest was defended by the German 275th and 353rd Infantry Divisions; understrength but well prepared-5,000 men (1,000 in reserve)-and commanded by Generalleutnant Hans Schmidt. They had little artillery and no tanks. As the battle progressed, German reinforcements were added. American expectations that these troops were weak and ready to withdraw were overly optimistic.

The 9th Infantry Division's ultimate objective were the Rur River crossings at Düren. On September 16, 1944, an attack by the 47th Infantry Regiment captured Schevenhütte, on the northern fringes of the forest, with few casualties. The division had surprised the Germans, but lacked the strength to push on as two of their regiments were committed to the south. Attacks on and around the Höfen-Alzen ridge by the 39th and 60th Infantry Regiments were met with heavy resistance and pushed back. The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 39th captured Lammersdorf, but could not dislodge enemies entrenched in the woods behind the village; the 3rd Battalion suffered heavy losses attacking Hill 554, near Lammersdorf. In these early engagements, the 9th Infantry Division was unable to eject the Germans from the periphery of the forest, and decided to push through it to the northeast and capture Hürtgen and Kleinhau. The engagement began on September 19, 1944. Repeated probes entered the forest toward their objective, but were beaten back by the terrain and Germans dug into prepared positions. On October 5, the 39th and 60th Infantry Regiments attacked towards the town of Schmidt while the 47th held a defensive position. The Monschau-Düren road was quickly cut, but both regiments were slowed by defenses and suffered significant casualties: The 60th's 2nd Battalion was reduced to a third after the first day. The 39th was halted at the Weisser Weh Creek; there were problems with narrow paths, air bursts in trees, and fire breaks which were blocked or enfiladed. Evacuation and supply was difficult or impossible. By 16 October, 3,000 yd (2,700 m) had been gained at the cost of 4,500 casualties. The U.S. 28th Infantry Division-a Pennsylvania National Guard unit-arrived the same day to relieve the battered 9th. Cota established his division command post in the village of Rott on 25 October and began coordination with the V Corps staff for future operations as his units began to occupy the 9th's positions north of Lammersdorf.

When Cota received the operations order for the attack he was perplexed and none too happy. It was far too directive and detailed and left little for him, his staff and his regimental commanders to do except execute it. It was basically the same plan that had been given to the 9th Infantry Division and that plan had failed. Hodges dictated that the 28th was to capture Vossenack and the treeline facing the village of Huertgen. Gerow directed that an entire regiment would assault Huertgen to the north; a second regiment would attack and capture Schmidt in the center and a third regiment attack south towards Rafflesbrand. The 28th Division was reinforced with the attached 707th Tank Battalion, tracked M29 Weasel transport and air support. Of its three regiments, one was deployed to protect the northern flank, another to attack Germeter, and the third to capture Schmidt, the main objective. The area had terrible terrain with the Kall Trail running along a deep river ravine. The terrain was not suited to tanks, despite the need for armor to support the infantry.

"It was during the final days of preparation before the attack that Cota made three crucial mistakes that would have far reaching effects on his division's assault into the Huertgen. The first was that neither he nor his staff directed subordinate units to conduct patrolling into the Huertgen Forest [...]; the second mistake was tied to the first. Cota had approved the extremely narrow Kall trail to serve as the division's main supply route [...]. Aerial reconnaissance could not confirm the trails condition due to the dense forest covering it but ground patrols would have provided much valuable information, both about the enemy and the trail. The third mistake was his decision not to use armor to support his infantry. Believing that the forest would not allow access and the required road network to support tanks, he kept all but two of his tank companies and all of his tank destroyer units in the rear to augment his division artillery. Had he discussed this with the commander of 9th Infantry Division, he would have learned that tanks could operate in many areas of the forest and with some training and prior coordination they could provide valuable support to the infantry."

The attack by the 28th Division started on 2 November; the defenders were expecting it and were ready. The U.S. 109th Infantry Regiment, assigned to capture the woods north of Germeter, was impeded after 300 yards (270 m) by an unexpected minefield (the "Wild Pig"), pinned down by mortar and artillery fire and harassed by local counterattacks. Just one mile (1.6 km) was gained after two days, after which the 109th dug in and endured casualties. This initial attack was nearly all the ground the 109th would take during the battle. The U.S. 110th Infantry Regiment had to clear the woods next to the Kall River, capture Simonskall, and maintain a supply route for the advance on Schmidt: Again, these were very difficult tasks due to weather, prepared defenses, determined defenders, and terrain. The weather prevented tactical air support until 5 November.

The U.S. 112th Infantry Regiment, attacking from Germeter, took Vossenack and the neighboring ridge by the afternoon. The 112th was then halted by strong defenses and difficult terrain. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 112th moved across the Kall Valley and captured Kommerscheidt and Schmidt, respectively, on 3 November. The German supply route to Monschau was cut, but American supply, reinforcement, and evacuation were very limited as the Kall Trail had poor terrain and was infiltrated by the Germans. At dawn on November 4, a strong German counter-attack by tanks of the 116th Panzer Division and a chance encirclement by troops from the 89th Infantry Division rapidly expelled the 3rd Battalion from Schmidt, and they were unable to counter-attack. The battalion disintegrated after constant shelling and a fierce attack by the 116th Panzer Division and some men inadvertently fled east, to be captured by the Germans. The rest of the battalion retreated to Kommerscheidt to join the 112th's 1st Battalion. Realizing the gravity of the situation, eight M4 Shermans of Company A, 707th Tank Battalion attempted to cross the Kall Valley, but only three actually made it across to support the beleaguered 112th. The 116th Panzer Division again attacked with tanks and infantry several times. The American tanks, along with infantry and air support, destroyed five German Panzer IV tanks. At Vossenack, the 112th's 2nd Battalion was nearly forced out of the town on November 6 by a fierce German counterattack, but were assisted by engineers in retaking the western part of the town. The Americans across the Kall Valley at Kommerscheidt held on until November 8, when an order to withdraw was given. The positions at Schmidt and the Kall Trail were abandoned. It wasn't until February 1945 that the 82nd Airborne Division permanently captured the Kall Trail and Schmidt.

A German regimental doctor, Hauptmann Günter Stüttgen, negotiated an unofficial ceasefire with the Americans at the Kall Bridge from 7-12 November, in order to attend to the wounded of both sides, numbering in the thousands. The lives of many American soldiers were saved by German medics.

The second phase was part of Operation Queen, the Allied thrust to the Rur River. In this phase, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division was to clear the northern half of the forest between Schevenhütte and Hürtgen, capture Hürtgen, and advance to the Rur south of Düren. From 10 November, this would be VII Corps′ responsibility and it was part of the main VII Corps effort to reach the Rur. The 4th Division was now fully committed to the Hürtgen, although its 12th Infantry Regiment was already mauled from its action at Schmidt, leaving just two fully effective regiments to achieve the divisional objectives. U.S. VII Corps was opposed by German forces, mainly from the LXXXI Corps, consisting of three understrength divisions. In the Hürtgen, there was the 275th Infantry Division-6,500 men with 150 artillery pieces. They were well dug-in and prepared.

The abstract of a U.S. report describes what happened:

The VII (U.S.) Corps, First Army attacked 16 November 1944, with 1st Inf Div, 4th Inf Div, 104th Inf Div, and CCR 5th AD to clear Huertgen Forest and the path of First Army to the Rur River. After heavy fighting, primarily by the 4th Infantry Division, VII Corps' attack ground to a halt. V Corps was committed on 21 November 1944. Attacking with 8th Inf Div, and CCR 5th AD, the V Corps managed to capture Huertgen after stiff fighting on 28 November 1944.

The attack started on 16 November. The two infantry regiments attacked in parallel columns: the 8th along the northern edge of the forest towards Düren, the 22nd further south in parallel. The open flanks invited infiltration. Similar tactics elsewhere in Hürtgen had "invited disaster".

Attacks by the 8th Infantry Regiment on Rother Weh Creek hit heavy resistance and were repulsed with heavy losses. The 22nd failed to take Raven's Hedge ( Rabenheck), beaten back by heavy machine-gun and artillery fire along the fire-breaks. After three days, there were 300 casualties, including numerous officers and NCOs.

By 18 November, tanks were deemed essential, so engineers blasted tank routes through the forest. Communications and logistics remained a problem, so the next day the attack paused to allow re-supply and evacuation of the wounded. German reinforcements arrived from 344th and 353rd Infantry Divisions and resistance stiffened further.

Responsibility was returned to V Corps and, on 21 November, 8th Division attacked the Weisser Weh Valley, continuing toward Hürtgen. The 121st Infantry Regiment hit heavy defenses immediately. Despite armored support from the 10th Tank Battalion, daily advances were less than 600 yd (550 m). Hürtgen was taken on 29 November and the battle continued to Kleinhau, 1 mi (1.6 km) north.

The final action in the Hürtgen Forest was at Langerwehe-Merode, on the northeastern edge of the forest. Two American companies took the village, but they were later destroyed in a German counter-attack. More than 300 soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division were killed in action on November 29 and 30, 1944.

Later, the secret daily report of the Supreme High Command of the German Army ( Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH)) of 27 November, stated that in the old Langerwehe penetration area, the U.S. Army ( enemy) won terrain.

Elements of the 8th and the 28th Infantry Divisions then advanced on Brandenberg. The 28th Division-just like the 9th before it (and the 4th Infantry Division, which would relieve the 28th)-also took heavy casualties during its stay in the Hürtgen Forest. On 14 November, the 2nd Ranger Battalion arrived to relieve elements of the 112th Infantry Regiment. On 6 December, the Rangers moved on Bergstein and subsequently took the strategic position of Hill 400 from defending troops from 980th Grenadier Regiment of the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division. Shortly thereafter, on 12 December, the towns of Gey and Strass were taken by American Forces. On the last day of the Hürtgen battle the Germans retook the hill from the 13th Regiment who had replaced the Rangers. The U.S. Army would not seize Hill 400 again until February 1945.

From 1-12 December, the 309th, 310th and 311th Infantry Regiments of the 78th Infantry Division ("Lightning") relieved elements of the 1st Infantry Division in the line in the vicinity of Entenpfuhl. On 13 December, these regiments smashed into Simmerath, Witzerath, and Bikerath, Germany, and were fighting the Battle of Kesternich against the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division when General Gerd von Rundstedt launched his counteroffensive in the Monschau area. On December 15 the 2nd battalion, 309th Infantry was annihilated when the 272nd Volksgrenadiers counterattacked and took back Kesternich. The Germans knew that from the heights at Kesternich the Americans could detect the troop buildup for the Ardennes Offensive and place artillery there to fire on advancing German troops.

Military actions at the Siegfried Line up to 15 December alone brought death, injury or captivity to more than 250,000 soldiers from both sides. The First and Ninth U.S. Army suffered 57,039 battle casualties (dead, wounded, captured, missing in action); 71,654 non-battle casualties, i.e. accidents, diseases such as pneumonia, trench foot, frostbite, and trauma. German Armed Forces are presumed to be 12,000 dead, 95,000 captured (documented), and an unknown number of wounded.

On 16 December 1944, German forces began the Ardennes Offensive, more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge and as a result further fighting in the Hürtgen ended.

A U.S. half-track of the 16th Infantry Regiment/1st U.S. Division in the Hürtgen Forest, 15 February 1945

The battle of the Hürtgen ended in a German defensive victory and the whole offensive was a dismal failure for the Allies. The Americans suffered 33,000 casualties during the course of the battle which ranged up to 55,000 casualties, included 9,000 non-combat losses and represented a 25 percent casualty rate. The Germans had also suffered heavy losses with 28,000 casualties-many of these were non combat and prisoners of war.

The surprise German Ardennes offensive caught Allied forces off guard. The Germans attacked with nearly 30 divisions; including the elite 1st SS, 2nd SS, and the 12th SS Panzer Divisions, with the northernmost point of the battlefront centered on Monschau. They forced a large salient in the American lines almost sixty miles (100 km) deep at its maximum extent. However, the Germans never came close to their primary objective, the capture of Antwerp. The Ardennes Offensive came to a complete halt in early January, when German forces in the northern shoulder of the bulge were blocked by a strong American defence, the destruction of bridges by American engineers, and a lack of fuel.

In early February, American forces attacked through the Hürtgen Forest for the final time. On 10 February 1945, the Rur Dam was taken by American forces and the Forest itself was not cleared until the 17th when the 82nd Airborne Division reached the Roer River.[citation needed ]

There is a stone monument with a bronze plaque at the Hürtgen Military Cemetery, dedicated by veterans of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division to the memory of Friedrich Lengfeld (29 September 1921 - 12 November 1944), a German lieutenant. Lengfeld died on 12 November 1944, of severe wounds sustained while helping a wounded American soldier out of the "Wild Sow" (" Wilde Sau") minefield. It is the only such memorial for a German soldier placed by his erstwhile opponents in a German military cemetery.

A memorial sculpture on Kall Bridge recalls that moment of humanity amidst the horrors of war. It was officially dedicated on the 60th anniversary of the ceasefire on the Kall Bridge, November 7, 2004. It was created by Michael Pohlmann, who commented:

I didn't want to create a monument to heroes, no theatrical representation, no pathos, but wanted to appear more unassumingly with a frugal shape, hewn in stone, dignifying the actual place of the incident. A place perhaps, at which once everything may have started rationally, then however, became more and more irrational and totally out of control until a return to sanity-or was it still emotion?-made a humanitarian encounter come true.

The plaque was created by the sculptor Tilman Schmitten, Eupen. The memorial sculpture and plaque were endowed by the Konejung Foundation: Culture

The 1944 Hürtgen Forest Museum was opened on 29 March 1983 in Kleinhau, in a stone barn to commemorate the battle.

Historical discussion revolves around whether or not the American battle plan made any operational or tactical sense. One analysis is that the Allies under-estimated the strength and determination remaining in the psyche of the German soldier, believing his fighting spirit had collapsed under the stress of the Normandy breakout and the reduction of the Falaise pocket.

Trigg describes the battle as one of the "most ill-conceived and unnecessary offensives of the whole northwest Europe campaign" and said that Hodges "lacked tactical imagination" and that "it was a miracle that he retained Eisenhower's confidence".

American commanders, in particular, misunderstood the impassability of the dense Hürtgen Forest, and its effects of reducing artillery effectiveness and making air or armoured support impracticable. The better alternative-breaking through south-east out into the open valley, where their advantages in mobility and airpower could come into play, and then heading northeast towards the actual objectives-seems not to have been really considered by the higher headquarters.

In addition, American forces were concentrated in the village of Schmidt, and neither tried to conquer the strategic Rur Dams nor recognized the importance of Hill 400 until an advanced stage of the battle.

World War Two lieutenant and History professor and academician, Paul Fussell, blames the impracticality of Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges' command and untrained troops' demoralization for the defeat in the battle, citing the violation of Patton's observation that "Plans should be made by those who are going to execute them."

1. ^ Whiting 1976, p. [page needed ].

2. ^ Bradbeer, Thomas G. "Major General Cota and the Battle of the Huertgen Forest: A Failure of Battle Command?" (PDF). United States Army Combined Arms Center. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

3. ^ Miller 1989, p. [page needed ].

4. ^ Marcy Sanchez Fort Bliss Bugle (03 March 2018) WBAMC's Troop Command welcomes new CSM, p. 7

5. ^ "CSI Battlebook" (PDF). dtic.mil/. 1984. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 8, 2014.

6. ^ Marino, James (October 3, 2016). "Taking Hill 400: Army Rangers vs Fallschirmjägers". Warfare History. Archived from the original on 27 October 2019.

7. ^ Miller, Edward G (November 1996). "Desperate Hours at Kesternich". World War II Magazine. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020.

8. ^ Miller, Edward G.; Zabecki, David T. (August 16, 2005). "Hopes Dashed in the Hürtgen". World War II.

Astor, Gerald. The Bloody Forest: Battle for Huertgen September 1944 - January 1945. Presidio Press, 2000. ISBN 0891416994 OCLC 43810800

Atkinson, Rick (2013). . New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-6290-8.

Bergström, Christer [in Swedish] (2014). The Ardennes, 1944-1945 Hitler's Winter Offensive. Casemate / Vaktel Forlag. ISBN 978-1612002774.

Cole, Hugh M. (1965). The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History Department of the Army. LCCN 65-60001.

Currey, Cecil B. (1984). Follow Me and Die: The Destruction of an American Division in World War II. New York: Stein & Day.

MacDonald, Charles B. (1984) [1963]. The Siegfried Line campaign. Center of Military History, United States Army. OCLC 1351714.

MacDonald, Charles B., and Sidney T. Mathews, Three battles: Arneville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt. Center of Military History, United States Army, 1993. Previously published in 1952. OCLC 1350067

Miller, Robert A. (1989). Division commander : a biography of Major General Norman D. Cota. Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Company, Publishers. ISBN 0-87152-438-4. OCLC 20218839.

"His Dad, The WWII Soldier, Is Resting in Flanders Fields". Mobile Register. Mobile, AL. October 16, 2004. p. 19. (An article by the son of an American soldier who died in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest.)

Nash, Douglas (2008). Victory was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Hürtgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich. Bedford: The Aberjona Press. Archived from the original on 2008-02-09.

Owens, Emiel W. (2006). Blood on German Snow: An African American Artilleryman in World War II and Beyond. Texas A&M University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1585445370.

Rush, Robert Sterling, Hell in Hürtgen Forest: The Ordeal and Triumph of an American Infantry Regiment. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (2001) [1] ISBN 0700611282 OCLC 47081237

Thomas, Peter, veteran of the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest and Battle of the bulge (December 15, 2008). "We owe our freedom to GIs who fought". Naples News. Archived from the original on December 18, 2008.

Whiting, Charles (1989). The Battle of Hürtgen Forest. New York: Orion Books. ISBN 978-0-671-68636-9. OCLC 22443408.

Wilson, George, If you survive. New York, Ballantine Books, 1987 ISBN 978-0804100038 Eyewitness account 4th Infantry Division

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The Battle of Hürtgen Forest ( German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest, a 140 km 2 (54 sq mi) area about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Belgian-German border.

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Date of the event: Dec 6, 1944 - Jan 25, 1945

Description of the event: The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The Battle of the Bulge was the US Army's greatest struggle to deny Adolf Hitler's last chance for victory. As 1944 was drawing to a close, the Allied forces could look back on a year of great strides towards victory over the Axis powers.

Outcome of the event: The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge, resulting in significantly higher casualties on the German side despite their surprise attack on Allied forces.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: Soldiers fought in brutal winter conditions, and the U.S. Army lost approximately 19,000 men and suffered some 75,000 total casualties in what became the United States' deadliest single World War II battle. In addition to the organic medical support provided in its infantry and armored divisions, the VIII Corps, First U.S. Army, in the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge possessed a well-organized and experienced medical support structure with the 64th Medical Group and its two separate medical battalions.

Links: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/programs/battle-bulge

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Nagasaki Kitchen, 3 Chome-1-2 Kasumichō, Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan

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Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Date of the event: August 6 - 9, 1945

Description of the event: The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. The US wanted to force a quick surrender by the Japanese to reduce the number of American lives lost.

Outcome of the event: Over the next two to four months, the effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000 to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki roughly half occurred on the first day.

Key medical issues faced/treatments: By the end of 1945, the bombing had killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima, and a further 74,000 in Nagasaki. In the years that followed, many of the survivors would face leukemia, cancer, or other terrible side effects from the radiation. the healthcare professionals who narrowly escaped death treated people in bombed medical facilities and relief stations hurriedly set up in schools, temples, bridges, roads, and parks.

Links: https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki

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Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki