Osprey Campaign 181 : Siegfried Line 1944-1945 : Battles on the German Frontier

The campaign on the German frontier in late 1944 was one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the ETO. The Allies first encountered the Siegfried Line (Westwall) fortifications in September 1944, having pursued the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. The border area around Aachen had been fortified with a double line of bunkers, and both the terrain and the weather made things difficult for the Allies. This book focuses on the involvement of the US First and Ninth armies in the six-month fighting, including the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest. Text by Steven J Zaloga with illustrations by Steve Noon.

Contents

• Introduction
• Chronology
• The Strategic Situation
• Opposing Commanders
• Opposing Armies
• Opposing Plans
• The Campaign
• The Campaign in Retrospect
• The Battlefields Today
• Further Reading
• Index