QUOTE(Keystone Two-Eight @ 01/21/08 12:17am)

QUOTE(Hellfighter @ 01/19/08 9:40am)

"When Trumpets Fade".
Good movie! Yeah, it premiered around the time "Saving Private Ryan" did. Read " A dark and bloody ground" by Ed Miller, its really friggin sad how the officers just dropped the ball on this one. That was my Uncles unit in the movie, they had something like a 90% mortality rate in the Hurtgen.
I haven't read that one-but I did read a few others relating to Huertgen. All of them more miserable reads than the usual WW2 horror accounts.
I feel very sorry for your Uncle... that campaign/battle was the West front's equivalent of Stalingrad. However the difference was this sector had no strategic value at all for that amount of resources poured into it futilely for so long a period - it was almost a criminal decision by Allied staffers. Whole units of GI recruits and replacements were getting killed/wounded within hours/days of arriving there and the attrition rate amongst junior officers was horrific - a very high number of battle fatigue cases too what with unseen enemies and tree burst injuries-and daily grim weather conditions. A real slaughterhouse.
http://hometown.aol.de/huertgenforest/page1.htmlI should mention another 'great' war movie I just saw today on the History channel - unfortunately if you see its tacky dvd cover at a dvd store, it looks like a crummy movie. But I'm putting it up there as one of my favourites;
Attack on the Iron Coast [1968] - based on the true great Brit Commando assault in the Raid on St.Nazaire in 1942.
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/84111/Atta...-Iron-Coast/dvdSome may find it boring but I think WW2 buffs will like its realistic approach compared to other war-glory movies of its time -kelly's heroes/dirty dozen etc.,