The western frontier of the Third Reich was protected by the Westwall fortifications, better known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line. The Allies began encountering the Siegfried Line in September 1944 after pursuing the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. Fighting along the Westwall lasted for more than six months, with the final major operations in March 1945 in the Saar. All of the major Allied formations, including Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, Bradley’s 12th Army Group, and Devers’ 6th Army Group, were involved at one time or another in fighting against the Westwall defenses. However, the focus of this book is on the most concentrated and intense fighting along the Siegfried Line by the US First and Ninth armies, the campaign that epitomizes the grim battles along the German frontier. Given its nature as a historic invasion route towards Germany’s industrial heartland in the Ruhr, the Wehrmacht fortified the border area around Aachen with a double line of bunkers. The campaign in the autumn of 1944 and the winter of 1944/45 was one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the European theater in World War II, reaching its crescendo in the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest. Although the US Army finally broke through the defenses by the middle of December 1944 and reached the River Roer, the German counter-offensive in the neighboring Ardennes put a temporary halt to the fighting. It resumed in February 1945, culminating in Operation Grenade, the crossing of the Roer.
A pair of GIs take cover from the incessant rain under the rear of an M4 tank. They are from 2/60th Infantry, 9th Division, which teamed up with Task Force Hogan of the 3rd Armored Division to assault the village of Geich beyond the Langerwehe industrial area on December 11, 1944. (NARA)