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By Root 1447 0

territory along Germany’s border with Belgium and Luxembourg. To unsuspecting eyes the forest appears ancient—something out of a storybook opera—but it is a modern construction, designed by the German High Command to take advantage of every rise and dip of the landscape and to serve as a killing ground for invading armies. Its trees were a hundred feet tall and planted so close together that they blocked out the sunlight. Changes of weather regularly drew in deep fog that obscured surroundings, making it impossible to see just a few feet away. Within the forest hills were pillbox defenses that, covered with foliage, blended in, making them as invisible as they were deadly. Even the trees and forest floor were booby-trapped, strewn with barbed wire and littered with camouflaged land mines called “Bouncing Bettys.” In this eerie place, death could come with every footfall, every brush against a stone or touch of a branch.

Parallel to the border and dipping deep into the center of the Hürtgen Forest, the Nazis had constructed a line of barriers and fortifications called the Siegfried Line. The Germans themselves called this barrier the West Wall, and in some places the Siegfried Line actually was a wall, complete with concrete barricades called “dragon’s teeth.” In other places, the line was less clear, designed as a purposeful illusion of normalcy. Upon crossing the line into the forest, jeeps and tanks became useless on the winding woodland paths and troops disappeared from sight, stripping them of air cover.

To force the Germans’ early surrender, Eisenhower sent two armies, the First and the Third, to take the Siegfried Line and cross the Roer and Rhine rivers within Germany. The Roer ran along the edge of the Hürtgen Forest, and American commanders decided that in order to take the river, the forest had to be cleared of all resistance.

Hitler, however, had no intention of surrendering. In fact, the Germans were planning a major counteroffensive that would become the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler’s plan was twofold. A series of dams sat within the Hürtgen Forest that controlled the Roer River. He plotted to breach those dams upon the outset of the counteroffensive and flood the U.S. First Army’s path into Germany. With the First Army mired down, he could throw all of his strength at the remaining American Third Army. One hundred fresh battalions were sent to man the defenses of the Siegfried Line in and around the Hürtgen Forest. They were ordered to stave off the Allied advance into Germany until the counteroffensive could be organized and to protect the dams so vital to its success.

When Salinger described the liberation of Paris, he was already en route to the German border. Spirits were high as his regiment reached Luxembourg on September 7, and Belgium two days later. They believed that they had left the worst of the war behind them in Normandy. From now on, they would play the role of conquering heroes. Salinger’s division was to have the honor of being the first to enter Germany. Once it had crossed into the Third Reich and breached the Siegfried Line, its orders were to sweep away any resistance from the area of the Hürtgen Forest and take up positions to protect the flank of the invading First Army.

With these decisions and in this unwary mood, the stage was set for what would become the blackest months of Salinger’s life. Already, during the advance of September, signs began to appear that, while dim annoyances at the time, would prove devastating in the months to come. For instance, one week into the dash to Germany, gasoline became dangerously scarce. Then there was a shortage of cigarettes—a considerable blow to troop morale. Most ominous of all, it rained heavily throughout September and the soldiers soon discovered that their army-issue boots absorbed both water and mud. When a request for overshoes was made, it was ignored. With Salinger’s men advancing as quickly as possible and the muddied roads behind them becoming increasingly impassable, they began to outpace their lines of supply. They continued