The 28th Infantry Division in the Hürtgen Forest: Forgotten Sacrifice

The five-month Battle of the Hürtgen Forest (September 1944-February 1945) cost the U.S.Army more than 34,000 casualties, a tremendous number, and yet historians have rarely given it the attention it deserves, lending it the epithet “the Forgotten Sacrifice.” The reasons are clear.Not only was this one of the bloodiest and most disastrous U.S. campaigns of the war, its strategic importance was eclipsed twice over: first by Field Marshal Montgomery’s Operation Market-Garden, which aimed to open a route of advance into Germany via the capture of a series of Dutch bridges, and second, by Germany’s surprise attack in mid-December through the Ardennes in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge.This hard fought and well-earned Allied victory overshadowed the debacle that was occurring less than 20 miles to the north of the Ardennes. The 28th Infantry Division bore much of the pain in the Hürtgen Forest, losing 6,840 men killed, wounded, or missing.But despite these losses, the division