Top Photo: American tanks, part of the new Allied offensive, move up to the front over a narrow muddy road in the Hürtgen Forest, Germany. November 18, 1944. 803rd Bn, 3rd Armd Div, southwest of Duran, Germany. Photographer: Moran. National Archives NAID: 276537061

In the autumn of 1944, the Allied armies were bogged down along the German frontier, as logistical difficulties, unfavorable weather, and the formidable defensive positions of the Westwall, or Siegfried Line, all conspired to revive German military fortunes in the west. After the failed attempt in September to jump the Rhine at Arnhem in Operation Market Garden, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower adopted a “broad front” strategy designed to keep pressure on the Germans all along the line, with a roughly equal allotment of supplies to the British and American armies still dependent on a lengthy logistical line stretching all the way back to the Normandy beaches. In the north, British General Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group began the long-deferred task of clearing the Scheldt estuary to open the port of Antwerp, which would shorten their supply lines considerably. In the south, General Alexander M. Patch’s Seventh and General George S. Patton’s Third armies continued their push to liberate eastern France, but the barriers of the Vosges Mountains and the fortress city of Metz slowed their respective paths to the Rhine. Only in the center, where the First Army had already penetrated a portion of the Westwall around Aachen, was there some prospect of success. If the American First and Ninth Armies could break through the Hürtgen Forest, which had stalled any further advance, there was a chance they could reach the Rhine near Cologne, threatening the German industrial region along the Ruhr River and possibly even force a crossing. Accordingly, Allied commanders began planning for a new operation, dubbed Operation Queen, to push through the Hürtgen, jump the intervening Roer River, and reach the banks of the Rhine.

The basic plan for Queen was to repeat the successful breakout from the Normandy beachhead in Operation Cobra four months earlier. American and British heavy bombers would lay down a carpet for the ground forces to walk across, destroying the hastily rebuilt German Volksgrenadier divisions of older men and younger boys. Once through this crust, exploiting armored divisions would be set loose in the German rear to race for the Rhine. But to prevent a repeat of the short bombings that had cost the lives of hundreds of American soldiers—as well as that of the commander of the Army Ground Forces, General Lesley J. McNair, who had gone forward to observe the operation—planners made several critical changes to the air plan. Instead of dropping on the German forward positions, the heavy bombers would instead bomb several miles back, which had a devastating effect on formations in the rear area but left front-line units virtually intact. They also instituted an elaborate identification plan, including radio beacons, colored airbursts below the bombers’ altitude, and markers along the ground, all designed to prevent short bombing. But the most important ingredient was good weather that would permit pilots to both depart their bases and use the visual identification signals. This proved elusive as rainy, misty, and foggy fall weather returned to the continent, along with a significant shortening of daylight hours in the far northern latitudes that left at best 10 hours with which to work. From an initial target date of November 10, troops waited for almost a week until commanders decided the attack would begin on November 16, with or without the air support.

Fortunately, November 16 dawned with suitable weather, and over 2,400 heavy bombers rose from their bases in England in droves. Droning over the front lines just before noon, American B-17s and B-24s plastered the cities of Eschweiler and Langerwehe ahead of the First Army while Royal Air Force Lancasters and Halifaxes rubbled the towns of Linnich, Julich, and Duren along the Roer. Here the damage was considerable, and German rear-echelon troops struggled to move forward into the battle. But on the front lines, where the defenders had been largely spared by their proximity to friendly troops, the initial attack enjoyed only limited success, as German Volksgrenadiers emerged from their foxholes and cellars to resist the assault.

Over the next two weeks, the First and Ninth Armies made only incremental gains, as they both pushed toward the Roer. Over half of the First Army’s frontage was still in the Hürtgen Forest, where the dense canopy denied observation, limiting the effect of supporting artillery and aircraft, and steep valleys constricted armor to the few muddy paths through the forest. The trees also gave German artillery, suddenly available in prodigious quantities thanks to the now much shorter distance from the factories to the front, a decided advantage. When rounds detonated in the treetops, they showered the troops below with deadly shrapnel and branches, acting as a de facto equivalent to the top-secret Allied proximity fuse, which could do the same over open terrain thanks to a tiny radar transmitter in the nose. Even worse, the Germans had used the lengthy delay to sow the area liberally with mines, which claimed high numbers of both vehicles and personnel. The canalized advance, made in chilly mud that sent trench foot cases skyrocketing, ground up the 4th Infantry Division and stalled the famous 1st Infantry Division, known as the “Big Red One.” Only the “Timberwolves” of the new 104th Infantry Division, just clear of the forest to the north, made any significant progress in the first week of the attack.

Farther north, also in more open terrain, General William H. Simpson’s Ninth Army enjoyed better success. The XIX Corps, with the experienced 29th (“Blue and Gray”) and 30th (“Old Hickory”) Infantry Divisions, originally National Guard formations from states along the southern Appalachians, along with the 2nd Armored Division, pushed steadily toward the Roer. The 2nd’s advance prompted the Germans to commit elements of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, leading to one of the rare tank-on-tank engagements on the western front around Puffendorf, where Shermans, Panthers, and Tigers churned through the mud to gain an advantage. Overhead, P-47s of General Richard E. Nugent’s XXIX Tactical Air Command provided critical support, conducting tactical reconnaissance sorties and disrupting the flow of reinforcements and supplies into the battle. With this assistance, and a fortuitous period of drier weather around Thanksgiving, Simpson’s Ninth Army closed up to the Roer within two weeks. But here they confronted an unanticipated problem: large dams upstream impounded enough water to flood the entire valley, cutting off any force that attempted a crossing. Before the Ninth Army could push across, the First Army would have to seize these dams or bomber aircraft would have to breach them to eliminate the threat. Both options were attempted, but neither succeeded.

In the First Army sector, the Hürtgen again conspired to slow Allied progress, while casualty counts skyrocketed from both battle and noncombat injuries. As the “Bloody Buckets” of Pennsylvania’s 28th Infantry Division reached the end of their rope, the 4th Infantry Division went in to relieve them. Again, progress was agonizingly slow, and the Germans made full use of the dense forest to camouflage their defenses and sight their machine guns down lanes in the perfectly planted rows of trees. They subjected any village they lost to an immediate counterattack, and the excellent observation afforded from positions atop Hamich Ridge blocked any exit from the forest. An assault by the 2nd Ranger Battalion finally cleared one vital position at Bergstein, but their relief could not hold it, and the Germans again regained possession. In a little over two weeks, the 4th Infantry Division advanced only three miles at a cost of 6,000 casualties. On their flank, the Big Red One did little better, gaining four miles at the cost of over 4,000 casualties. Both divisions were reduced below combat effectiveness and had to be relieved.

By early December, the First Army finally realized the vital importance of the Roer dams and launched a new assault to seize them, after heavy bombers failed to breach or even find the fog-shrouded targets. But only three days into this attack, the ominous sound of a massive artillery barrage to the south indicated the opening salvos of the Battle of the Bulge, and units that had fought so hard to gain ground in the north were stripped off to seal the penetration to the south.

On the surface, Operation Queen succeeded in obtaining positions for a crossing of the Roer and a jump to the Rhine, but it wasn’t until February 1945 that the First and Ninth Armies were again in position to exploit these gains. Even then, the long-deferred attack was delayed another two weeks after the Germans made good on their threat to release the water behind the dams. In between, many units, including the 30th Infantry Division and the hastily rebuilt 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions, were peeled off and sent south to shore up the shoulders of the Bulge, and then seal off and reduce the penetration. Terrain, weather, and logistics all conspired to slow the progress of the Allied advance and prevented the Germans from having to divert any of the forces so carefully husbanded for the Ardennes Counteroffensive to stop the Allied assault. Strategists then and now have rightfully questioned the wisdom of the First Army’s dogged persistence in the dense forest, especially in light of the Ninth Army’s much better progress in the open terrain to the north. As a result, Operation Queen is a largely forgotten offensive in the annals of Allied arms in the fall of 1944, usually lumped into the “Hell in Hürtgen Forest” that everyone, from the commanders to the troops who fought there, wanted to forget. But it inflicted substantial damage on the German defenders and cleared important ground, setting the conditions for the final Allied victory in the spring of 1945.