Follow Me And Die: The Destruction Of An American Division In World War II

by Cecil B. Currey

In November 1944, the 28th Infantry Division, under inept commanders, was ordered to attack the Germans in the Hurtgen Forest near the Siegfried Line. Resistance was fierce. The American infantrymen, though courageous, were demoralized by cold, hunger, exhaustion, and fear. They broke and ran. Ten percent losses would have been considered unacceptably high, but American casualties climbed to seventy-five percent. Now, from access to recently declassified documents and with first-hand testimony from both German and American survivors, the virtual destruction of an American division in one of World War II's most costly and useless attacks is revealed in detail to the general public for the first time.

Genres: World War II, History, American History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1984

Reviews

[Miles Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, fast-paced and well-researched book about one of the most tragic, but least known, campaigns in WW2, the Battle of the Huertgen Forest. Actually Currey's work focuses not on the entire battle, but the participation of only one division, the 28th "Keystone," in September - November of 1944. Using army records and a series of interviews conducted by the Historical Section of the Army both before, during and after the battle, Currey reconstructs the terrible chain of circumstances and bad decisions which led to this, and a number of other American units, being fed into the the meatgrinder of the Huertgen, which slaughtered so many G.I.'s they bitterly dubbed it, "The Death Factory." Currey, a graduate of the U.S. Army War College, uses his training to bring a more professional, but no less approachable, analysis of events, than is usually found in books of this type (actually, I know of only two other books on the Huertgen, both by Charles Whiting). His main thesis is that the U.S. command, from Eisenhower down to Norman "Dutch" Cota, the commander of the 28th, made an inconceivably dumb decision to attack the Germans at their strongest point, using insufficient forces -- and then, when they were defeated, ordered continuations of the attack, until one division after the other had been bled white and "used up" in the thickly forested terrain, without accomplishing much of anything. In practical terms, this meant more than one American soldier was killed, wounded or captured for every yard of ground seized from the Germans; by the time any division had advanced 4,000 yards, it had therefore largely run out of infantrymen. Then, quite often, the Germans would counter-attack and recapture some or all of the lost ground, meaning the whole bloody ordeal had to be repeated -- and it was, for six months, leaving the vast forest a scarred wasteland full of corpses, shell-holes and burned-out vehicles. Nothing sums up the entire conflict like the words of a German general, who, questioned in captivity after the war, told his interrogators, "We could never understand why you chose to attack us there." Anyone who wants a glimpse of the darker, less "Band of Brothers" and more "Pickett's Charge" style of American fighting could do worse than to read this terse but effective account of a battle one American general described succinctly as "one which should never have been fought."

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing story of the National Guard of PA that fought in the Kaul Valley in Germany in WWII. It really gives you a reality check on our armed services who fight for our freedom. Never forget who died for freedom over our nation's history. Freedom is still being fought for in this world and cannot be taken for granted. Protect it.