| Original caption, LIFE Magazine, January 1, 1945: “Bone-weary Americans who fought in one of the forest battles eat their first hot meal in fifteen days. The objective of these men was the town of Hurtgen, named for the forest, taken in November.” United States Army Private 1st Class Stephen W. Longstreth (December 28, 1918 – September 4, 1983) of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, with other soldiers of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, VIII Corps, 1st Army, 12th Army Group, enjoy their Thanksgiving meal on real china plates, but still use their GI-issue metal canteen drinking cups. “Source of the plates is not disclosed.” According to the Green Bay Press Gazette, December 14, 1944. After the breakout from Normandy in August 1944, the Allies pursued the Germans and their Axis partners across France. German resistance stiffened once the fighting reached the German border. Aachen, the 1st German city, fell on October 21 after heavy combat, but Germany established defensive lines that generally followed the border. The 121st defended a 20-mile stretch of the Our River. 12th Army Group ordered an attack on 2 dams in the Roar River area. This depleted the 28th Infantry Division, and the 8th Infantry Division was ordered to replace it. After a 100-mile repositioning, the 8th Infantry Division attacked Hurtgen and Kleinnau on November 21. Breakfast that morning was the last hot meal Company I had for 3 weeks. After some quick successes, The 121st Infantry ran into minefields and the surprise attack was halted. By November 23, a major German counterattack developed. 700 shells fell in 2 hours, some of them from 240 millimeter (9.4 inch) railroad guns. Rain compounded the misery of the men. German artillery constantly chewed up the wire with rear command; only SCR-300 radios continued to function. SCR-536 radios failed, so platoons couldn’t talk to each other. By November 25, the rain had stopped, an engineer battalion arrived to clear the minefields, and high hopes were placed on an armored thrust down the road to Hurtgen. The attack jumped off on November 27, with all 3 battalions of the 121st Infantry joining in the assault. 1st Battalion reached the outskirts of Hurtgen that afternoon and the town was secured on November 28. Casualties were so heavy the medical stretcher-bearers could not keep up, and medical facilities were taxed to the limit. Casualties to Company I for this period were approximately 140 killed and wounded. Decades later, in 1978, Major William S. Freeman Jr., S-3 (Operations Staff) of the 2nd Engineers, 121st Infantry Regiment, 8th Division, recalled with fresh horror the Thanksgiving in November 1944 outside Hurtgen. “It started out with all the making of a debacle. Someone seemed to think this was a Fort Benning exercise, instead of a penetration of a thickly mined, well fortified, dense forest where you were lucky if you could see twenty feet. Our introduction to this hellhole was to be dumped off our trucks, and before the advance party could do a thing we were to make a ‘passage of lines’ through the holding troops and continue on to attack. It was a mess that took days to straighten out…one incident that still haunts me. On Thanksgiving day we were not in Hurtgen, but still strung out in the dense forest outside the town. Any slight activity brought down a rain of mortars and artillery…I was in the foreward C.P. [Command Post] when I was informed the cooks would bring up canisters of a hot turkey dinner and serve it to the men in the lines. I called the battalion commander and told him that in our present position this would be murder — plain and simple — that as soon as the men got around the canisters, Jerry would turn all hell loose. I was told this was a regimental order and I got permission to talk to the Regimental commander. Hindsight says I could have stalled off the dinner and I doubt that the higher echelons would have known about it — but I didn’t. I was told this was a Division order and somehow or other talked him into letting me talk to the Division commander. I tried to explain the conditions, and requested a delay of a day or two until we could get out of this position, but was told in no uncertain terms that the men would be fed today! Granted that greater control could have been used all down the line…but dangle hot turkey to men in a cold, wet forest, that have had nothing but K rations, and it’s not that easy to keep them from bunching. Jerry turned all hell loose! Branded in my mind is position after position with men torn to shreds around busted up turkey canisters — as many as ten in one place. For many, many years after the war I would go to one of my relations for Thanksgiving dinner, and before I could touch a bite I would get up and go to the back yard and cry like a baby. I passed up a helluva lot of turkey dinners.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0349.jpg |
| Image Size | 347.29 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1321 x 2198 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | December 15, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | Belgium |
| Archive | United States Army |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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