| Original caption: “Tank covering street in Hurtgen.” United States Army M4 Sherman tanks of the 709th Tank Battalion, attached to the 8th Infantry Division, at a farm, the present-day Forstamt (“Forestry Office”) in Huertgen. M4 Sherman tank with hedgerow cutters sheltered near another knocked-out tank lost during the battle for the village. The tank closest to the photographer was knocked out during the fighting probably by artillery fire and the other reversed into the farm seeking protection. The farm buildings are now used by the Forestry Office. To the exhausted men of the 121st Infantry Regiment, the failure of the Engineers to get armor through to Huertgen on November 25, 1944, meant another heavy day of fighting for the town. No doubt impressed by the facility with which German guns in Huertgen could deal with armor, General Donald A. Stroh (November 3, 1892 – December 20, 1953), commanding the 8th Infantry Division, directed that his infantry alone take Huertgen. Only then, with firm control of the Germeter-Huertgen highway assured, would armor of Combat Command R (from the 5th Armored Division) be committed in quest of the remaining objective, the village of Kleinhau. The prospects of the infantry reaching the woods line and then taking Huertgen were not so dismal as a cursory look at the 1st 5 arduous days of fighting might indicate. Whereas the 121st Infantry’s advances had been laborious, the regiment nevertheless had prodded the enemy from the more readily defensible lines in the forest. To the north, fairly consistent progress by the 4th Infantry Division had outflanked those Germans still in the woods along the left flank of the 121st Infantry. By juggling troops on the defensive fronts held by the 8th Division’s other 2 regiments, General Stroh had freed the 1st Battalion, 13th Infantry, to assist in renewing the attack. He gave this battalion to Colonel Thomas J. Cross (July 29, 1894 – July 12, 1963), the new 121st Infantry commander, who told the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Morris J. Keesee (April 14, 1912 – October 28, 1971), to circle around through the forest into the 4th Division’s zone and on November 27 to strike for Huertgen along the left flank of the 121st Infantry from the woods line northwest of the village. On November 26, while Colonel Keesee’s battalion was shifting position, the 121st Infantry tried again to clear the Huertgen woods line. Even the most optimistic hardly could have predicted the ease with which the battalions advanced. The Germans had withdrawn from the woods. Only mines, sporadic shelling, and a few stragglers barred the way. By 1100 Hours, the 121st Infantry overlooked Huertgen from the west and southwest. The 121st Infantry commander, Colonel Cross, ordered an immediate attack on Huertgen. A report from the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of a neighboring regiment to the effect that the Germans had abandoned the village spurred the preparations. Unfortunately, as men of the 121st Infantry and Colonel Keesee’s battalion of the 13th Infantry soon discovered, the report of withdrawal from Huertgen was unfounded. The village that for more than 2 months had lain so near and yet so far still was not to be had at a bargain price. On November 27, tank destroyers took position along the woods line to spew covering fire into the village, and a platoon of Sherman tanks joined the leading infantry battalion. Artillery took quick advantage of improved observation and in 1 instance knocked out a German tank with 5 hits, not a unique but a nonetheless noteworthy accomplishment for guns laid indirectly. By nightfall the Germans still held the bulk of Huertgen’s shell-shattered buildings; but Colonel Keesee’s battalion had severed the Huertgen-Kleinhau highway and gained a toehold in the northeastern edge of the village, while a battalion of the 121st Infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Henry B. Kunzig (October 5, 1908 – October 21, 1960) wriggled into a few buildings in the western edge. Bolstered by the 31st Machine Gun Battalion, 1 of several small units General der Panzertruppe Erich Brandenberger’s (July 15, 1892 – June 21, 1955) 7th Army had solicited from the inactive front farther south, the enemy would make a fight of it in Huertgen for Still another day. Even when Colonel Keesee’s battalion at daybreak on November 28 seized Hill 401, a strategic height a 1,000 yards (900 meters) northeast of Huertgen, commanding the village, the Germans held on in Huertgen. They folded only in the afternoon after Colonel Kunzig’s reserve company, riding medium tanks of the 709th Tank Battalion, edged onto the main street. Over 200 prisoners had been rounded up when Colonel Cross was able to announce about 1800 Hours on November 28 that Huertgen was in hand. Scores of other Germans lay buried amid the debris that long weeks of war had inflicted upon this little agricultural community. For a long time the village would bear the terrible stench of war. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1818.jpg |
| Image Size | 610.65 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 3000 x 2240 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | December 5, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Hurtgen |
| State or Province | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Geschichtsverein Hürtgenwald |
| 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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