Aachen, Battle of: Books, Audiobooks, and eBooks owned by Avn Tech Library

On 12 September 1944 an American patrol from the 3rd Armored Division's Task Force Doan entered Germany and reached a point within ten miles of the Roer River. Little did anyone realize that this would prove to be the beginning of America's longest battle. The longest Battle is the first book-length history of the crucial Roer River campaign. It brings these hard fought battles to life as the author intimately relates the ebb and flow of the combat that ultimately broke the back of the Wehrmacht in the West. (taken from book cover)

By September 1944, the Allied advances across France and Belgium had turned into a war of attrition along the German frontier. Standing between the Allies and the Third Reich's industrial heartland was the city of Aachen, once the ancient seat of Charlemagne's empire - the First Reich in the Nazi version of history - and now firmly entrenched within Germany's Siegfried Line fortifications. The last time a major German city had lost to the enemy was over a century earlier during the Napoleonic Wars, and Hitler wasn't about to let that happen again. He ordered Aachen defended to the last man and bullet. "The eyes of all Germany are on the defense of the ancient city,"SS chief Heinrich Himmler informed the soldiers of Battle Group Aachen.
Over the course of six weeks, as American and German forces were pulled toward the city, the bucolic farm pastures surrounding Aachen became brutal fields of death. Thanks to hard fighting by some of the U.S. Army's finest units - including the 1st Infantry Division ("Big Red One"), the 30th Infantry Division ("Roosevelt's SS"), the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels"), and the 3rd Armored Division ("Spearhead") - the Americas gradually encircled Aachen. After a final week of building-by-building, street-by-street combat in the city itself, the Germans surrendered, having delayed the Allied advance for weeks and forced the Allied to reevaluate their strategy for defeating the Third Reich. The battle for Aachen had been a victory, but at a steep cost in men and time. Winning the war was going to take longer than planned. (taken from book cover)

Of all the towns and cities in Germany none evokes the spirit of history more vividly than the name of Aachen. Here in 814 Charlemagne was buried. Here twenty-eight of the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. And here, in the autumn of 1944, the US First Army, the Big Red One, was held at bay for two months by the fanatical resistance of the Wehrmacht. But this was no ordinary battle, no straightforward two-sided slogging match, for in the middle was a third party. Aachen, the ancient Holy City of the Empire, had remained a bastion of Catholicism in a godless state, the mass of her citizens refusing to acknowledge the Nazi creed. So it was that when they were ordered to evacuate the city, 20,000 civilians chose to disobey, hiding as best they could in the ruins, to fight it out with 'friend' and foe alike. The atmosphere of a city in torment is brilliantly recaptured by the author and the vital importance of the battle for Aachen in the subsequent war fully explained. Two months later the German Army began its counter-attack in the Ardennes; but by then the Big Red One was worn out" (Amazon)

The German Wehrmacht was one of the most capable fighting forces the world has ever known, but in the end it was no match for the Allies. Some historians contend that the Allies achieved victory through brute force and material superiority. But, as Peter Mansoor argues, all of the material produced by US industry was useles without trained soldiers to operate it, a coherent doctrine for its use, and leaders who could effectively command the formations into which it was organized.

A sweeping narrative of six decades of combat, and an eye-opening account of the evolution of the American infantry. From the beaches of Normandy and the South Pacific Islands to the deserts of the Middle East, the American soldier has been the most indispensable- and most overlooked-factor in wartime victory. In Grunts, renowned historian John C. McManus covers six decades of warfare, examining ten critical battles-from the Battle of the Bulge to counterinsurgency combat in Iraq-where the skills and courage of American troops proved the crucial difference between victory and defeat. Based on years of research and interviews with veterans, this powerful history reveals the ugly face of war in a way few books have, and demonstrates the fundamental, and too often forgotten, importance of the human element in serving and protecting the nation.