General Class

I enjoyed the movies that went along with class this week; it is always best to get the picture from those who were actually there. Especially the segments on the battle of the Herken Forest. I had never heard of it until now, and well, it seems that's the case because, as Churchill said, the winners write the history books and that battle didn't go too well for the winners. It seems like a lot of our troops got chewed up in there, what with it being a defensive dreamland/offensive nightmare to begin with, and the Germans adding artificial enhancements to the already formidable natural defenses of the terrain. As was mentioned in class, the Germans were very good defenders, but towards the end of the war they simply didn't have the reserves to conduct mobile defenses as Model had done back east in Russia during the winter of 41 and so forth. But give them a chance to neutralize the American airpower and armored mobility, and they were very capable of exacting a high toll on those sent against them. It seems that many of Germany's impressive tactical victories involved forests. Ardennes, 1940, Herken Forest, etc. Oh, and I also enjoyed the abbreviated class length. That was a nice bonus.