video

One of the videos this week talked about the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. This was the first time I heard of this battle and after the video and brief discussion about the battle; I wondered why did America go into the forest in the first place? It seems funny to me that the Americans would cancel future jumps because of the number of causalities but would then turn around and send men to battle for a piece of terrain that was not needed. So far, we have seen several battles like this that historians debate the purpose or need for the battle. While, historians have the benefit of hindsight, why did the professional military minds not see the terrain was not needed in the first place? Finally, I thought the cartoon about Donald Duck was funny but showed a good point. It showed propaganda was heavily used by sides before and during the war and could help explain why some of the German people did not see any problems with Hitler until is was too late.