The slog was relentless. Through dark, deep forest and across broken terrain, mountain peaks studded with bare hillocks, draws and ridgelines, the US Seventh Army had fought its way northward nearly 500 miles (800km) from the French Riviera.
The Germans had contested virtually every mile of the advance since the Allies had come ashore in southern France during Operation Dragoon on 15 August 1944, intent on supporting the D-Day offensive in Normandy and opening the Mediterranean ports to supply and reinforcement convoys. Once a junction had been affected with the armies advancing from Normandy, the Allies intended to press further across the frontier of the Third Reich on a broad front, bringing the Second World War home to Nazi Germany and striking a fatal blow to the enemy.
In late October, after ten weeks of fighting, the veteran US 3rd Infantry Division had battered its way northward through the Vosges Mountains to the vicinity of the French town of La Bourgonce, with the village of St Die identified as an immediate objective. While high-ranking officers planned grand strategy, their aims were being prosecuted and advanced, as always, by small unit actions on the ground.
Two days after his 22nd birthday, 28 October 1944, Staff Sergeant Lucian Adams, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division, was with his squad in an area noted on maps as the Magdeleine Woods. The 30th Infantry was poised to support the neighbouring 7th Infantry Regiment, moving to capture Hill 616 and open Route N-420, the highway north of Le Haut Jacques Pas, where the 7th Regiment had run into substantial resistance, probably from the German 716th Division and elements of the tough 201st Mountain Battalion.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 136-utgaven av History of War.
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COUPS & CHAOS
How the French armed forces lost the war in Algeria and almost destroyed French democracy in the process
BATTLE OF ALGIERS
When the Front de libération nationale FLN) took its war to the streets of the capital, France’s military responded with merciless wrath
THE RISE OF ALGERIAN RESISTANCE
How the anti-colonialist struggle around the globe helped inspire Algeria’s liberation movement to organise and fight back
ROOTS OF REVOLUTION
A century of French occupation led to a genocide in Algeria that provoked one of the bloodiest showdowns of the modern age
DWIGHT W BIRDWELL
In the opening hours of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, this Specialist Five led his armoured cavalry detachment in repulsing a fierce communist assault against Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon
THE FIVE STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP
Phillips O’Brien discusses how this quintet of national leaders impacted the course of the Second World War
Great Battles FLODDEN
On the morning of 9 September 1513, King James lV of Scotland stood atop Flodden Hill with what seemed an insurmountable advantage over the English. Yet by the day's end he would lay slain and his army shattered
FERDINAND 'THE BLOODY'
Known for his brutal martial punishment and execution of his own men, Ferdinand Schérner’s ruthlessness was matched only by his devotion to Nazi ideology
AIRBORNE UNDER SIEGE ARNHEM
For nine days the heroic 1st Airborne fought desperately, waiting vainly for relief that never came
SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK
Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway ina grim foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe
