Battle of Hurtgen Forest

From September 1944 to February '45, in the longest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, division after division were sent into the Hurtgen Forest on the Belgian-German border. By the time the smoke cleared, nearly 30,000 GIs had been killed or wounded. Whiting makes it painfully clear that the battle of Hurtgen was unnecessary and had more to do with the maintenance of high-level reputations than strategic imperatives. He argues that Hurtgen was the forerunner of an attitude that became pervasive in Vietnam, where ``generals were still throwing away the lives of their young soliders with the same careless abandon.'' Whiting ( Bloody Aachen ) describes the battle with a sure hand; there is plenty of heroism on these pages, but little glory. As he points out, the only soldier of Hurtgen remembered today is ``the one who ran away'': Pvt. Eddie Slovik, the first American soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War. Photos. (Apr.)