Attack of the Bloody 28th Along the Hürtgen’s Kall Trail | History Traveler Episode 327

Attack of the Bloody 28th Along the Hürtgen’s Kall Trail | History Traveler Episode 327

Right now I am walking through the Hurtgen Forest and for the US infantrymen who served in this area in the latter part of 1944 and early part of 1945, the Hurtgen Forest was the stuff of nightmares. Now the battle kicked off with the ninth Infantry Division being fed into this area

With the intent of pushing through and getting to places like Schmidt to open up an area called the Monschau Corridor, which would open up a path to the Roer River from the Roer River to the Rhine and then into the interior of Germany.

But once they got to this place, they found that the resistance was much more difficult than what they were thought. and as the ninth Infantry cycled out of this area, the 28th Infantry Division came in and along the place called the Kall trail. They would earn their nickname of the Bloody Bucket Division.

So right now I am just to the west of the village of Vossenack, and it’s right here where the 28th Infantry Division relieved the ninth Infantry Division in the latter part of October, 1944, here in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. And as you walk around, my goodness, there are foxholes everywhere

In these woods. As you walk through these woods, the ground is just covered with these little divots in the ground. So I don’t know how well you can see it on camera, but this little pit right here was once the position of a foxhole for an American soldier.

And if we walk up here, you can see a few more. Here’s another spot where you can see kind of this area carved out of the ground. And these are just all over the place. If you go to places like the Bois Jacques that are heavily visited, you know, because of their association

With, you know, easy company and the 101st Airborne, you’ll you’ll see foxhole positions those have been touched up and re dug and different things like that. Oh look here’s here’s another one right here. It looks like you might have another one up here. But anyway, coming here to the Hurtgen forest,

Which is kind of this dark, eerie place, well, you get to see what undisturbed foxholes look like today. All right. Got another position here that we’re going to take a look at before we move on. Now, I can’t claim to know everything about this area.

Today we have Tobias from the Hurtgen Forest Museum with us, and he brought me here to point out this spot. Now, look at this. This is obviously not a foxhole unless it was a foxhole that was dug by a very ambitious person who felt like he needed a lot of room.

What we looking at here is more likely a forward command post. So this would have had logs over the top of it. You can see back here there’s a little bit of a kind of a trench looking thing to serve as an entrance and exit into this. But anyway, yeah, that

Is cool as heck. Now, again, this is the spot right here from where the 28th Infantry Division is going to kick off their assault. Now, first, their objective was to take the village of Vossenack. From there, they’re going to move down this old path called the Kall trail, which is now legendary.

And then from there, get to the village of Schmidt. And if they get Schmidt, well, then from there, that’s going to allow the allies to kind of get behind the German lines on the Siegfried Line and open up the Monschau corridor. Well in command of the 28th Infantry Division was Major General Norman

Dutch Cota. He would have three infantry regiment at his disposal for the coming attack on November 2nd, and each regiment would have a specific mission. The ninth Infantry Regiment was to attack North to secure the Germeter-Hurtgen Road and the woods just to the southwest of the town of Hurtgen.

And this would protect the northern flank of the 28th and also would open up a line of departure for the fourth Infantry Division. The 110th Infantry Regiment was to attack towards the Kall River and secure the area west of the town of Schmidt. In the middle was the 112th Infantry Regiment.

Their mission was to attack East and capture the village of Vossenack. After securing the village, the regiment was then to change their direction to the southeast and advance along the Kall trail. The Kall trail was a narrow path that left Vossenack and descended

Along this rugged bit of terrain towards the Kall River Valley before coming up to the Village of Kommerscheidt. And then terminating in the town of Schmidt, which was the final objective for the 112th. We’ve now moved over into the town of Vossenack and it was from this town here

That the 28th Division was going to get access to the Kall trail, which was going to take them over to Schmidt. And the 112th Infantry Regiment moved through this town and there were some vicious house to house fighting that took place here.

Now, these homes that you can see behind me were here in 1944. They’ve all been built since. Matter of fact, this town got completely wrecked in the fighting that took place here during the battle, Hurtgen Forest. And there are some pretty famous photos that were taken right here in this area

That give us an idea of just what it looked like here and how much this town got devastated. We’ve got our buddy Tobias with us today, and he’s kind of showing us around the Kall trail and some of the fighting positions at the Hurtgen Forest.

And he has this photo that was taken in November of 1944 that shows Main Street in the town of Vossenack. And you can see just the devastated houses and the church in the background that has been completely just damaged by shell fire. Well, that photo was taken approximately from this position right here.

So you can see all of the homes have, of course, been rebuilt. And and also the church. But this photo gives us an idea of what it looked like, You know, for a guy in the 28th Division in 1944. So this is Lieutenant

Johannes Lutz, and he got his knights cross for his action on November the sixth right here in Vossenack. He was part of the 116th German Tank Division, and he knocked out by himself a couple of American vehicles with Panzer force and was hand grenades.

So for his for this action, he was awarded for the Knight’s cross. And two days later, on the 8th of November, he was wounded by shrapnel is right here in the Hurtgen forest. I wanted to move up a little bit closer to show the door of this church. Now, in later years,

One of the German divisions that fought here, the 116th Infantry Division, which was also called the Greyhound Division, did a lot to help rebuild the structure. They donated money for a window and for a new bell. And if you look at this door, well, this kind of

Is a symbol of remembrance for the fight that took place here. So you can see down there at the bottom, it talks about the 68,000 casualties between the Germans and Americans. Now, there has been a little bit of a point of debate in later years whether that number is correct or not.

And then you see the images of these angels ascending to heaven and right here it shows the suffering of the civilians and kind of depicts their loss right here in Vossenack. But yeah, that is that is really interesting. here’s another memorial that they have here at the church and in war.

It’s really the civilians who suffer the most. And this memorial is a remembrance to the citizens of Vossenack who lost their lives here in the battle of the Hurtgen forest. So here you see all of these names. These are people who were killed in some cases during the battle.

Some may have died of their wounds after the battle. In this particular case right here, you see the name Peter Dorr. So Peter Dorr owned a mill down in the Kall Valley and sometime in 1946, went down to his mill and hit a booby trap and was killed.

If we look over here, we see a few more names on these plaques. And there’s one more that I wanted to point out. This individual right here. Oh, man, my German is terrible Breidenich Theo. He was 15 years old.

And after the you can see, he died in 1945 after the battle had moved through. He picked up a hand grenade and it exploded and killed him. But anyway, this is a remembrance to all of those citizens. So on November the second, the 28th Infantry

Division had moved through and had taken the village of Vossenack. But on November the sixth, there was a counterattack by the German 116th Panzer Division, and they moved through and got right up to this street in front of the church. So this was literally the front line.

And there’s the story of a German sergeant who got right up to this area right here. And there was an eyewitness who later recounted what happened. So out here, you would have had Americans running back and forth and there were some German tanks. And anyway, he gets a panzerfaust, shoots, misses,

And when he gets the second one, he takes aim at one of these American tanks. And right before he fires, takes a bullet right to the head. But anyway, this ended up being the front line. And all of those guys who had gone on to the Kall trail were now cut off.

We are getting ready to move down into the Kall trail. And there is a very simple memorial here that if you didn’t know it was here, I mean, you would just probably drive right on by. But down here, you can see says there’s a memory of the casualties at this point.

On November 3rd, 1944, started the attack of the third and first Battalion of the 112th U.S. Infantry Regiment reinforced by a company of the 707th Tank Battalion via the Kall Trail into the objective. SCHMIDT And then here you can see there is this depiction of Christ on the cross.

And this cross is made up completely of shrapnel that was recovered from the battlefield in May. And that is something else. What we are looking at right here is the I guess you could say, the beginning of the Kall trail. Now, prior to World War Two, this would have been

In English, would roughly translate to the mass trail. So in this direction, roughly, is the town of Schmidt. And there was a church there, and the villagers in Vossenack would take this path. Well, of course it wasn’t paved at the time, but they would take this path to go to church in Schmidt

And right here in this spot, there was a big stone cross. Well, take a look at this. Right here is the bottom part of that cross. Now, nobody knows exactly for sure what happened to the top part. It was destroyed during the battle.

But if you look there, you can see evidence of battle damage from the fighting that took place around here. But anyway, the remains of it were removed and now set here again at this memorial. All right. We’re going to go ahead and take a walk down the Kall trail now. We’ve moved positions

Just outside of the village of Vossenack to show something that is pretty key to this battle. So right up in here is where, of course, Vossenack is. And as the 28th Division pushes through, well, second Battalion moves out beyond the village. And if you look in the distance there,

You can see some fields. And that is where second Battalion took up a defensive position. Well, the Germans were situated on this round hill here called Hill 400. So they were some artillery observers. And from this position, they were able to call in artillery strikes on these poor guys.

And they just got pounded and the Germans did something that they didn’t typically do. They kept calling in artillery on foxholes. So they were just pounding these poor guys until they took out individual foxholes. And eventually the hundred and 16th Panzer division is going to move through

And is going to push these guys back into Vossenack. so now we are right here on the entrance of the Kall trail on the Kall Valley. And, um. Yeah, the good thing for us today is when the 82nd Airborne arrived in force and they’re going to hook the forest.

Gavin did the same walk that we do today. And he had some soldiers with him that took pictures. And one of these pictures, this one over here, you see Sherman Tank and a M10 Tank Destroyer, and also an American truck that was probably blown up by artillery.

And you still see over here 28th Division 110th Regiment, first Battalion on it. We are making our way down the Kall Trail here and this place is insane to me to think that the 28th was tank taking tanks and tank destroyers down this crazy steep path.

I don’t even know how they did it. So just logistically getting, you know, armor and vehicles back and forth is one thing. But as they get fed in here, there are going to be a lot of wounded. They have to get back out. That’s difficult enough as it is just without the terrain.

But if I move out here, I don’t know if you’re going to really be able to see it on camera. But look behind me. I mean, we are going into a steep, steep valley. Definitely gives me a greater appreciation for this. Getting out here and walking the ground like this.

We’ve moved down a little further down the trail, making it closer to the valley. And the one thing that is just blowing our minds as you look at this trail where we just came from, is the fact that tanks came down through here.

Now, right here in approximately the spot, there was a lieutenant with able company of the 707th Tank Battalion by the name of Flegg, who came down here. He was the first tank and there had been a medic who had come up here

Looking for an aid station and had wrecked a weasel right along through here. Well, the lieutenant tried to go around and if you look out over here, I mean, my gosh, that’s this path is not something that you want to try and go around. Anyway, the he hit a mine

And the treads or the tracks came off of his tank, so he was stuck. Well, then the follow up tank came along. They rigged up a steel cable to Lieutenant Flagg’s tank and then hooked it to the second tank and basically used it to keep that tank from going down into the abyss.

So the tanks made it through and they the follow up tanks saw that. Well, somebody else went around. We can too, but they didn’t. You still cables and it ended up tumbling end over and into the valley But I just can’t believe that they were bringing armor through this mess.

There’s another really interesting story that occurs right here in this area. So I mentioned earlier how on November six there was a German counterattack that pushed towards Vossenack. Well, part of that counterattack also pushed right through this valley here behind me and cut off the Americans who are on the other side.

Well, right here in this spot, there was an American aid station. So you have a lot of wounded who would have been right here in this area. And there was a bit of a truce that was called between the Germans and the Americans. So that each of them could treat their wounded here.

And the Germans from the 116th Panzer division ended up allowing the walking wounded and those who could be taken out on stretchers to pass through their lines to get back up to the hill towards Voss neck. But anyway, you could also see kind of some remnants of the aid station here.

And there’s also a painting or a print that kind of shows or recreates that that little incident right here along the cow trail. Yup. All right. We’re going to go up and take a look at this aid station, see for J.D. can hurt himself. Oh, this is.

My gosh. This is steep as heck. I can’t imagine having an aid station up here. All right, So here you can see in kind of this dugout area, this is where the wounded would have been treated. And you can see someone has set up a cross here as

Kind of a memorial, I guess you could say. But anyway, yeah, pretty amazing. Here’s the painting that I was referring to that depicts this coordination between the American and German medics. The name of this painting is called A Time for Healing. They actually have an original print in the Hurt and Forest Museum.

So here you can see there’s the aid station along the trail where I just was earlier. We talked about the tank that had slipped off the side of the trail. That’s also depicted here. So, yeah, kind of a a moving depiction of the humanity on both sides in a very brutal battle. Okay.

So we are now down in the bottom of the valley along the Kall Trail. Here. Here you can see the Kall River. And I use that name River rather loosely now. It’s probably more like a creek now during the time of the battle. There were veterans who recounted

Their experiences and said that this was probably about waist deep. Keep in mind, this is, you know, in November. So it’s going to be really cold. And the bridge had been destroyed. So there is kind of, you know, like a little rudimentary bridge that they used. Tobias thinks that the tanks and vehicles

Would needed to have crossed, like right down in here where this present day bridge is, because that’s kind of a low point where they could get across. But what I really wanted to point out here is that there’s now a memorial that has been set up on this bridge

And kind of harkening back to that aid station that we just took a look at where the Germans and Americans were helping each other in the midst of this awful conflict. Well, the name of this memorial. Is also called A Time for Healing. All right. We’re going to All right.

We’re going to go ahead and continue on moving towards the 28th Infantry Division objectives of Kommerscheidt and Schmidt. All right. We’re coming up out of the Kall Valley. And there’s a spot here on the trail that I’ve been wanting to see for a really,

Really long time, because I’ve seen all kinds of pictures of it on the Internet. So as I mentioned, on November 6th, the Germans have a counter-attack. They move up through the valley. They get all the way up to the area of the bridge that I just showed a little bit ago.

And the Americans here along this part of the trail were completely cut off. Well, the Germans got some reconnaissance that there were three American tanks. It might have been just one German and two tank stories that were up ahead of me here on the trail.

And a German soldier, a 21 years old by the name of Zuithausen got orders from his commander who said, hey, you fought in Russia. You know how to take out tanks, take some people go up. Take out these tanks. So Zuithausen gets up here with his men

And sees this American armor up ahead of him and hits them with the Panzer force. They end up taking a lot of prisoners. And there is still some evidence of that tank here on the trail today. Now this is just cool as hooked me. Take a look at this.

What we are looking at are the original tracks to that Sherman that was taken out by Zuithausen right here on the trail. Now, the tank was kind of off to the side. And yeah, this is the kind of stuff that I come out here for,

To see, you know, these these things that you have to walk a long way to see. And that that still gives you like some physical evidence of the history that took place here. Now, something else that’s interesting, let me just walk along here and show this,

Because this goes on for a little bit. But something that’s interesting is there were some flooding here a couple of years ago and it washed out part of the trail. Well, when it washed out, it revealed another set of tracks right next to the Sherman. Now, obviously, that’s different. Might be

From a weasel possibly. But anyway, the tracks go all the way up here to the top of this trail and gives us a piece of physical evidence of what happened here in November of 1944. So the interesting thing

Or the good thing to work in the museum is to get in touch with a lot of people. And so it happened one day that the grandson of this guy that built up this house right next to the tank trick showed up in the museum and he started talking to me.

So my granddad had this house there and next was a tank track. And I’ve got some pictures from the private archives. And do you want to see them instead of of course, show me. And later he sent them to me. And there are a lot of rumors going on about these tank tricks

That the Americans put it there, uh, to get the vehicles up the hill and stuff. But if you see this picture right after war, the touching, the two tracks are still on the track on the tank and this tank track isn’t actually laying there where it must be.

So it’s probably brought the here after war. And that’s what the grandson to the grandson told me, that his granddad, uh, put this tank rig upside down to get his vehicle up that hill easier in better weather conditions. Here’s another picture that Tobias has from that collection that the grandson had.

And here you can see a bunch of guys sitting on top of this tank. And again, this is a postwar image. Well, after the war, you had all kinds of armor laying all around, all over the place and all throughout Europe. And different groups would be hired

To go and salvage these wrecks and cut them apart and, you know, get them out of the woods or out of the fields or whatever. So anyway, what we’re looking at here is is one of these salvage crews. Yeah. Really interesting. Okay.

We’ve moved along the trail a little further, and we’re getting closer to the end of the Kall trail and the village of common sight. And again, we’ve already mentioned there’s going to be counterattacks after the 28th moves into a common site. And SCHMIDT And as we walk through this area along the trail,

You might notice a little bit of a depression in right here. Well, this is the position of an American foxhole. And if we walk up here, let’s get back on the trail and continue walking up here as you continue to make your way along the same path of the 28. Oh, yeah.

All right. This one’s even better. Let me get up here. Yes. Here’s a couple of foxholes whose positions are even more well-defined than what we just saw. And if we were to bring a metal detector up here, well, we would just be getting signals like crazy because the ground is just saturated with

Shell fragments and all kinds of stuff. But yeah, anyway, there’s a little bit of physical evidence of where the 28th was right here along the trail. We just popped out here at the end of the cattle trail and when the 28 got up here, 112th Regiment, well, they continued on in

And they took Kommerscheidt and then they took Schmidt. And then there was a big German counter-attack that pushed them back here. Jim Gavin, in his book on Berlin, describes what he saw here when the 82nd showed up in February of 45.

Talks about going along the trail and it’s just can’t the entire time. There’s wrecked tanks, there’s wrecked tank destroyers, there’s wrecked vehicles, there’s bodies that are frozen with white sheets of snow on top of them, just just absolute devastation along this trail.

As a matter of fact, for the 112th regiment of the approximately 2200 – 2300 men who came in and went along the Kall trail, only about 300 would return, earning this division’s name as the bloody bucket.

The Hürtgen Forest was a sector along the Western Front in WWII that chewed divisions up and spit them right back out. One of the divisions that sustained a terrible ordeal in the Hürtgen was the 28th Infantry Division under the leadership of Gen. Norman Cota. It was here in the fighting along the Kall Trail where the 28th would earn their nickname of “The Bloody Bucket”.

This episode was produced in partnership with The Gettysburg Museum of History. See how you can support history education & artifact preservation by visiting their website & store at https://www.gettysburgmuseumofhistory.com

Learn more about the 1944 Hürtgen Forest Museum here: https://www.museum-huertgenwald.de/

Map animations courtesy of @SandervkHistory with inspiration from the king himself, @TheOperationsRoom (who gave his blessing on this prior to the upload 🙂 )

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