The Bloody Forest is an account of the battle of the Huertgen Forest, which took place during the fall of 1944. As with all of Astor's books, this is an "oral history". This means it's really a book based on the recollections by participants more than a scholarly and objective analysis of the battles. Indeed, there is no analysis or critical thinking; no historically important questions are raised or answered. Like Stephen Ambrose, Astor does not write history, but merely chronology spiced with personal accounts. Of course, this is not the point of the book, but if you are looking for an assessment of the Huertgen campaign, this is not the book you're looking for (instead, try Miller's A Dark and Bloody Ground).

For someone looking for a book that focusses on personal experiences of individual combatants, the book does an adequate job of providing this. The personal stories are gripping, the descriptions of being shelled in the forest and suffering airbursts are vivid, and the tales of exhaustion, frustration, and sheer terror are both pointed and poignant. I particularly liked the stories which reflected the frustrations of command during the battles. Many focused on the problems at the company level, where the predominant issues were company and platoon comander losses, causalties in general, and the poor training and integration of the green replacements. Occasionally there are also tales of battalion or regiment HQs being so out of touch with what was happening at the front lines that orders were completely rediculous and lead to serious defeats.

The book, despite these interesting tales of failures of command, is not great, due to a number of problems. First, the stories and experiences reported in the book get repetitive very quickly. They all are about artillery and airbusts, foxholes, and mines. Granted, these were key themes of the battles, but after the first 10 or 15 stories, the reader gets the point that covering your foxhole with logs was imperitive to avoid getting nailed by airbusts. Astor does a poor job of editing these comments so that the reader isn't bored. This is a major failing by Astor, as it cheapens the effectiveness of the combatants' tales of their experiences. Instead of being exciting throughout, the book plods on and on (the reader starts to think "...let me guess, this guy will dig a foxhole, cover it with logs, and then complain about mortar fire and how wet his feet are"). This isn't fair to the vets who are relating their experiences.

Furthermore, huge sections of George Wilson's If You Survive were quoted. Although the material was appropriate (Wilson's personal accounts of his exeperience in the Huertgen Forest are very interesting), I found this to be annoying. I have read Wilson's book and I was annoyed to find out that I was going to read it again instead of Astor actually providing something new. Furthermore, it is a failure on the part of the author when whole sections of another text must be quoted verbatim to carry the story along. At least Astor properly, legally, and ethically quotes the material and documents the source. Perhaps the plagiarist and sham "historian" Stephen Ambrose should take note.

Another problem is that Astor does not provide useful maps. There are only two for the entire book. One is a broad overview map, showing the entire region of the Westwall south of Aachen. As such, it isn't useful to pick out the locations of individual towns where battles took place. The other is a more detailed map, but it only covers the portion of the Huertgen Forest that was initially invaded in the early parts of the battle. It doesn't even include Schmidt! This lack of maps was extrodinarily frustrating, even though I've read other books on the subject and am familiar with the geography of the region.

Finally, the book is very choppy. Instead of seamlessly blending the personal stories of the combatants with a tight chronology of the battle, Astor jumps around both in terms of time and space. Several pages will be devoted to a battle in one location at a certain time, and then without warning (i.e. with nothing more than a new paragraph) Astor will jump to a new location miles away and cover a different battle that took place a day earlier. This is very frustrating, particularly when there aren't supporting maps to help the reader.

In the end, the book is a disappointment if read on its own. If you are going to read only one book on the Huertgen Forest, this is not the one to read. Instead, read Miller's A Dark and Bloody Ground for a tight history as well as analysis, then read this book to add the color and grit of the peronsal accounts.

In a nutshell: A potentially great book ruined by a bad writer.

Email me with comments at michael.licari@uni.edu

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