Never read Ike's Crusade In Europe.  Were Market Garden and Hurtgen Forest seen as a pincer attack on the Ruhr?

American Rifleman TV show had an excellent six or so episodes on the Guns of Market Garden. Covered the success and failure of different tactics. Showed where a lot of heroic sacrifices were made. Probably on Internet somewhere. Very good documentary.

Hurtgen Forest was a shambles.  Terrible terrain, very few roads so basically on foot, no mobility, no fields of fire.  Worst thing was the CG.  It was trying to cut the hydro electric power for the Ruhr, but (like Market-Garden) going the wrong way around.  What they were aiming for were the dams outside the Hurtgen.  The dams, whether you had the forest or not were valuable.  But the forest was worthless without the dams since the Germans could have opened the sluice gates and flooded the whole area.  
And if you read "A Bridge Too Far", at the end of Market Garden one of the Dutch officers says something about that scenario being a map exercise at their war college, and anyone who heads straight up the road over the bridges fails.  The correct answer to getting over the Rhine is to travel inland where there are fewer choke points.
(Benefits of attending CGSC)

kpoesq369 - so no pincer.  Thank you sir!

Reading Ike's Crusade in Europe.  He admits that the plan was to encircle the Ruhr between the Americans and British armies to the north of it.

BTW, Monty after his failed Market-Garden wanted Ike to support his theory of a single, narrow thrust to Berlin w/Monty leading the British/Canadian armies there.  Ike thought Monty was . Market-Garden was a narrow thrust that failed and to enter the German Reich under the same failed strategy liable to be flanked and cut off was insane.  Read that in a Bradley book (co-writen by Clay Blair)

Market Garden WAS Montgomery's single thrust plan (rather, it was what he managed to get Eisenhower to approve of his plan).  He had pressed Eisenhower for supply priority (not just priority over Patton and Bradley - priority to the EXCLUSION OF them) and argued that Northwest Germany was the key to victory.  If his commanders had managed to not bungle the capture of Antwerp, he might have had the supplies to push on without having to starve the other commands.  Antwerp was a major seaport, but was not located on the sea, rather being quite some distance up the Scheldt River from the sea.  When Montgomery's forces captured Antwerp relatively intact, they did not secure the river and its estuary, and the Germans foritified islands and both sides of the river, preventing its use and rendering Antwerp's port facilities useless.  Forces earmarked for clearing the river were siphoned off, first for Operation Market Garden, and then to hold and supply the salient that had been created by the drive to Arnhem, resulting in a protracted and bloody fight.  The German forces around the estuary would not be cleared until 8 November, and by the time mine clearing and other operations to allow traffic on the river were completed, the first convoy did not arrive until 28 November, almost 3 months after the fall of Antwerp and 2 1/2 months after the commencement of Operation Market Garden.  The Germans would launch Operation Watch on the Rhine less than 3 weeks later, intended to retake Antwerp, initiating the Battle of the Bulge.

Mike

Thanks Mike.  M-G and Monty's failure meant Ike used the Ninth and First US army to encircle and isolate the Ruhr.

Walcheren Island was key to opening Antwerp.  Malaria there decimated the British who landed there in 1809 and was quite a political scandal in England back then.  I'm certain the British didn't forget and there must have been a lot of atrabine tablets for the Canadians who finally took it.

Malaria is quite a bit less serious in November.  Now, if they had tried in the first week of September...

I have spent some time in Hurtgen. I cant figure out why they spent so many lives on that mess, other than they just ran out of ideas and used it as a meat grinder hoping the germans would hit higher attrition than we did or to  bog down the germans and bluff them into thinking it was going to be our major front.

We found bunkers, tank treads, bomb craters and shrapnel etc. I wish we had more time, we would have gone deeper in were you can still find lots of goodies where they set up temp med stations etc. This was back in 2001.

Hurtgen Forest was used to bloody new replacements before placing them in established divisions.  “A Blood Dimmed Tide” - Gerald Astor gives a great account of the Ardennes.  I used that book for a college course when I lived overseas.

A German officer said that fighting in the Hurtgen was worse than it was on the Russian Front

Monty was a big idea guy. I can not imagine the meetings with him.

Ike grew to hate Monty.  He told Cornelius Ryan, "He's a psychopath, don't forget that.  He is such an egocentric... He has never made a mistake in his life." See footnote in Anthony Beevor's Ardennes, 1944, p. 367.

The feeling was mutual.  Though it’s not clear if Monty liked anyone not named Montgomery.