Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II

This book covers the battle for Aachen in unbelievable detail. It reads almost as you would expect the Army's official history (green books) would read if they had done a volume on just this subject. The one great failing of this book is the maps or lack thereof. There are about 5 of them, one of which is included twice (?) and they are copies of maps from other sources. The best one, as it pertains to the text, is the one covering the northern pincer of the encirclement covering the 30th Inf. Div and the 2nd Armored Div., however, even it is almost too large a scale and many areas that are referred to on a continuing basis are not clearly noted on the map. The first 113 pages are devoted to the southern pincer by the 1st Inf. Div. and the 3rd Armored Div. and the one map that deals with those areas is, again, too large a scale. At least half of the villages mentioned in the text are not to be found and following the action is frustrating. This is really a good book, but it could have been a great book with about 4 more custom maps covering specific engagements.

I had a special interest in this book as we had a family member serving with the 30ID. He received his second purple heart in the battle for Aachen on 10/11/1944. From my standpoint the book was very detailed and helped me understand the overall battle. That said, I thought the book lacked adequate maps to understand the full scale of the battle. Several of the maps in the book were reduced in size to the point it was difficult to even read them. There were several other maps that were very readable and printed on a better scale. I ended up using Google Earth maps to better understand the scale of the battle. By the way there are remains of numerous bunkers in the area, particularly around the city of Brand. Northeast of Brand there are three panzers that remain today. Google Earth helped me a lot understanding the book. This is not a quick read, but a true detailed history of the battle for Aachen. For the serious WWII reader this is a great book.

Having grown up hard on the Dutch/German border, I played during most of my childhood in what used to be bloody battle fields. As kids we frequently brought spent and unspent munitions to light which had laid undisturbed since the fall of 1944. I often heard family members talk about what it was like the days the "Amis" advanced thru our area in order to take Aachen and ultimately end the war. Few books mention, let alone describe in detail, the events that took place north of the Huertgen Forest. Also, it was very refreshing to read a war history of the area which uses the local names for rivers and creeks instead of the names shown only on American maps. I found only few mistakes in spelling or naming and I attribute them to the source materials as they telegraph throughout other (US-published) books about the subject. While the maps could be better / larger / clearer, I still give full marks since it is rare to find topographic maps of the area surrounding Aachen dating back to 1944. And any map printed post 1949 would have quite a few road names changed and therefore add to the confusion. Thank You Mr. Baumer, I owe you a beer!

Aachen is a great read, especially for World War II buffs looking for a detailed narrative about the long five weeks it took American forces to force the city’s surrender. I was impressed with the way the author seamlessly weaved much of the historical record with first-hand accounts of the commanders and combatants who fought the battles. I do join with other reviewers, however, in commenting about the book’s lack of maps; there were many smaller unit actions detailed in the writing that were hard to follow absent illustrations, but the engaging writing overcame this in most cases. That said, the author clearly evidenced his commitment to excellent research and presented the only book exclusively about the Battle of Aachen during World War II in a clear, concise manner deserving of five stars.

Now this was a very good read of an epic battle. The coverage of fighting through the bunkers and dragons teeth was well covered, as well as the house to house. Good rundown of the units engaged in the battle on both sides,. If you have been to Aachen you will find plenty of reminders of the battle on the buildings, bullitt holes, damage from artillery and bombs. If you are a history buff this book is well worth the time spent reading it.

The author uses excellent organization and extensive details to describe this hard fought, month long campaign - from both US and enemy points of view. Better than any other WW2 book, the reader can get an excellent insight into the fighting that occurred at key points and how each side pursued its strategy day-by-day. No WW2 study is complete without knowledge of the crucial Aachen battle, which was the initial breakthrough of Hitler's West Wall.

It is a gripping book about a relatively neglected part of the combat between the liberation of Maastricht and the onset of the Battle of the Bulge, but it needs better and much more extensive maps in the Kindle version. (I've not seen the print version.)

This book is a very good read for anyone interested in this epic battle of the first German city to fall to the allies in World War II. It also warms my heart to see mention of my late father, Capt. Gilbert H. Fuller, CO H Company, 26th Infantry Regiment in this historcial account of the Battle of Aachen..

This book was well written and had a detailed, comprehensive narrative of both the September and October battles. Why the three stars? First, the maps - or lack thereof. There are a couple (one was incomprehensible due to scale distortion) but I couldn't follow the narrative with what was provided, let alone get a feel for how the topography influenced commanders' decisions. Dropped a star here. Second, is the often weak analysis of the axis side of the battle. The most notable issue is the apparently interchangeable designation of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier division as the 3rd Panzer division; the author even refers to the division as the "Armoured Bear" division recruited from Berlin - this was true of the 3rd Panzer, but 3rd Panzer wasn't at Aachen, 3rd Panzer Grenadier was. What can be inferred as Panzerschrecks are routinely labelled "Panzerfausts" (one of the illustrations even clearly shows the former but is labelled as the latter), and the convention for contemporary reports and immediate post war unit histories to label every German AFV as a "Mark VI" is uncritically followed. Admittedly the book is pitched as an account from the US side, but a little more critical analysis would have easily uncovered these issues. Dropped the second star here.This is still a good book, but it could so easily have been a great one with a little more attention to the issues above. Still a welcome narrative of a battle that seems overlooked in favour of Market Garden and Bulge books.

A thorough account. But it suffers from the usual problems of war histories: page after page of descriptions of troop movements, engagements, etc. that, in copious use of military terminology for descriptions, ends up numbing my brain. Maps, too, fail to help locate action. It seems that most military historians, save Beever, write as though they are writing for other military historians who know the names of weapons, etc.