Tim has provided us, general buffs or serious scholars, earnest research enthusiasts or casualpage-a-week armchair perusers, with an enthralling almost day by day account. He thanks Pen& Sword staff for not only having accepted and published “an unknown army officer’s debutbook about Hill 112 in the P&S Company’s ‘Battleground Series’ more than 20 years before, butalso allowing him to revisit the Hill with, he writes, “. . . dare I say it, with more skill and moreinformation”. Hence, our gratitude since he allows us to join him in opening the archives inEastern Europe of I and II SS Panzer Corps for a rare, more lateral, view of the bitter battle.For six weeks from the end of June into August 1944 when the Allies advance gainedmomentum, Hill 112 was far too important to allow the opposition to hold and exploit it.Consequently, it was shelled and mortared almost daily, shrouding it in dust and smoke whilesoldiers of both sides clung to their respective rim positions of the plateau.“By the end, Hill 112 had developed a reputation of death as that of any spot on the First WorldWar’s horrific Western Front,” writes Saunders. “The suffering was so great soldiers on bothsides has their nicknames for it, ‘The Crown of Thorns’, ‘Calvary Hill’, ‘Wood of the Half Trees’,‘Cornwall Wood’, etc. On both sides there was a constant flow of casualties into medical chains
and burials in the burgeoning number of wayside cemeteries.”
