Ernest Hemingway and The Battle of Hurtgen Forest: October – December, 1944

After the not guilty verdict Hemingway left the hotel, boarded a waiting Jeep and headed back to Paris and  Mary Welsh.

Ernest Hemingway had beaten the “rap” as he called it. But despite his relief at the outcome Hemingway still felt bitter at having to suffer the indignities, as he saw them, of undergoing a “trial” where he was forced to lie about his actions when he should have admitted them openly even if that meant being sent back home where he could expect a “lousy hero’s” welcome, but could nevertheless comfortably sit back and wait for a suitable medal to be struck by the Key West Chamber of Commerce, or the Havana Pigeon Shooters Club. Instead, he’d stood up in front of Park and denied all the things that had made him proud to be an American.

Hemingway’s chief emotion in October, apart from his bitterness, one of shame at having the Ritz Hotel in Paris as an address when all those guys he loved most dearly were dug in all along the quickly freezing front line on the Belgian/German border. That’s where he wanted to be – where the fighting was.

And there was plenty of fighting back at the Ritz too between Mary and Hemingway. It was probably all due to the various tensions that had built up with Hemingway’s impending interrogation – and the fiasco of the interrogation itself – which all came to a head one night when Hemingway turned up at the Ritz with some drunken cronies, depositing them upon an unsuspecting Mary. The evening turned into a thoroughly unpleasant, vomit ridden incident that ended – as unconvincing as it may sound – in a fist fight between Hemingway and Mary, with Mary coming out on top, in more ways than one.

It was to be the start of a new strain within their relationship which, fortunately, always remained in control. Perhaps only Mary Welsh, from a very stable, and forgiving background, could manage.

Hemingway had to get back to the action. He felt he had something – he wasn’t sure what – to prove.

His chance came in early November, 1944, when a new offensive by the 4th Infantry Division got underway to clear a wide pathway through some fifty square miles of thickly wooded hill country. The whole thing seemed ridiculous to Hemingway. The ground was a sodden mess, with vehicles sinking into the mud up to their axles, with the Germans heavily dug in – their mortars and heavy machine guns placed every fifty yards or so – and with every village turned into a fortress. The area was known as the Hurtgenwald. The battle of the Hurtgen Forest was about to begin.