Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 12.17.24

The battle of Aachen, Germany occurred October 2–21, 1944 during World War II, though fighting within the city did not start until October 12. The city is two kilometers east of the Netherlands-Belgium-Germany border and lies in a bowl-like depression with a series of ridges, hills, and scattered forests to its north, east, and south. The Siegfried Line, a formidable 390-mile defensive line running along Germany’s western border, ran to the city’s west and southwest.

Aachen’s northern suburbs sat on three hills known as the Lousberg Heights. The highest, Lousberg (referred to as Observatory Hill by the Americans due to a tower located on it) rose to a height of 862 feet. To its immediate east stood Salvatorberg and to its southeast stood Wingertsberg, on which Farwick Park, the Hotel Quellenhof, and the Kurhaus (spa house) were located. The hills were largely free of vegetation, thereby offering excellent views of the city. Railroad tracks ran along the city’s west to the south along an elevated embankment that was fifteen to thirty feet in height, with only a few underpasses through the embankment. A rail station was located within the embankment on the city’s southeastern side.

Three types of urban terrain were present in the city. The northern part, near the Lousberg Heights, contained over thirty mineral springs with baths, resort hotels, wooded parks, and wide, straight streets. The city’s industrial belt, which contained factories, large apartment complexes, and some residential areas, ran from the northeast to the southeast and then to the southwest. The city’s historic core consisted of crooked and cobblestoned streets with closely packed residential and commercial buildings. Subterranean sewer systems ran throughout the city. Most of the buildings were heavy stone or masonry construction and contained basement cellars. Of the city’s 165,000 residents, approximately 5,000 to 20,000 remained at the start of the battle.

The Battle

Aachen offered little operational or even tactical value, so military commanders on both sides initially sought to avoid fighting within the city. Aachen, however, was strategically important due to its history and its location along the Allied line of advance. Charlemagne had been born and buried in Aachen and the city had been the home to his Holy Roman Empire, which Adolf Hitler considered the First Reich. Bismarck’s Germany was the Second Reich, and Hitler styled his regime as the Third Reich. Thus, the Nazi regime had a historical link to the city. Aachen was also important because it was one of the first large German cities that the Allies would reach. Hitler understood that if the Aachen fell, it would be a significant political blow. Thus, he directed its civilians to evacuate and declared Aachen a “fortress city” to be defended to the last soldier and bullet. As a result, the Germans were forced to defend the city and the Allies to attack it.

Germany’s LXXXI Corps defended the Aachen sector with four divisions consisting of approximately eighteen thousand personnel. The 49th Infantry Division and 183rd Volksgrenadier Division defended north of the city, the 12th Infantry Division defended southeast of the city, and the 246th Volksgrenadier Division defended Aachen itself. The 246th had 4,600 to 6,000 soldiers for the battle, although the US Army believed them to number closer to 12,000. The Germans assigned the city’s defense to Colonel Gerhard Wilck on October 12, just as the fighting within the city started. The 3rd Panzergrenadier Division and the 116th Panzer Division, located to the city’s northeast, were part of the theater reserve. By the start of the battle, seventy-five Allied bombing raids had already destroyed 43 percent of Aachen’s buildings and damaged another 40 percent.

Despite Hitler’s decree that Aachen become a fortress city, the city’s defenses were relatively sparse at start of the battle due to time and manpower limitations. Consequently, the Germans focused on a defense oriented against an attack from the west and the southwest—the direction of the Allied advance through the Siegfried Line. The Germans placed wire obstacles and surface-laid mines, constructed bunkers and pillboxes, and established fighting positions along the major streets. In the city’s southeast they blocked a critical underpass through a railway embankment. Allied bombings had also produced a significant amount of rubble.

Aachen fell within the United States First Army’s sector. First Army’s plan was to have XIX Corps pass north of the city while its VII Corps would pass to its south. After XIX Corps’s 30th Infantry Division and VII Corps’s 1st Infantry Division linked up at the town of Würselen, nine miles to Aachen’s northeast, the 1st Infantry Division—composed of the 16th, 18th, and 26th Infantry Regiments—would attack into Aachen from the east to avoid the German defenses oriented to the west and southwest. The 16th Infantry Regiment would lead the division’s advance around Aachen’s south and then guard the division’s eastern flank during the attack. The 18th Infantry Regiment would then pass Aachen to its south, before moving north and northwest past the eastern side of the city to link up with the 30th Infantry Division near Würselen.

Once Aachen was isolated, the 26th Infantry Regiment would begin its attack into the city from the east. The regiment’s 1st Battalion was attached to the 3rd Armored Division on the division’s eastern flank, so it was unavailable for the attack. This left the regiment with two thousand soldiers for the urban fighting. The regiment’s 3rd Battalion would seize the factory district in the city’s northeast, move southwest to clear Farwick Park, and then turn northwest to seize the Lousberg Heights. Its 2nd Battalion was to break into the city’s southeast by overcoming the railway embankment and then move northwest toward and through the city’s center.

Although the Germans outnumbered the Americans when it came to dismounted infantry within Aachen, several factors favored the Americans. First, the 26th Infantry Regiment was an extremely experienced unit, having been in action since November 1942. The regiment had also gained urban experience fighting in smaller towns during its advance on Aachen. Second, the Germans lacked the time to establish an adequate defense and oriented what they did establish in the wrong direction. Third, the regiment was augmented with M4 Sherman tanks, M10 tank destroyers, engineers, artillery, and fighter-bombers for the attack. And fourth, anticipating challenges driving wheeled vehicles in a rubbled city, the battalions employed M29 “Weasel” tracked cargo carriers in support, greatly expediting resupply and medical evacuation.

Within Aachen, American battalion commanders adopted the attitude that firepower would substitute for manpower when it came to attacking enemy positions. Once they discovered German positions, they would engage them with overwhelming firepower to reduce the risk to the attacking soldiers. When it came to buildings, Lieutenant Colonel Derrill Daniel, commander of 2nd Battalion, coined the phrase that became the slogan for the city’s attackers: “Knock ‘em all down.”

The battle began October 2 with the breakthrough and advance from the Siegfried Line. By October 12, First Army had nearly surrounded Aachen, but due to the stubbornness of the German defenders the 1st Infantry Division had not yet linked up with the 30th Infantry Division at Würselen. This left a small gap between the American divisions and a lifeline for the German defenders.

Nonetheless, after a heavy and well-coordinated air and artillery bombardment in Aachen’s eastern area, 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Corley, began its attack into the city’s northeastern factory district at 11:00 a.m. on October 12. Upon reaching a foundry, the battalion’s K Company found that the Germans had surrounded it with obstacles, barricaded its entrances, and reinforced its walls with sheets of tank armor. After discovering the reinforced walls were impervious to tank rounds, the company commander was forced to have his soldiers enter the building and engage in close-quarters combat without the luxury of pre-assault fires.

With K Company’s advance slowed, Corley brought his other companies online. The Americans used grenades to pry the stubborn defenders out from rooms and cellars that were often connected to one another through tunnels. By midafternoon, Corley had cleared the factory area. Concurrently, Daniel’s 2nd Battalion prepared for its attack on the city the following morning. That evening, Colonel Gerhard Wilck infiltrated into the city and took command of the 246th Volksgrenadier Division and the city’s defenses.

On October 13, the 26th Infantry Regiment began the day with another air and artillery attack. Daniel then initiated his ground attack with a rain of fires. He used mortars and light artillery to drop rounds from one hundred to three hundred yards beyond the railway embankment, medium artillery to drop rounds from three hundred to five hundred yards away, and heavy artillery and aircraft to drop rounds and bombs beyond five hundred yards. Concurrently, soldiers from E and F Companies tossed approximately one thousand hand grenades over the embankment before going up and over it with their two tanks. They did not encounter any enemy in their immediate vicinity but discovered frightened civilians in nearby buildings and evacuated them to the rear.

The companies advanced west for nearly thirty minutes before they finally encountered German defenders who used the underground sewer system to move behind the Americans, opening fire and then withdrawing back into the subterranean network. This prompted Daniel to direct his unit to clear all cellars and cover, block, and seal off all sewer holes. This significantly slowed the battalion’s advance but prevented the Germans from attacking from behind.

Throughout the day, E Company conducted a methodical, building-by-building advance. Dismounted infantry and engineers led the assault. Upon discovering German positions, the soldiers called in artillery while continuing to engage with small-arms and machine-gun fire. The trailing M4 Sherman tanks and M10 tank destroyers also moved forward to engage the enemy positions using explosive shells with time-delay fuses, allowing the rounds to penetrate the building before detonating. After using sufficient fire to subdue or eliminate each threat, dismounted infantry then advanced using grenades to finish or force the enemy’s surrender.

By noon, both battalions halted their advances to replenish ammunition and to evacuate the growing numbers of civilians they had encountered and prisoners of war they had taken. But they did not need to wait long because the battalions’ ammunition and pioneer platoons followed closely behind to support the resupply efforts. During its previous urban battles, the regiment had learned that urban fighting required large amounts of ammunition and took that into account during planning. The regiment developed a good logistics plan, creating stockpiles as far forward as possible and then moving them forward behind the advancing companies to keep the attack going.

Shortly after 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment continued its advance, the regimental headquarters contacted Corley to verify the location of his forces. The regiment had access to more close air support and wanted to strike the German artillery behind Observatory Hill but needed to ensure no friendly forces were in the area. Corley was able to quickly clear the fires using his “measles sheets.” Recognizing the necessity for effective control measures in the complex urban terrain, the regiment had mass-produced maps with Aachen’s prominent buildings and intersections marked with red dots and numbers so that units could rapidly deconflict fires and report on friendly and enemy locations. As the battalion restarted its westward advance, it received less enemy indirect fire, indicating the bombing had been effective.

L Company had a tough fight as it advanced. US tanks’ 75-millimeter rounds could not penetrate the walls of some of the strongly constructed apartment buildings. The company’s soldiers also faced the challenge of German soldiers using the subterranean sewer system to infiltrate and engage them from behind. In response, L Company soldiers had to find the utility holes, throw grenades down them, place the covers back on them, and then find heavy objects to place on top of the covers to prevent the Germans from lifting them off again.

The regiment’s 2nd Battalion experienced its own challenges in the city’s south. F Company came under heavy machine-gun and mortar fire at a large cemetery. The initial barrage killed two Americans, wounded eight, and separated a platoon from the remainder of the company. Moments later, a second barrage killed F Company’s commander and a platoon leader. Daniel wanted to send tanks and tank destroyers to support his beleaguered company, but the engineers had not yet cleared the railway underpass. It was not until late afternoon that the tanks and tank destroyers finally arrived after engineers cleared a route through the railway station by removing the station’s doors and walls.

When evening set in, the battalions established a hasty defense. German losses combined with the American advances left the Germans in a precarious situation. LXXXI Corps directed Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Rink to disengage his 1st SS Panzer Battalion from the fighting outside the city and move into Aachen. The corps also directed the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division and the 116th Panzer Division to destroy the American regiments northeast of Aachen and then counterattack into the city.

While the fighting may have ended for the day, planning continued. The 1st Infantry Division’s operations officer asked Corley if he would like a self-propelled 155-millimeter (SP-155) artillery gun to assist L Company due to the difficulties with the strongly built apartments. The SP-155 “Long Tom” fired a 95-pound shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second, so its rounds could penetrate the otherwise impenetrable walls. Corley confirmed that he wanted the gun, so the operations officer was able to acquire an SP-155 for each battalion. The division’s artillery commander supported the initiative with the caveat that the guns had to be kept four hundred yards from any German position and be well protected given they lacked armor plating.

On October 14, both battalions continued their advance. The soldiers of 2nd Battalion’s F Company destroyed a large, two-story pillbox at the cemetery but had to wait until 3rd Battalion’s L Company arrived at the cemetery to close the gap between the two battalions before it could continue its advance through the city with E and G companies. In the north, 3rd Battalion’s I and K companies met considerably strong resistance near St. Elisabeth Church as they advanced toward Farwick Park. It required both companies to defeat the stubborn defenders. Meanwhile L Company remained behind to attack the apartment buildings with its newly arrived SP-155, which proved extremely effective.

That evening, Rink’s 1st SS Panzer Battalion infiltrated into the city through the gap that the Americans had not yet sealed. Wilck directed Rink to attack Corley’s 3rd Battalion the following day. Fearing that 3rd Battalion was now too close to his headquarters at the Hotel Quellenhof, Wilck moved his headquarters to an air-raid bunker located in the city’s northwest.

Outside of Aachen, the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division and the 116th Panzer Division attacked the 30th and 1st Infantry Divisions to keep the resupply route into Aachen open. The Germans gained some ground initially, but the counterattack soon stalled due to concentrated American artillery fire. The Germans continued to attack on the following days, but American aircraft and artillery decimated the Germans.

On October 15, I and K Companies seized a series of garden buildings and the Kurhaus. The Hotel Quellenhof, whose thick walls were immune to American mortars and tank destroyers, proved to be an especially challenging target. Corley tried to bring the SP-155 forward to support K Company’s attack on the building but before he could use the weapon to seize the hotel, Rink counterattacked with the 150 soldiers from his 1st SS Panzer Battalion and its attached tanks and assault guns. Rink initiated the attack with an intense 120-millimeter mortar barrage; then the six tanks, assault guns, and dismounted infantry worked together to strike I and K Companies from three directions. Two Mark IV tanks and a German company attacked I Company from the northwest resulting in some hand-to-hand combat. The fighting lasted for an hour before I Company’s soldiers withdrew. Two more Mark IV tanks and another company advanced against K Company and retook the Kurhaus. American artillery and mortars failed to destroy the German 120-millimeter mortars supporting the counterattack. At one point, German tanks closed to within two hundred yards of Corley’s command post.

In response, Corley counterattacked. He directed a platoon from L Company to retake the Kurhaus. The tanks supporting the platoon engaged two German tanks, destroying one and causing the other to withdraw, but it was not enough for the platoon to take the Kurhaus. After I Company’s mortars dropped five hundred rounds, the tank destroyers moved forward and engaged the German tanks and assault guns. With his counterattack now stalled, Rink halted the attack and directed his soldiers to dig in around Farwick Park.

In the city’s south, the remainder of L Company finally linked up with 2nd Battalion, allowing Daniel’s three companies to slowly advance through house-to-house fighting. G Company encountered a three-story air-raid shelter whose thick concrete walls defeated everything he could throw at it. With the help of a flamethrower, the Americans convinced the Germans at the shelter to surrender. Soon thereafter, seventy-five soldiers and approximately one thousand civilians emerged. The battalion then continued its slow advance until nightfall.

Prior to the fighting within Aachen, Americans had captured a German military barracks in Brand, six miles southeast of the city, and subsequently used the barracks to shelter and process civilians evacuated from the city. In total, the Americans evacuated approximately 3,700 civilians into seven buildings on the base. They appointed a German civilian as the leader for each building, who helped direct billeting to ensure families stayed together. The women kept the buildings clean and worked in the kitchens at the two two-thousand-person mess halls. The men worked on surrounding farms to grow and gather food, which was supplemented with thirty tons of captured German military rations. Issued ration cards ensured everyone received a fair share. The only food that the Americans supplied was meat, which was carefully accounted for so that Aachen’s city government could eventually repay the Americans for it. When the fighting in the city concluded, medical personnel and farmers were the first to be released to return to their homes.

On October 16, fighting in the north between Rink’s battalion and 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment remained intense, with neither side able to gain the upper hand. In the south, Daniel’s battalion used artillery, SP-155, tank, and tank-destroyer fire to destroy German defensive positions as it advanced. On the street that served as the boundary between E and G Companies, the Americans found a well-placed German pillbox difficult to destroy. This forced Daniel to get creative. He used a tank destroyer to knock a hole in the brick wall of a house along the street and then sent an infantry platoon across the street to clear the houses opposite it. After widening the hole enough so that the gun could be aimed down the street, Daniel brought the SP-155 forward and fired twelve rounds into the pillbox. After advancing, his soldiers discovered that what they thought was the pillbox had actually been a German tank. The SP-155 destroyed a second tank shortly afterward.

That evening, the Americans finally closed the gap outside the city, leaving Aachen’s defenders isolated. With no further reinforcements coming, Wilck was left with approximately 1,100 soldiers and one hundred police officers for the city’s defense. Outside Aachen, the German divisions continued their attacks in an attempt to relieve the pressure on city’s defenders, but the attacks were poorly coordinated and ineffective.

The Americans paused operations on October 17 to plan and integrate newly arrived units into the attack and recommenced the attack the following day. Corley started his attack on Farwick Park with the help of the SP-155. By noon, his 3rd Battalion secured the Kurhaus and Hotel Quellenhof, and spent the remainder of the day clearing small pockets of resistance throughout the park. Losses that day totaled thirty killed, forty-five wounded, and 135 prisoners for the Germans, with two killed and nineteen wounded for the Americans.

In the city’s south, Daniel continued his 2nd Battalion’s advance using the SP-155 to help clear German positions. G Company paused to search a church and then continued its advance only to receive sniper fire from behind moments later. It took the company two hours to determine the German sniper team was hiding in the church steeple. Rather than risking his soldiers’ lives with a close-quarters gun battle, the company commander attempted to use tanks and tank destroyers to destroy the steeple. But the building’s thick concrete walls were impervious to the vehicles’ shells, so he brought the SP-155 forward and blasted the tower apart with a single shot. After continuing its advance, G Company came upon another air-raid shelter but there was no need for a flamethrower this time. Only starving civilians were within it, and they quickly poured out upon seeing the Americans. Shortly after evacuating them to the rear, the company received fire from a convent, but quickly subdued it using a mix of bazooka fire, rifle grenades, and tank and tank-destroyer fire. By the end of the day all three companies had advanced rather well.

With Farwick Park falling to the Americans, a very concerned Wilck sent his commander a desperate request that he be allowed to break out of the city. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt sent a blunt message directly to Wilck directing him to “hold this venerable German city to the last man” and “if necessary, allow himself to be buried under its ruins.”

On October 19, Corley’s 3rd Battalion seized Salvatorberg when L Company soldiers advanced on their hands and knees while SP-155, artillery, mortar, tank, and tank-destroyer fire flew just a few yards over their heads. Concurrently, Task Force Hogan—a combined armor and infantry unit of two battalions from the 3rd Armored Division that had arrived the previous day—attacked the Lousberg Heights by moving around to its north side. In the city’s center, Daniel’s 2nd Battalion methodically advanced toward a railway station on the city’s west side using artillery, tanks, and tank destroyers to support the infantry and engineers in destroying each German position one by one. Given the layout of the streets and the urban terrain in this area, the soldiers found it safer and quicker to advance by creating mouseholes between the thin basement walls of adjoining buildings or through backyards. By evening, the battalion had captured the city’s cathedral.

On October 20, Task Force Hogan secured Lousberg (Observatory Hill) without a fight after finding the pillboxes that had given it so much trouble the previous day abandoned as the Germans had successfully exfiltrated the previous night. In the southwest, Daniel’s 2nd Battalion met stubborn German defenders at the Technical University. The buildings’ thick concrete walls were especially challenging. Sometime that day or evening, Rink exfiltrated out of the city with his battalion’s remaining nineteen soldiers and escaped back to German lines.

The battle ended on October 21. After fighting all morning, the Germans at the Technical University surrendered to Daniel’s 2nd Battalion. Knowing his ability to resist was at an end and fearing the effects that the SP-155 would have on the air-raid bunker that sheltered his headquarters, Wilck surrendered before Corley’s 3rd battalion commenced its attack. The battle was over, but it had taken a toll on the city, destroying over 80 percent of Aachen’s buildings. Together, 2nd and 3rd Battalions incurred seventy-five killed and 414 wounded. The Germans suffered 2,500 casualties and 3,473 captured. Like most urban battles, the ammunition expenditures were high. By itself, 2nd Battalion expended five thousand mortar rounds, forty thousand .30-caliber machine-gun rounds, 4,300 hand grenades, twenty-seven thousand small-arms rounds, and fifty gallons of flamethrower fuel.

Lessons Learned

At the strategic level, Aachen demonstrated the paradox that while a city may have little operational or tactical value, it becomes strategic when political value is assigned to it. Initially, commanders on both sides sought to avoid fighting within the city. The Americans were reluctant to expend the resources required to seize a city that served little operational or tactical purpose. Likewise, German commanders questioned their ability to defend the city, given its location in a bowl, and the wisdom of doing so. Aachen, however, had historical significance and would be the first large German city to be contested, so it became symbolically, politically, and hence strategically important. Losing the city would be a psychological blow to Hitler and the Nazi regime and a clear signal that the end of the war for Germany was approaching. Once “the eyes of all Germany” were on Aachen, as one American officer stated in an intelligence report, the city became strategically important.

The first operational lesson of the battle is the need to plan for civilians during urban battles. Although the Americans instituted a “knock ‘em all down” philosophy, their plan accounted for civilians. They were extremely thorough in their search of every building to ensure that every enemy soldier and German civilian was discovered. When they found civilians, the soldiers safely screened, escorted, and transported them out of Aachen by foot or vehicle. After securing the German military barracks in Brand, the Americans provided the civilians the basic necessities until they could return to their city. This is a model for other militaries to emulate.

A second operational lesson is the need for an attacking force to isolate a city and, conversely, for a defending force to prevent itself from being isolated. The Americans planned for a complete encirclement of the city before commencing the assault but felt pressured to initiate the attack before they had isolated it. This allowed Wilck and Rink to infiltrate into Aachen and thereby prolonged the battle. It remained problematic until the 30th Infantry Division and the 1st Infantry Division finally linked up and closed the gap on October 16.

Finally, a third operational lesson is the importance of a good sustainment plan for urban operations. In the urban terrain, each building should be considered a hardened position that requires significant munitions to clear. As such, urban operations require a good sustainment plan to keep the momentum. The 26th Infantry Regiment employed M29 tracked carriers to effectively navigate the rubbled terrain and stockpiled ammunition as far forward as possible to rapidly resupply.

The first tactical lesson is the importance of fighting as a combined-arms element in urban terrain. By this point, urban operations had become somewhat routine for units like the 1st Infantry Division. The 26th Infantry Regiment integrated close air support, indirect and direct artillery fire, armor, infantry, and engineers very effectively. The regiment pushed M4 Sherman tanks, M10 tank destroyers, engineers, 4.2-inch and 81-millimeter mortars, 57-millimeter antitank guns, additional heavy machine guns, bazooka antitank weapons, flamethrowers, and, at times, the SP-155s to the company level. This ensured that each company commander had the flexibility to choose the appropriate weapons system to defeat each unique German defensive position while minimizing American casualties. US forces’ dominant technique was to use dismounted infantry with their supporting engineers to identify enemy positions and then bring overwhelming firepower to eliminate them. This resulted in significant collateral damage, but it protected the force.

A second tactical lesson is the necessity for good control measures in urban terrain. Given so many similar-looking buildings and the density of the urban terrain, it is difficult to quickly describe one’s position in a city without effective control measures. By mass-producing maps with their intersections, prominent buildings, and company and platoon boundaries identified with red dots and markings and distributing them several days before the operation, commanders were able to study the urban terrain and use these control measures thoroughly. These markings also allowed the Americans to report both their and German positions accurately and quickly, which reduced friendly-fire incidents and allowed them to clear fires quickly. Predetermined linkup points and other control measures ensured that no platoon or company advanced farther than those to its left and right, which minimized the ability of the German defenders to exploit any gaps and flanks and avoided friendly-fire incidents.

Conclusion

In retrospect it should not come as a surprise that the Americans performed well at Aachen. Some of First Army’s veteran divisions had been fighting for months before reaching Germany and by October 1944, senior commanders, planners, and the frontline soldiers knew how to attack urban areas. The Americans only had two battalions to conduct this large urban battle, but they effectively employed tanks, artillery, and other enablers to compensate for a lack of manpower. Employing effective control measures, instituting a good sustainment plan, and being able to rapidly evacuate prisoners and civilians also contributed to their success.

Liam Collins, PhD was the founding director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and a Fellow at New America. He is a retired Special Forces colonel with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and South America, with multiple combat operations in Fallujah in 2004. He is coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

Major Jayson Geroux is an infantry officer with The Royal Canadian Regiment and is currently with the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre. He has been a fervent student of and has been involved in urban operations training for over two decades. He is an equally passionate military historian and has participated in, planned, executed, and intensively instructed on urban operations and urban warfare history for the past ten years. He has served twenty-eight years in the Canadian Armed Forces, which included operational tours to the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Afghanistan.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization with which the authors are affiliated, including the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Department of National Defence.