Non-Fiction Books
One of the many Ballentine WWII series, this volume deals with General George Patton.
On a dark night in March 1945, Task Force Baum dashed through a break in the German Army lines created by troops of the U.S. Third Army and embarked on one of the most dramatic and dangerous rescue missions of World War II. Their target, the Allied POW camp 60 miles behind enemy lines near the German town of Hammelburg. Unknown to all but one member of the 300 men in Task Force Baum was the real reason for the rescue: the POW camp at Hammelburg contained Lieutenant Colonel John Waters -- General Patton's son-in-law! This is the gripping, true, and long-suppressed full story of what exactly happened in the desperate drive to Hammelburg.
DIFFERENT COVER. LIGHT TANNING INSIDE COVERS. READING CREASES ON SPINE.
Cover has moderate reader wear, thumbing crease at top. Age-toning throughout, more so on inside covers. Pages are clean and highly readable. Ships fast from California.
In The Hunt for Martin Bormann, Charles Whit ing, who interviewed all the leading participants, reveals t he true story of what happened to the "Brown Eminence". It i s being published to coincide with the book Operation M B. '
The overlooked story of one of the last battles of the Second World War, which shaped the course of the Cold War. Perfect for readers of Max Hastings, James Holland and Stephen E. Ambrose. By the spring of 1945 the end of World War Two was in sight. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on 30th April leaving Admiral Dönitz in charge of what was left of the crumbling Nazi state while Allied troops were storming into Germany from East and West.Yet, Field-Marshal Montgomery and Winston Churchill knew that this was not the moment to take it easy and wait for the inevitable collapse of their enemy, instead they looked to the future and saw the growing threat of the increasingly powerful and aggressive USSR.In the last remaining days of conflict, Montgomery and the British Army fought their way towards the Baltic coast in order to halt the advancing Russians from moving westwards into North-West Europe.This campaign began brilliantly, but finally ended in failure.Why did Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had previously been such a firm friend of the British, give only limited support to Montgomery and Churchill’s race to meet the Soviet advance? And how did this failure lay the groundworks for the Cold War that was to emerge in the aftermath of the Second World War?Charles Whiting’s thoroughly researched Finale at Flensburg is an eye-opening account of the dying moments of World War Two. Through interviews with many of the prominent German, American and British actors, Whiting is able to reconstruct this oft-forgotten battle and its aftermath.
After the first stunning victories of Germany's Parachute Corps, Churchill and other Allied leaders ordered the formation of their own paratroopers, copying the German model. The Red Devils, the Screaming Eagles, Les Paras and others based their equipment and reckless bravado on Germany's 'hunters from the sky,' a highly successful group of soldiers until 1941, when their huge losses during the invasion of Crete reduced their effectiveness in the eyes of Hitler's generals. Whiting tells the complete story of the Parachute Corps and their founder, General Kurt Student, who commanded the paratroopers on their initial victories in Europe, their Pyrrhic conquest of Greece, their mission to rescue Mussolini, and their last drop into Allied-surrounded territory.
Operation Market Garden: a massive airborne strike designed to open a corridor through Nazi-held Holland, by-pass the Siegfried Line and crush the 1,000 Year Reich before Christmas. Despite the gallantry of the elite First British Airborne Division - the Red Devils - who were to seize the key bridge across the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, the Operation ended in a resounding victory for the Germans. This is the story of this epic battle, the commanders who planned it and the units who paid for their mistakes.
The Battle for An Account of Anglo-American Intelligence Operations Within Nazi Germany, 1939-1945
Bearing the proud nickname "The Golden Lions," the U.S. 106th Infantry Division was routed on the night of December 6, 1944 in what was described by the official historian as "the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944-5 in the European theater." The division historian himself put it more colorfully: "Panic, sheer unreasoning panic, flamed the road all day and into the night. Everyone, it seemed, who had any excuse, and many who had none, were going west that day." Charles Whiting is a military historian whose books include BLOODY AACHEN and MASSACRE AT MALMEDY, both available from B-O-T.
Charles Whiting's account of the Allied advance into Nazi Germany focuses on the months from September of 1944, when the Allies attacked the "West Wall" defending the western border of Germany, to the Allied crossing of the Rhine in March, 1945. Whiting describes the German counterattack in December that turned into the devastating Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of the Rhineland that followed as the Allies pressed into Germany. Generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Montgomery take center stage in this book, which also draws from the accounts of officers and enlisted men as they fought their way through Europe's war-torn landscape.
BCA Edition.
Operation Northwind, planned by the Fuhrer himself, hurled eight German divisions, three of them S.S., against the thinly held American line in the Alsace-Lorraine region. Few except those who fought it know anything about this second Battle of the Bulge, which cost the Americans and their French comrades-in-arms nearly as many casualties and almost destroyed the alliance. ?Because Eisenhower determined to evacuate Strasbourg, for a few days, while American troops fought for their lives in the snow-bound hills of Alsace-Lorraine, it looked as if the Franco-American alliance might be broken apart and France thrown into something akin to revolution.?
Charles Whiting tells the dramatic story of General George Patton's final months, following him over the Rhine to help deliver the fatal blows to Hitler's Third Reich, to his death, in bed, in December 1945.
A lively and highly readable study of the often-overlooked Italian Campaign, from the invasion of Sicily to the march on Rome.An ideal book for fans of Jonathan Dimbleby, Max Hastings and Antony Beevor.While the Allied armies were beginning their invasion of the beaches of north-west Europe during D-Day, their fellow soldiers were also engaged in a gruelling campaign throughout the length of Italy.They had expected to carve through the ‘soft underbelly of Europe’, but what they found instead was a ‘tough old gut’ filled with battle-hardened troops. It was the costliest campaign on the Western front in terms of casualties suffered by infantry forces of both sides, with both the Allies and Germans losing over three hundred thousand men.Drawing on the recollections of British, American, Polish, French and German men and women who took part, as well as on the official histories, Charles Whiting paints a vivid picture of the liberation of Italy as seen through the eyes of the ordinary soldier.Whiting sheds light on some of the most ferocious fighting that took place during this conflict, including the bloody Battle of Anzio, where Allied troops attempted to outflank German forces but were held down by dogged fighting.The Long March on Rome should be essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about this overlooked but hugely important front which after over a year of brutal conflict helped defeat the Axis.
Britain and its civilian population suffered greatly from German air attacks during World War II, both from the conventional air raids of the Battle of Britain and the V1 and V2 rocket attacks late in the war. Most accounts of these actions emphasize the experiences of the military forces. Charles Whiting, one of Europe's most popular military authors, concentrates on the suffering and resistance of Britain's civilian population in this heavily illustrated account, covering both London and the large industrial cities of the North.
Nobody in the Second World War paid a higher price for the failure of politicians and generals than the infantry, whatever their nationality. Most battalions had a 100 per cent turn over due to casualties, some as high as 200 per cent. The majority of histories of the Second World War focus on what are perceived to be the more glamorous aspects of the flying aces, new technologies, politics. However, Charles Whiting's classic book, now reprinted in paperback is in the author's own words not a history. Poor Bloody Infantry is the story of the brave men whose efforts were so central to Allied victory but which has been gravely neglected by many writers on the Second World War. Whiting's vivid account of their experiences puts the reader in the thick of their firing useless Boyes rifles at oncoming SS tanks; crouching low in foxholes beneath a yellow incandescence as the surrounding dessert rocks and roars. Detailed and personal in scope, Poor Bloody Infantry deals with all aspects of the uncomfortable day-to-day life of infantrymen in the Second World War ranging from experiences in combat to such matters as foul tinned rations and VD.
Book by Whiting, Charles
Jochen Peiper was one of the most colourful and ruthless of the unconventional type of leader thrown up by the SS in the Second World War. Notorious for his participation in the massacre of American soldiers at Malmedy in December 1944, he might have felt he had paid the price when he was released from prison in 1957. But as Charles Whiting vividly demonstrates, a grisly end still awaited him.
Book by Whiting, Charles
Hitler’s elite SS bodyguards prided themselves on doing whatever it took, even if death was the price. They called themselves the "old hares", and they left a trail of terror as they butchered their way across Europe. Of the 30,000 soldiers who signed up, only thirty would survive the war. Some perished in the abortive push on Normandy in 1944, directed by the Führer. Others suffered gruesome deaths at the hands of the Russians. In a chilling day-by-day account of the final year of this crack squad, bestseller Charles Whiting chronicles their bloody demise, which culminated in humiliation at the Battle of the Bulge. This is a gripping brutal history, taking us deep into one of the most terrifying and cult-like units of the Second World War. It shows just how far the Nazi’s were willing to go; and the great efforts needed to vanquish them.
By December, 1944, 250,000 German prisoners of war in Britain were being guarded by a small number of over-age reservists. POWs had been very tame for most of the war, but now the German High Command in Berlin began infiltrating agents into the most important camps. First enforcing proper "National Socialist discipline" in the camps, the agents then turned to their real task, planning a mass breakout which would coincide with Hitler's last great offensive in the West, the Battle of the Bulge. Charles Whiting reveals one of the last great secrets of World War II, as he unravels the unknown story of the attempt by German agents to organize a mass escape and a march on an unguarded London.
Book by Tarrant, V. E.
The Battle of the Bulge, fought in the snows of the Ardennes forests in December 1944 and January 1945, was the greatest land battle waged by the US Army in the twentieth century. Official history remembers the victory as a solely American triumph, but Charles Whiting uncovers fresh new evidence to the contrary. For political reasons, no mention was ever made of the crucial British involvement in this battle: against a total news blackout, British XXX Corps suffered 2,500 casualties fighting a decisive action which halted the German drive to the river Meuse. The British role in the Battle of the Bulge simply does not exist on paper. 'The main reason for adopting a low key in referring to the British contribution was political,' said Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Using eyewitness accounts from British, American and German soldiers and Belgian civilians, Charles Whiting sets the record straight, telling the true story of the role the British played in this key battle, and the hard fighting and suffering they had to endure.
In 1944, Colonel Peiper, commander of a crack regiment of Panzer tanks, allegedly gave orders that anything confro nting the Panzers should be mown down. As a result of the "Malmedy Massacre", Peiper was given the death sentence. This book tells the complete story. '
Some forces got the glory In Normandy the great invasion had begun. In the Pacific, the U.S. Navy went toe to toe with Japan. And far from the spotlight-but right in the heart of World War II-the U.S. Seventh Army was charging "up the gut" of Nazi-held Europe. Overlooked by the press and historians, the Seventh would battle its way from Sicily to France and into Germany itself. Others won the war In this thrilling chronicle, Charles Whiting captures the men who risked their lives to fight for the Seventh, from Patton-charismatic, ferocious and flawed-to a hardscrabble Texan named Audie Murphy, America's most decorated fighting man. Here are blow-by-blow accounts of courageous charges against dug-in German machine gun nests, of horrific battles through the bloodied snows of the Alps, ferocious Panzer-led counterstrikes, sniper attacks, and finally an assault on Hitler's own mountaintop retreat, the Eagle's Nest. America's forgotten army Capturing war in all its vivid horror and courage, America's Forgotten Army is an unforgettable testament to American GIs-the ordinary men whose blood and bravery crushed the powers of the Third Reich.
Reinhard Heydrich not only served as head of Hitler's SS security services, but his secret financial dealings continue to influence today's Europe.
Here well known military historian Charles Whiting provides a vivid account of the Korean War, described as the nastiest little war and the last major one of the 20th century. In June 1950 the Cold War suddenly became hot when Communist-backed North Korean forces invaded the US-protected South Korea. Anti-war dissent at home and threats to use the Atom bomb added to the danger of the situation, threatening a Third World War. US General MacArthur launched a surprise amphibious assault at Inchon behind North Korean lines, but victory was snatched from the combined US/British forces by the entry of 600,000 Chinese troops on the side of North Korea. Atrocities were committed on both sides, but for the next two years Allied POWs became the biggest pawns in the great peace talks. If they broke and confessed that it had been an Imperialist War, as their captors fervently wanted them to, it would have been a great propaganda victory for the enemy. Thus the fina! l round of the Korean War was for the hearts and minds of the prisoners, only a few of who broke. Battleground Korea provides a vivid account of the Korean War, inparticular British involvement, and Charles Whiting's compelling narrative is strongly supported with graphic eyewitness accounts.
De-classification of British and American archives, some made public as recently as October 1999, and interviews conducted by Charles Whiting in the years since World War II, now make it possible to assemble an unprecedented account of German espionage in World War II, included the stealing of the U.S. Norden bombsight, the campaign of deception preceding the Battle of the Bulge, and successful spying operations against U.S. Vice-President Henry Wallace and Winston Churchill.
In a major new biography, veteran military historian and WII biographer, Charles Whiting combines both talents to tell the tale of barefoot Texan share-cropper's son, who could barely read and write, but became not only the US Army's most decorated soldier in its 250 - year history, but also the star of forty Paramount produced movies: most of which are shown on TV screens around the world to this very day. The gentle-eyed, baby-faced hero had won every decoration the United States had to offer before he was eligible to vote and killed 240 enemy soldiers in the process. Luck made him a movie star. Always he tried to improve himself, but time and time again he was relegated to the 'horse operas', where as he wisecracked cynically, "it was the same old movie, only they changed the colour of the horse." But there was a price to pay for his heroism in drugs, nervous tension and Murphy's addiction to violence. Even as a middle-aged movie star, he always slept with a .45 beneath his pillow, plagued by nightmares of the war. Murphy had been an ordinary boy, who had volunteered to go to fight and did so with exceeding bravery in the last 'good war'. He paid highly for that bravery and sense of duty to a country which had given him nothing save "malnutrition", as he used to quip. He was that last American Hero, who did as President Kennedy proclaimed, " Don't ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Even before his young life had really commenced, he had become a legend. But in the end 'Tinseltown' and the 'feather merchants' of Hollywood broke him. As Time magazine commented on his death; "Audie Murphy belonged to an earlier, simpler time, one in which bravery was a cardinal and killing was a virtue... We shall not see his like again."
A World War II veteran and dedicated researcher traces the career of Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller and exposes the Cold War cover-up by both East and West as to his later whereabouts and activities.
While much has been written about the Battle of the BulgeHitler's gigantic counteroffensive in the Ardennes Forestthe question of exactly how Germany was able to secretly mass its strategic reserves opposite the U.S. front remains as shrouded in mystery today as it was at the time. In December 1944, the snow-covered Ardennes was so quiet it was termed by Allied planners "the Ghost Front." The U.S. placed its greenest units among the wooded hills, along with combat-shattered units. But beneath trees just miles away, the Germans were stealthily massing two full Panzer armies and 300,000 assault troops. Week after week, Hitler poured the cream of the Wehrmacht into the "quiet" sector, for a surprise attack designed to shatter the American front. And while the Germans were eventually defeated in the Bulge, the preparations for the attack marked a victory for German stealth, deception, and organization. Charles Whiting, one of the best-selling historians of the war, examines how the Allies could have anticipated the attack had they not been lulled into a false sense of security. He also delves into the controversy over whether George Patton had received advance word of the offensive but failed to warn the frontline divisions. This question and many others are at last answered in Ghost Front .
Those who imagined that the arrival of a major American force in North Africa would immediately tip the balance against Rommel's Afrika Korps were to be proved badly wrong. Just how ill-prepared the GI Army and its generals were became horrifically apparent at the Kasserine Pass. In his typically thorough and fast-moving style, Charles Whiting examines these events and the reasons for the debacle, which shook America deeply.
Eddie Slovik was the most famous American soldier to come out of World War Two. Or was infamous a better description? For 24 year old Slovik, Polish-American, petty thief and ex-con, was the only Allied soldier to be shot for desertion in the course of that long conflict. For nearly ten years the US Dept. of Defence tried to keep the Slovik case secret and even when it was revealed the American military hid the place of the condemned man's burial for a further thirty years. Thus when the details of the Slovik case were finally brought out into the open, there was much talk of an official cover-up. Now veteran military historian, Charles Whiting has attempted to dig up the final truth. He reveals in this fast paced intriguing book that Slovik was not the innocent victim that his advocate had maintained he was. In that year in which he was sentenced to death for desertion in the 'face of the enemy', he played a calculating game with the US Army -and lost. Whiting also reveals another secret: the man who would approve Slovik's death sentence and have him shot in a remote French mountain village, General (and future President) Dwight D. Eisenhower was also under a sentence of death that winter himself.