The epic account of World War Two’s most disastrous rescue mission. “An amazing episode of courage” The New York Times Perfect for fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers and Ben MacIntyre’s Rogue Heroes. Gen. George Patton was one of the great military leaders of the Second World War, but when war became personal, he made one of the worst mistakes of his entire career. In March 1945 Patton went against the advice of his top subordinates and created a secret task force under Captain Abraham Baum to drive through a gap in the Nazi defences. Their target was to rescue the prisoners-of-war held in camp Oflag XIII-B near Hammelburg. Of the three hundred men who were part of this task force only one knew the real reason that this mission was set to rescue Patton’s son-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel John K. Waters. Encountering heavy fire from the offset, the mission was an unmitigated catastrophe. Yet, it was not just enemy resistance which impeded the drive behind enemy lines, as the task force soon realised it was lacking maps and fuel. Of the men who set out, only thirty-five made it back to Allied lines. Gen. Omar Bradley dismissively later said the mission “began as a wild goose chase and ended in tragedy.” Why had Patton authorized such a catastrophic mission? Was he blinded by his desire to save his son-in-law? And what caused the task force to fail so dramatically? Interviews with numerous combatants, from private to general, American and German, allows Charles Whiting to reveals the gripping, true and long-suppressed full story of what exactly happened in this dramatic rescue attempt.
Author
Charles Whiting was a British writer and military historian and with some 350 books of fiction and non-fiction to his credit, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Ian Harding, Duncan Harding, K.N. Kostov, John Kerrigan, Klaus Konrad, and Leo Kessler. Born in the Bootham area of York, England, he was a pupil at the prestigious Nunthorpe Grammar School, leaving at the age of 16 to join the British Army by lying about his age. Keen to be in on the wartime action, Whiting was attached to the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment and by the age of 18 saw duty as a sergeant in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany in the latter stages of World War II. While still a soldier, he observed conflicts between the highest-ranking British and American generals which he would write about extensively in later years. After the war, he stayed on in Germany completing his A-levels via correspondence course and teaching English before being enrolled at Leeds University reading History and German Language. As an undergraduate he was afforded opportunities for study at several European universities and, after gaining his degree, would go on to become an assistant professor of history. Elsewhere, Whiting held a variety of jobs which included working as a translator for a German chemical factory and spells as a publicist, a correspondent for The Times and feature writer for such diverse magazines as International Review of Linguistics, Soldier and Playboy. His first novel was written while still an undergraduate, was published in 1954 and by 1958 had been followed by three wartime thrillers. Between 1960 and 2007 Charles went on to write over 350 titles, including 70 non-fiction titles covering varied topics from the Nazi intelligence service to British Regiments during World War II. One of his publishers, Easingwold-based Rupert Smith of GH Smith & Son said he was a quiet man and prolific writer. "He's one of a band of forgotten authors because he sold millions of copies and still, up to his death was doing publishing deals.He was the kind of man who was very self-effacing, one of Britain's forgotten authors, still working at 80 years of age, with his nose down and kicking out books." Charles Henry Whiting, author and military historian died on July 24 2007, leaving his wife and son.
