An eye-opening account of the forgotten involvement of British soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge. An ideal book for readers of Max Hastings, James Holland and Patrick Bishop. The Battle of the Bulge in history books is often described as America’s Gettysburg of the 20th century. Yet, in the snows of the Ardennes forests in December 1944 and January 1945 many thousands of British soldiers helped their comrades in arms in one of the most important battles of the war. So why has the British contribution at the Bulge so often been overlooked? Charles Whiting’s brilliant study utilises eyewitness accounts from British, American and German soldiers and Belgian civilians to set the record straight and tell the true story of the role the British played in this key battle, and the hard fighting and suffering they had to endure. The Battle of the Britain’s Untold Story unearths the contribution that the young British men made in the fight against the Nazi in the Ardennes as well as the politicking that occurred behind the scenes that has caused their efforts to be overlooked for so long. ‘We went, we fought, we died. Then we came back and started all over again. Nobody told us much about why we went, nor really much about what we had done in the Ardennes. We were like a lot of khaki ghosts.’ Ted Smith, formerly of the decimated 1st Battalion, East Lancashires
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.
