Charles Whiting
Along with fiction books like his first novel “The Frat Wagon”, Whiting’s 70 odd non-fiction books covered individual battles, German espionage, war leaders – particularly General George Patton and SS Colonel Jochen Peiper – and the war on the home front.
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest, The Bannatyne Books Patton, and more Charles Whiting books are now available on Amazon Kindle. Read them for free with Amazon Unlimited.
Charles Whiting Novels – Fiction
Frat Wagon – Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1956, Magna Large Print, 2008. A frightening novel of post-war Germany and of men and women tasting the degradation of defeat.
Lest I Fall – Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1956, Magna Large Print, 2010. This was the Germany of 1955, freed from the shackles of Nazism yet still in the iron grip of corruption and misery. Here is a story of a young man who, against his will, is swept along the tide of degradation to a point of no return.
Journey to No End – Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1957, Magna Large Print, 2010. A professional revolutionary is sent to help a group of working men holding an important factory from going into the hands of East Germany. He soon realises that even though he has no political interest in the revolt, a series of incidents involve him deeply in the need for the factory to be returned back into Western hands.
The Mighty Fallen – Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1958. In an unspecified Arab state, vital to Britain for its oil, a young British-educated tribesman causes disturbances with the backing of a neighbouring country. A company of National Servicemen is sent to quell him under the command of a long-service major with strong ideas about ‘duty’ and ‘the Empire’. The attempt to implement his theories leads to an unexpected and disastrous climax.
Charles Whiting Military Fiction
The Balkan Chase – Publisher: Severn House, 1999. SAS Brigadier-General Rory O’Sullivan is stranded in the desert with four of his men at the height of the Gulf War. A desperate US attempt to rescue the Britons ends in complete failure. Only the troop sergeant ever returns, badly wounded and out of his mind.
The Baltic Run – Publisher: Severn House, 1993. 1920. The slaughter of World War I was over but already secret little wars were breaking out all over the ‘New Europe’. From the Balkans to the Baltic, Europe was in turmoil. In particular, Poland, created only a year before from territory which had once been German and Russian, was again under threat.
Bugles at Dawn – Publisher: Century, 1990, Magna Large Print, 2007. Arrested as a young ensign after the eve of Waterloo in 1815 and interviewed by Wellington himself, John Bold’s story starts as he flees to India to make a new fortune through military endeavour. And here, in the 6th Bengal Infantry, he is confronted by a country where peace is an unnatural state as the warring Mahratta chieftains live by the hit-and-run plundering of each other’s territory.
Death on the Rhine – Publisher: Severn House, 1994.
Deathtrap (Adventures of Common Smith V.C.) – Publisher: Severn House, 1996
Double Cross – Publisher: Futura 1977, Magna Large Print 2008
Hell’s Angels – Publisher: Magna Large Print Books, 2003
The Japanese Princess – Publisher: Magna Large Print Books, 2003
Operation Afrika – Publisher: Sphere, 1975, Magna Large Print, 2004
Operation Caucasian Fox – Publisher: Seeley, 1974
Operation Fox Hunt – Publisher: Magna Large Print Books, 2005
Operation Il Duce – Publisher: Sphere 1974, Magna Large Print, 2003
Operation Werewolf – Publisher: Sphere, 1974, Magna Large Print, 2004
Orders to Kill (Seeley service war fiction) – Publisher: Corgi, 1974
Passage to Petrograd – Publisher: Sutton 1995, Severn House 2001
Sabres in the Sun – Publisher: Century, 1991
T-Force: The Big Breakout – Publisher: Sphere, 1976, Magna Large Print, 2003
T-Force: Massacre at Metz – Publisher: Sphere, 1976.
T-Force: Highway Through Hell – Publisher: Sphere, 1976, Magna Large Print, 2004
T-Force: the Last Mission – Publisher: Sphere, 1976, Magna Large Print, 2007
Wolf Hunt – Publisher: Futura, 1976, Magna Large Print, 2006
Charles Whiting Novels – Non-fiction
’44: In Combat from Normandy to the Ardenne (West Wall) – Publisher: Da Capo Press, 1987, Spellmount, 2000
’44: In Combat on the Western Front from Normandy to the Ardennes – Publisher: Century, 1984
’45: Final Drive from the Rhine to the Baltic – Publisher: Century; 1985
48 Hours to Hammelburg – Publisher: Arrow Books, June 1979
A Bridge at Arnhem – Publisher: White Lion, 1976, Magna Large Print, 2007
American Deserter: General Eisenhower and the Execution of Eddie Slovik – Publisher: Eskdale, 2001. 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.
American Eagles: The 101st Airborne’s Assault on Fortress Europe 1944/45 – Publisher: Eskdale, 2001. A thrilling true story of the US 101st Airborne Division. From their rigorous training in ‘Old Jolly” (England) to their first operational jump in Normandy, Charles Whiting tells the story of this ‘Band of Brothers’ who fought, suffered and died in the eleven month campaign that followed.
America’s Forgotten Army – The Story of the U.S. Seventh – Publisher: Sarpedon, 1999. In Normandy the great invasion had begun. In the Pacific the US Navy went toe to toe with Japan. And far from the spotlight but right in the heart of World War II, the US 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.
American Hero: Life and Death of Audie Murphy – Publisher: Eskdale, 2000. A biography of the gentle-eyed, baby-faced hero who had won every decoration the United States had to offer before he was eligible to vote and had killed 240 enemy soldiers in the process. Luck made him a movie star.
Ardennes: The Secret War – Publisher: Century, 1984, Spellmount, 2001. Following the greatest failure of Allied Intelligence since Pearl Harbour, on the morning of 16 December, 1944, a huge German army of 600,000 men smashed into the American troops who were holding the line in the snowbound hills of the Belgian Ardennes. A handful of German special forces, wearing US uniforms and driving US equipment, operating behind US lines, caused chaos and havoc.
The Battle of the Bulge: Britain’s Untold Story – Publisher: Sutton, 2003. The Battle of the Bulge, fought in the snows of the Ardenne forests in Dec’44-Jan’45 was the greatest land battle waged by the US Army in ther 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.
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest – Publisher: Pan Books, Spellmount, 2001. The US Army regards the Hurtgen Forest as one of the most desperate battles it has ever fought. Read it as an ebook here.
Battle of the Ruhr Pocket (History of 2nd World War) – Publisher: Macmillan, 1972
Battle for Twelveland – Publisher: Leo Cooper, illustrated edition, July 1975. The British Secret Service had been in operation in one form or another since the days of Elizabeth I but in 1939 the Germans were confident that with the arrest of Britain’s two key men on the continent, they had blinded our Special Intelligence Service. They were soon to learn to their cost how gravely mistaken they were. For it was in the winter of 1939/40 that Britain’s greatest espionage system went into action.
Battleground Korea – The British in Korea – Publisher: Sutton, 1999. In 1950 Communist backed North Korean forces invaded the US-protected South. Britain came into the war on the side of the US but still suffering financial stricture after the demands of WWII, the British government sent poorly equipped brigades of troops to help the beleaguered US forces. US General MacArthur launched a surprise amphibious assault on 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. The British and American soldiers were routed and in the battle of the Imjin river that ensued, the ‘Glorious Glosters” were butchered. The Korean war has been described as “the nastiest little war”
Bloody Aachen (Siegfried Line 3) – Publisher: Corgi, 1976, Spellmount, 2000. Aachen of all the towns and cities in Germany none evokes the spirit of history ore vividly that the name of Aachen. Here is 814 Charlelsmagne was buried. Here twenty-eight of the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. And here, in the autumn of 1944, the US First Army, the Big Red One, was held at bay for two months by the fanatical resistance of the Wehrmacht.
Bloody Bremen: Ike’s Last Battle 1945 – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1998
Bounce the Rhine – Publisher: Spellmount, 2007. In September 1944, Field Marshal Montgomery predicted that his armies would easily “Bounce the Rhine” to strike a final, killing blow at the heart of Hitler’s Reich. Over the next eight months nearly twenty major attempts would be made to breach the ‘Fatherland’
Bradley (Ballantine’s illustrated history of the violent century. War leader book) – Publisher: Ballantine, 1971
Britain Under Fire: Bombing of Britain’s Cities, 1940-45 – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1999
British Liberation Army 1944-45 – Publisher: The History Press 2007
Death of a Division – Publisher: Jove Publishers 1991
Death on a Distant Frontier: A Lost Victory, 1944 – Publisher: Sarpedon, 1996
Decision at St Vith – Publisher: Spellmount 2007
Disaster at Kasserine: Ike and the 1st (US) Army in North Africa 1943 – Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2003
End of War – Europe 1945 – Publisher: Ballantine, 1974
The Field Marshal’s Revenge: The Breakdown of a Special Relationship – Publisher: Sutton, 2003
Fighting Tykes: Informal History of the Yorkshire Regiment in the Second World War – Publisher: Pen & Sword 1993
Finale at Flensburg: The Story Of Field Marshal Montgomery’s Battle For The Baltic [Hardcover] – Publisher: Leo Cooper 1973, Corgi 1973
First Blood – The Battle of the Kasserine Pass 1943 – Publisher: Harper Collins 1986
The Great York Air Raid – 1942 – Publisher: G.H.Smith & Son, 2012
Hemingway Goes to War: Travels with a Gun, 1944-45 – Publisher: Sutton 1999,
Hero – Publisher: Jove Publishers, 1991
Heydrich, Henchman of Death – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1998
Hitler’s Secret War: The Nazi Espionage Campaign Against the Allies – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2000
The Hunt for Martin Bormann: The Truth – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1996
Hunters from the Sky: The German Parachute Corps, 1940-1945 – Publisher: Stein & Day 1974, Leo Cooper 1975
Ike’s Last Battle: The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket April 1945 – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2002
Jochen Peiper: Battle Commander SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1999
Kasserine: The Battlefield Slaughter of American Troops by Rommel’s Afrika Korps – Publisher: Scarborough, 1998
Kill Patton! – Publisher: Magna Large Print, 2008
The Last Assault 1944- the Battle of the Bulge Reassessed – Publisher: Da Capo 2001,Pen & Sword, 2004
Last Battle: Montgomery’s Campaign, April-May, 1945 – Publisher: The Crowood Press, 1989.
The Long March on Rome – Publisher: Century 1987
March on London – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 1996, The Great German Escape, 2010
Massacre at Malmedy – Publisher: Pen & Sword 2007
Monty’s Greatest Victory: The Drive for the Baltic April-May 1945 – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2002
Operation Kill Ike – Publisher: Sphere, 1975, Magna Large Print, 2003
Operation Northwind – Publisher: Harper Collins, 1987
The Other Battle of the Bulge: Operation Northwind – Publisher: Spellmount 2007
Papa Goes to War: Ernest Hemingway in Europe, 1944-45 – Publisher: The Crowood Press, 1990
Passage to Petrograd – Publisher: Magna Large Print, 2007
Paths of Death and Glory: The Last Days of the Third Reich – Publisher: Casemate 2003, Spellmount, 2003
Patton – Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1970, Pan, 1973, Benchmark, 2015. Now available as an ebook. Taken from the cover:
Whiting’s portrait of General George S Patton was first published as a Ballantine’s Illustrated History of World War II. Its first printing sold 450,000 copies worldwide.
“In a cloud of thick dust, the convoy came to a halt. The tall immaculate general waited till the driver opened the door then descended slowly, his highly polished riding boots sinking into the Tunisian dust. For a long interval he eyed the scene around him. Then with an imperious slap of his riding switch against the calf of his boot, the general stalked towards the headquarters of the US II Corps. ‘Old Blood an’ Guts’ had arrived to take command.”
Charles Whiting (1926-2007) was one of Britain’s most prolific military writers, with over 300 books to his credit. He saw active service in the Second World War, serving in an armoured reconnaissance regiment attached to both the US and British armies. His books therefore possess the insight and authority of someone who, as a combat soldier, actually experienced the horrors of the Second World War.
Patton’s Last Battle – Publisher: Stein & Day 1987, Spellmount, 2007
Poor Bloody Infantry 1939 – 1945 – Publisher: Spellmount, 2007
The Search for Gestapo Muller – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2000
Siegfried The Nazis Last Stand – Publisher: Pan Books 2003
Skorzeny: The Most Dangerous Man in Europe – Publisher: Da Capo, 2001
Slaughter Over Sicily – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2006.
The Spymasters Series: the true story of Anglo-American intelligence operations within Nazi Germany, 1939-1945 – First published in the New York Saturday Review Press, 1976.
SS Kommando – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2010
SS Werewolf: Story of the Nazi Resistance Movement, 1944-45 – Publisher: Arrow, 1982
Target Eisenhower: Military and Political Assassinations in WWII – Publisher: Spellmount, 2007
Three Star Blitz: Baedeker Raids and the Start of Total War, 1942-45 – Publisher: Leo Cooper, 1987
Warriors of Death: Final Battles of Hitler’s Private Bodyguard, 1944-45 – Publisher: Arrow Books, 1991
Werewolf: Story of the Nazi Resistance Movement, 1944-45 – Publisher: Leo Cooper, 1972, Stein & Day, 1972, Arrow Books, 1982, Pen & Sword
West Wall: The Siegfried Line in World War II – Publisher: Da Capo, 2001, Spellmount, 2007
Wolf Hunt – Publisher: Futura 1977
eBOOKS
Ghost Front: The Ardennes Before The Battle Of The Bulge – Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2002
The Great German Escape – Publisher: Pen & Sword, 2010
Skorzeny – Publisher: Pen and Sword Books, 2011
The Hunt for Martin Bormann – Publisher: Pen and Sword, 2011
A Traveller’s Guide to the Battle for the German Frontier (Traveller’s Guides to the Battles & Battlefields of WWII Series). NB. This book is very out of date and has been put forward as a Kindle Edition by a person or persons illegally
ORIGINAL GERMAN LANGUAGE BOOKS
’45. Das Ende an Rhein und Ruhr von Charles Whiting und Wolfgang von Guckelhorn – Publisher:Helios Verlag, 2005
Die Amis sind da! : wie Aachen 1944 erobert wurde / Wolfgang Trees, Charles Whiting – Publisher:
Drei Jahre nach Null : Geschichte der britischen Besatzungszone 1945_1948 : ein Bild/Text-Band/Wolfgang Trees, Charles Whiting, Thomas Omansen – Publisher: Droste, 1979
Englands Kreuzweg: Vom Empire Nach Europa von Charles Whiting – Publisher: von Ullstein, 1972
Jener September: Europa beim Kriegsausbruch 1939 – Publisher: Droste 1979
Norddeutschland Stunde Null: April-September 1945 – Publisher: Droste, 1980
Die Schlacht um den Ruhrkessel von Charles Whiting – Publisher: Arthur Moewig Verlag,1981
Spiegel-Gesprache: An English-German interpreter’s course, with Gerard Gilbertson – Publisher: London, Longman, 1967.
Stunde Null in Deutschland. Die westlichen Besatzungszonen 1945-1948 von Wolfgang Trees, Charles Whiting und Thomas Omansen – Publisher: von Gondrom Verlag GmbH, 1993
Sturm zum Rhein. Der Kampf um das Dreieck Mosel-Saar-Rhein und um die Eifel 1944/45 von Charles Whiting – Publisher: von Verlag der Akademischen Buchhandlung Interbook, 1984
Unternehmen Karneval : der Werwolf-Mord an Aachens Oberburgermeister Oppenhoff / Wolfgang Trees, Charles Whiting – Publisher: Aachen Triangel, 1982
AUDIO BOOKS
Death on the Rhine: Unabridged – Publisher: Magna Story Sound 2002
In Turkish Waters – Publisher: Magna Story Sound; (2003)
The Baltic Run – Publisher: Magna Story Sound; (2003)
