Bloody Aachen [Hardcover]

Charles Whiting (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1977

A history that tells the extraordinary story of Aachen where, in the autumn of 1944, the US First Army was held at bay for two months by the fanatical resistance of the Wehrmacht. The Citizens of Aachen refused to acknowledge the Nazi creed, and so chose to fight it out with 'friend' and foe alike.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

5 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

About the Author

Charles Whiting served with a reconnaisance outfit in WWII and has since become one of the premier historians of the war. Among his many best-selling works are Patton, The Last Assault, and Death on a Distant Frontier. He currently lives in York, England.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Stein & Day Pub (January 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812820908
• ISBN-13: 978-0812820904
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,031,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Aching for a Better Aachen, August 1, 2001

By 

J. R. Krebs (Adams, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bloody Aachen (West Wall Series) (Hardcover)

Aachen was the first major German city captured by American forces in WWII, and therefore rates more attention than it has so far received by the writers of military history. From this persepective, Whiting's book is valuable. There seems to be no other book currently available on the subject. Having noted this, the book is somewhat of a disappointment. There is no source documentation (bibliography or foot/endnotes), although by the introduction, Whiting makes it obvious that he used some personal interviews (but apparently not always conducted by himself). Readers looking for a reasonable amount of detail will also be disappointed. Whiting rarely descends below the division level in reporting the engagements, and when he does, it is not always easy to identify the parent organization to which the soldiers belong, when he describes them in combat. Aachen was a major engagement for the 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One), yet Whiting spends far more time reporting the activities of the 30th Infantry Division and the 3rd and 5th Armored Divisions. The 26th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division was assigned to assault the central city, yet Whiting gives no specifics on the difficulties and experiences of the American forces (or individual soldiers), as they encountered their first major urban street fighting in Germany. This is incomprehensible, since fighting in the city itself was a major component of the battle. Some maps and photos are included, but many of the photos show participants as they appeared in the mid 1970's (when the book was written), and not as they appeared at the time of the battle. Since Whiting reports that a number of correspondents came to Aachen after its capture, it is disappointing that he failed to include more of the photographs that must have been taken; they would have served to enhance the "feel" of combat. The maps are adequate, but again lack detail, and do not always include places mentioned significantly in the text (for example, Crucifixion Hill). Neither do the maps contain indications of troop movements--they show cities and topographcal features only, so they don't help to clear up confusion regarding the maneuvering of the soldiers. Finally, Whiting's style is uneven, and it lacks the poetry in prose that some authors (notably Bruce Catton) can employ to describe war. Sometimes Whiting's prose is turgid and declamatory; other times it borders on the sensational. It is frequently banal and cliche ridden. This is not a great book, but since there is no alternative, it is marginally adequate. The reader will come away with a general idea of how Aachen was captured, and some idea of the horror the troops experienced, but the reader will finish the book wishing that some other author would take up the challenge to report the capture of Aachen in a manner that the event truly deserves. I give it three stars--two for the book itself, and one because it is the only available book on the subject, so far as I know.

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, Despite Its Occasional & Lesser Flaws, January 26, 2011

By 

Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bloody Aachen (Siegfried Line 3) (Paperback)

"BA" = Bloody Aachen, Charles Whiting; Stein & Day (1976)


Not bad, but do be forewarned about Whiting's occasional bursts of eccentric writing - during which emerge the brief, odd statements of fact (better located earlier in the narrative) & his frantic & comically baffling use of exclamation points ("!' "!" "!").

But he's sincere & compassionate, which are no small virtues.

And to paraphrase a far better writer than myself, authors such as Whiting display the talent of knowing how not to get in the way of the story itself - this pointless & seemingly interminable six-week battle of World War II.

(At one point, the German commanders were ordered to continue to defend the besieged city - where kings for centuries had been crowned - with a mere 2,000 soldiers...many of whom were last-ditch draftees - men of advanced years, incapable of surviving an ordeal that routinely defeats the stamina of much younger men.)

The endnote is that Whiting's candor is, above all, greatly appreciated. It is good to be reminded of the wildly-optimistic Allied military commanders' assessments of how the war was going for them in early September 1944 - which, by mid-October, were proven to have been guided by the same logic that, a decade earlier, had inspired playwright Robert Sherwood to entitle his Pulitzer Prize-winning farce, "Idiot's Delight."

Aachen, Germany, World War II, J. Lawton Collins, Clarence Huebner, U.S. Army, Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, Bernard Montgomery