Death on a Distant Frontier : A Lost Victory, 1944 [Hardcover]

Charles Whiting (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group (January 1, 1997)
• ASIN: B001UPMQ2Y
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good combat writing marred by axe-grinding., September 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Death On A Distant Frontier: A Lost Victory, 1944 (Hardcover)

Charles Whiting is a prolific author with a real gift for describing the war as experienced by the soldier on the ground, but his work is marred by a regrettable tendency to demonize others, particularly Americans, which whom he disagrees.
The present work, concerning the final assault on Germany in 1944-45, takes the position that Eisenhower's Broad Front Strategy was wrong and caused thousands of unnecessary casualties as its result. Ike's strategy, as the Oxford Companion to World War II puts it: ..."is almost universally accepted as having been the correct one". but honest men may disagree about strategy. Whiting however seems to be able to peer into the hearts of commanders, particularly Eisenhower, to find base motives others have unaccountably overlooked.
A case in point is Whiting's view that Eisenhower's error in strategic thinking "perhaps unwittingly" caused many deaths. "Perhaps unwittingly". This leaves open the interpretation that the Supreme Commander deliberately caused those deaths, an accusation which in the absence of supporting evidence must be dismissed as egregious slander.
Whiting's works are breezy and easy to read, but basically sensationalist and lacking the intellectual honesty which characterizes reliable military history.
(The numerical rating above is imbedded in the format and cannot be removed. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings).

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Canadian re the Brits, February 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Death On A Distant Frontier: A Lost Victory, 1944 (Hardcover)

Whiting does little or no research whatsoever. He chooses always to deliberately overlook the fact it was Montgomery who caused the supply and logistics problem for the Allies during the race to the Siegfried Line. It was his army's task to open up the port of Antwerp in August 1944. His sights were set on arguing his case to retain control of all of the armies and a northern thrust only to Berlin. Since that was not happening he talked Eisenhower into Market Garden, another debacle and waste of men and materiel, omitting to take and clear the Scheldt estuary leading to the port of Antwerp. This port was not cleared until November 1944, after repeated orders to do so from Eisenhower. Whiting is an inexcusable revisionist of WWII in Europe and should be considered a mere pulp novelist.

His antipathy towards not only the Americans but the Canadians and Australians is well noted by historians of any repute.

Montgomery was not a tactician or a genius in any respect. He was an arrogant, selfish and, in some instances, a bumbling idiot. He did not save the 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge. As a matter of fact, read Charles B. MacDonald's account of the battle for true fact rather than the fiction of Charles Whiting, to ascertain the extent to which the British Army was actually involved in the Battle of the Bulge.

Read this book as fiction only.