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The Ghost Front: The Ardennes Before the Battle of the Bulge Hardcover – April 16, 2002

by Charles Whiting (Author)

7 customer reviews

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While much has been written about the Battle of the Bulge—Hitler’s gigantic counteroffensive in the Ardennes Forest—the question of exactly how Germany was able to secretly mass its strategic reserves opposite the U.S. front remains as shrouded in mystery today as it was at the time. In December 1944, the snow-covered Ardennes was so quiet it was termed by Allied planners "the Ghost Front." The U.S. placed its greenest units among the wooded hills, along with combat-shattered units. But beneath trees just miles away, the Germans were stealthily massing two full Panzer armies and 300,000 assault troops. Week after week, Hitler poured the cream of the Wehrmacht into the "quiet" sector, for a surprise attack designed to shatter the American front. And while the Germans were eventually defeated in the Bulge, the preparations for the attack marked a victory for German stealth, deception, and organization. Charles Whiting, one of the best-selling historians of the war, examines how the Allies could have anticipated the attack had they not been lulled into a false sense of security. He also delves into the controversy over whether George Patton had received advance word of the offensive but failed to warn the frontline divisions. This question and many others are at last answered in Ghost Front.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1 edition (April 16, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0306811480
ISBN-13: 978-0306811487
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,568,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fast-paced tale...The best account this reviewer has read of the Germans' intelligence gathering, security, and deception plans." -- On Point: The Journal of Army History Fall 2003

"As always, recommended." -- Library Journal

"The author loves a good war story and tells one well." -- Choice

"Whiting must be the world's most prolific military writer." -- Soldier

"Whiting's special gift is to carry the reader along....He can be simultaneously dramatic and objective." -- Publishers Weekly

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.

Customer Reviews

(7)

2.7 out of 5 stars

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Too bad it still wasn't enough to generate some action with Bradley or Hodges.

Dave Schranck

Unfortunately, the more I read Whiting, the more I believe that instead of 200+ books (see inside jacket cover), he should have written five.

Karl May

I thought I would get an explanation of why the Allied air forces could not discern the buildup in the Ardennes.

Edward DeVere

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Un-intelligence - all the pieces but no picture

By Mannie Liscum on July 13, 2002

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Charles Whiting's book, Ghost Front: The Ardennes Before the Battle of the Bulge" is an interesting, if brief, examination of the Allied failure to see the German Ardennes offensive of 1944 coming before it happened. Other reviews have stated that Whiting provides no real insight as to why this happened, and in the end analysis there is some truth in that - many of the facts surrounding this huge intelligence faux pas remain obscured and possibly lost forever to time. However, in contrast to some other reviews I found Whiting's explanations of the events quite compelling and enlightening. Granted no single fault was found with Allied intelligence to place blame on, but that was why the Bulge occurred - no single event, but rather a series of events lead up to the Ardennes offensive and the German surprise. Whiting in my opinion does a decent job introducing many of the significant intelligence characters of the period, both Allied and Nazi. I found the stories of the German counter-intelligence ploys most interesting and enlightening, as these are sides of the story not often told. While there is certainly enough new material here to keep one interested I tend to agree with previous reviews that Whiting's style is a bit difficult at first, but I got used to it. I read the book over a three-day period (mainly while traveling for a business trip) and can say that in the end I really enjoyed the book. Yet, it's shortness (~160 pages) made it not quite worth full market price when all the criticisms discussed above are taken into account. I would however not dissuade readers from taking a look at other works by Whiting.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

Underwhelming

By Edward DeVere on July 5, 2002

Format: Hardcover

I thought I would get an explanation of why the Allied air forces could not discern the buildup in the Ardennes. But Whiting does not offer an explanation. Instead he focuses on the mismash of intelligence failures. But, you don't get to know any of the characters very well. Plus, from a writing perspective, Whiting has to many long, disconnected subclauses that are difficult to comprehend. Finally, he repeats himself often. Don't pay full price for this book. It is not essential to your WWII collection!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

From [...]

By A Customer on July 10, 2002

Format: Hardcover

I hear [...] will soon have a full review of this title. They also have many other reviews, previews and analysis articles of military history.
Ghost Front is a fascinating, if somewhat esoteric, view of the events that led up to the Battle of the Bulge. The intelligence failure of the Allies, or more precise, the pure blindness they suffered from, caused tens of thousands of needless casualties on both sides of the line.
Charles Whiting does a good job of portraying information that is not easily found in other sources, but his grammatical style has errors and doesn't flow very well in places, making reading this book less enjoyable than it should be.

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The Allies underestimated the Germans and would pay for that mistake.

By Dave Schranck on September 18, 2010

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

The late Charles Whiting, a veteran of WWII under Montgomery, has for over fifty years written many books on the war that include but is not limited to campaign coverage of North Africa, the Med and Western Europe. As some other reviewers have mentioned, the author was highly pro British and extremely anti American. He was so anti American, he loses some credibility as a historian. While some of his criticism (in this book and all the others) is legitimate, the other ravings are either distorted banter or opinionated half truths. The experienced reader will know the difference but new students may have trouble differienating.

The author gets much of his background information for the book from numerous interviews from German veterans. The author truly rambles so its difficult to highlight a specific format of the book but the largest aspect of the book shows the Germans, having been pushed back to their border during August and were more desperate and determined than the Americans, successfully prepared a counterattack of major proportions and were able to do it in such a way as to keep their true intentions from the enemy, including the British. The author uses the Germans as the driving force in his narrative, making the American side the driven.

The title, "Ghost Front" refers to the section of the Ardennes that is bracketed to the north by the village of Losheim and to approximately the Luxembourg border to the south. The line was defended by Middleton's weary VIII Corps that was in the process of being refitted in September and really wasn't in a position as the author argues to push past the West Wall, building a salient without a serious threat of being pocketed.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Behind the scenes

I liked the book because it gave me a different perspective of the B.o.B. of lots of things going on in the quiet zone, and also reasons why the US Army was so incredibly ignorant... Read more

Published on July 30, 2010 by Victor B. Mcclearen

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

I looked forward to reading this book, after all, I love WWII history. Unfortunately, the more I read Whiting, the more I believe that instead of 200+ books (see inside jacket... Read more

Published on January 8, 2005 by Karl May

A Canadian

This old British author loses all credibilty after reading just two of his books. Whiting is so overtly pro British and so anti-American and has literally no objectivity... Read more

Published on July 17, 2002