A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It (Dell World War II Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "PHIL HANNON, AGE TWENTY, had been assigned to the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, part of the 106th Infantry Division..." (more)
Key Phrases: antitank company, panzer army, pioneer platoon, Eric Wood, Infantry Regiment, Kampfgruppe Peiper (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Astor ( The Last Nazi ) synthesizes interviews, diaries and correspondence in this evocative treatment of the Battle of the Bulge from a first-hand, front-line perspective. Through the testimony of German and U.S. participants, he re-creates the confusion and brutality of the war, the Germans' determination to break through at any cost, and the desperate American resistance that frustrated Hitler's last offensive. Many of Astor's interviewees, overrun by the German advance, became prisoners of war. Their accounts of their experiences in a collapsing Reich are the most original contribution of a work that, with its focus on the human aspects of the fighting in the Ardennes, brilliantly complements Charles MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets. Military Book Club main dual selection.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Vivid account of the Wehrmacht's final offensive, by Astor (The Last Nazi, 1985, etc.). Exhaustively researched, much of it narrated by participants, this is a chronicle in the style of the new military history, conveying an experience as well as a report on a military action. The immediacy and clarity of enlisted men's accounts form the core reality here, giving a palpable sense of infantry and tank warfare. Comparisons with George Feifer's Tennozan (p. 368) are inevitable, but Astor is less culturally concerned, more closely focused on this final, deadly spasm of Hitler's inspiration. The German leadership is unforgettable--flamboyant Otto Skorzeny (who arranged for Germans to masquerade as Americans); alcoholic Sepp Deitrich, Hitler's old buddy, now an incompetent general; and, above all, the cunning, sinister SS Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper, already associated with Russian front atrocities. Astor begins with a grim military comedy of errors: Deitrich's refusal to supplement radios with carrier pigeons, German soldiers who can't speak English, and a nightmare parachute drop in a gale. The Allies oblige, refusing to believe tanks can be used in the Ardennes, failing to grasp the reality when it's upon them, losing crucial information and bickering. The progress of Kampfgruppe Peiper is a black thread of terror running through the narrative. As its tanks grind forward, tiny US units sacrifice themselves. A cook covers the retreat of his unit with a machine gun, then is captured and killed; the SS massacres inconvenient prisoners; Pfc. Mel Biddle is sent on a mission during which he kills 17 Germans and takes out a machine gun with his M-1. Eventually, the 101st Airborne holes up in Bastogne and will not be dislodged, and Kampfgruppe Peiper meets a flaming G”tterd„mmerung, its men escaping on foot in the snow. Strong narrative, sound history, and a good read. (Photos and maps--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Dell (December 3, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440215749
• ISBN-13: 978-0440215745
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #595,477 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent general history of the battle., February 15, 2000

By A Customer

"A Blood Dimmed Tide" is a good general study of the Battle of the Bulge that is written more for the recreational reader than the serious student. Overall, the book is well-written and contains a bunch of great stories about the individual veterans who fought in the battle.(Albeit related decades later.) If you're a fan of Stephen Ambrose's books on WWII then you will no doubt enjoy this book which is written in a very similar style. If you're looking for a David Glantz-like study of the campaign then you should pass this one by.

I should note that the paperback edition of this book continues to support one of the biggest inaccuracies of photographic record of the war. The book claims to show a picture of SS Lt. Colonel Jochen Pieper- the picture of the cigar smoking SS soldier on the road to Malmedy. It has been proven repeatedly that the man in those pictures is not Peiper. Yet numerous sources have included those pictures claiming them to be those of Peiper, and to see a book written in the '90's still clinging to this inaccuracy is annoying.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blood Dimmed Tide, April 12, 2004

By	Christoph Kelly (Auburn, WA.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Extremely readable! This is one of the best first hand accounts of World War II that I have read. Mr. Astor follows the stories of both American and German soldiers, officers and enlisted alike. One can really get a sense of what it must have been like to try to dig a trench in frozen ground and then of the sudden terror of a night attack. The reader can also get a sense of the complacency that had crept into the American army at the point in the war even after the terrible battle of the Huertgen Forest. But what really makes the stories interesting are the accounts of captivity in the German Stalags and the impressions of the Americans as they move behind German lines in the closing days of the war. This is not a "big picture" book, readers looking for strategical analysis should look elsewhere. There is also a lack of good maps, to get a sense of where you are reading about it. But overall a great read.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crack of bullets and squeal of tank treads, April 8, 2001

By	"[e-mail]" (Ozark, AL USA) - See all my reviews

Reading this book was a revelation. The descriptions of what it was like to lay in a shallow depression, hastily dug from frozen ground, while artillery tree-bursts flailed everything with white-hot shrapnel, were terrifying. Trying to picture myself in a foxhole with a Tiger tank boring in, as described by the author, made me wonder whether I could have dealt with the reality that was experienced by the American participants in the "Battle of the Bulge".

I've read several other books on the Battle of the Bulge that focused more on the strategic aspects of the battle, but this book, by far, helped me to better understand the gritty, frozen, deadly, reality faced by the heroic American soldiers. And let there be no doubt, they were heroes. I can only wonder: could todays generation exhibit this kind of singleminded devotion to turning back an inexorable tide under similar circumstances?