New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. 191, [1] pages. Illustrations. Maps. Rear of DJ soiled. Some wear to edges of DJ. Had it not been for the unexpected resistance at Aachen, the Battle of the Bulge might never have occurred. Charles Henry Whiting (18 December 1926 – 24 July 2007), was a British writer and military historian and with some 350 books of fiction and non-fiction to his credit, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Duncan Harding, Ian Harding, John Kerrigan, Leo Kessler, Klaus Konrad, K.N. Kostov, and Duncan Stirling. He completed his first novel The Frat Wagon (1954) while still an undergraduate at Leeds; it was published by Jonathan Cape in 1954. Next followed three wartime thrillers: Lest I Fall (1956), which was awarded the George Dowty Prize at the 1956 Cheltenham Literature Festival, was optioned by Rank but never filmed, and which financed Whiting's study tour in North America and led on to a contract with the University of Maryland University College, which at that time was providing degree courses for US military officers stationed in Europe. Next, he published Journey to No End, followed by The Mighty Fallen (1958). In 1967, he began writing non-fiction books for the New York publisher Ian Ballantine. Whiting continued this work even when producing novels. Between 1970 and 1976, in a prolific burst, he wrote a total of 34 books which he described as "Bang-bang, thrills-and-spills". From 1976, he was a full-time author and would average some six works a year for the rest of his life. More