Operation Northwind
The Other Battle of the Bulge
Charles Whiting

The History Press
October 1, 2008 / ISBN 978-162273993
History – Military – WWII
Amazon

Reviewed by Dennis Collins

In January of 1945 the German army launched an offensive planned by Adolph Hitler himself. He assigned eight divisions, three of them the elite “SS” troops, to attack the French territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The allied forces were greatly outnumbered in the area and Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower was forced to lay out a strategy that would hold against a force vastly superior in numbers. His plan involved dropping his soldiers back to a line that could be defended. The scheme called for the evacuation of the city of Strasborg.

Charles DeGaulle vehemently objected to the plan claiming that abandoning Strasborg would be so demoralizing to the French people that the populace would surely turn against the United States. DeGaulle threatened to break the alliance. Eventually Eisenhower relented but only after intervention by Winston Churchill. Considering the fragile nature of the alliance, it was viewed as one of the most precarious decisions of the war. The result was an extremely high casualty rate in the ranks of both the American and French armies. But, for the most part they held their ground and eventually repelled the German forces.

This is not the kind of book that one reads for entertainment. It’s written like a battle report with very little emotion. I would only recommend it for students of military history. Critics question the accuracy of some of the information provided by author Charles Whiting but most of the facts seem to be supported by regimental histories. Whiting includes a few individual stories as well, telling about the war’s most decorated GI, Audy Murphy and the only soldier in modern history executed for cowardice, Private Eddie Slovik.

One soldier who died in this operation was Lieutenant Edward Gosselin of the 14th armored division. He was killed by a mortar round while fighting house to house in the town of Rittershoffen. He was my uncle.

Reviewer and columnist Dennis Collins is the author of The Unreal McCoy and Turn Left at September