Charles Whiting has died

[AlanCurragh]

just read this on the BBC web site - here is the link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_y...ire/6915199.stm

Primarily a WW2 author, but I think he wrote one or two about WW1. Not perhaps many people's favourite author, but sad news nonetheless.

Regards

Alan

[Staffsyeoman]

He gets the double whammy of a Times and a Telegraph obituary on the same day.

Sad news, and commiserations for his family, but I'm afraid I gave up on his books a long time since. Usually given a sensationalist hook as if he had discovered something new, only to find that it was nothing of the sort. Popular and prolific does not ensure 'good'.

[Take on me]

An interesting, although sometimes difficult amateur historian. I enjoyed many of his Siegfried Line works and I believe that his book on the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest in late 1944 was one of the firs on that particularly tragic event- as Hemingway described it 'Paschendaele with tree bursts'.

Jon

[southerncross116]

Odd that just yesterday I was rearranging some paperbacks on my shelves and found one of his that I'd recently bought at an op shop, but had also buried on my shelf. It was A Bridge at Arnhem. I have no idea about he quality of Mr Whiting's writing, as I have a few titles of his, I don't know that I'd read that many yet.

[armourersergeant]

Only just noticed this.

As a teenager I read all the 'Wotan' series he wrote as Leo Kessler, it perhaps glorified the Waffen SS, yet it taught me to look at both sides of the coin. Not brilliant works, yet just the sort of blood and Bullshit I required at the time. Strangley it taught me some about loyalty and honour, which seems very strange now. (particularly in regard to Waffen-SS) It introduced me to the likes of Jochen Peiper, an enigma who I will not try to defend for the cause he stood for, yet I have moved on from that and learnt. The books sit on my shelf still, unread for over twenty years, yet whilst I have moved on they form a part of my education, as such I can not move them to a box in the attic, yet I can not recommend them to a younger audience either!!!

Not the finest books as I say, yet he had a part in my development at an early age.

"great crap on a christmas tree" Mr Whiting, I remember it still.

or my favourite..."crap said the King and thousand arses bent and took the strain, for in those days the word of the King was law"

RIP

[George Armstrong Custer]

Yes I agree with what has been said about his non-fiction works revealing little that was new - he was certainly not an archival researcher and his histories were based upon secondary sources. As to his fiction - in particular that written as 'Leo Kessler' - I always thought they were a poor man's Sven Hassel in subject matter and style.

ciao,

GAC

[Halder]

There are plenty of threads and comments on this on some of the WW2 fora. I cannot speak for the novels, but the "histories" were extremely weak; I baulk at any book which quotes one of Whiting's works because he did very little primary research which, for me, is the mark of a good historian. He wrote something like 300 books in his career and I'm sorry but you cannot produce work at that rate to a high standard.

[PBI]

Just in the Middle of Reading "Werewolf"..R.I.P. Mr.Whiting.