Eddie Slovik was the most famous American soldier to come out of World War Two. Or was infamous a better description? For 24 year old Slovik, Polish-American, petty thief and ex-con, was the only Allied soldier to be shot for desertion in the course of that long conflict. For nearly ten years the US Dept. of Defence tried to keep the Slovik case secret and even when it was revealed the American military hid the place of the condemned man's burial for a further thirty years. Thus when the details of the Slovik case were finally brought out into the open, there was much talk of an official cover-up. Now veteran military historian, Charles Whiting has attempted to dig up the final truth. He reveals in this fast paced intriguing book that Slovik was not the innocent victim that his advocate had maintained he was. In that year in which he was sentenced to death for desertion in the 'face of the enemy', he played a calculating game with the US Army -and lost. Whiting also reveals another secret: the man who would approve Slovik's death sentence and have him shot in a remote French mountain village, General (and future President) Dwight D. Eisenhower was also under a sentence of death that winter himself.

The last days of World War Two in Europe is on one level the story of great statesmen and supreme commanders vying for power and fighting for what each felt was the correct resolution. Whiting sets the final stage of the war against the background of the struggle between Churchill and Truman, and between Marshall and Eisenhower. But while statesmen exchanged telegrams, others kept up the exchange of fire. Mr Whiting vividly portrays the final collapse of the German army, which had fallen into the hands of the aged and the very young, their manic dread of the Russians, and the dissolution of the German High Command. 'Hitler's Defeat' is high drama, but also gives the reader an understanding of the Grand Strategy which led to the reshaping of Europe in 1945. CHARLES WHITING, the author, is Britain's most prolific military writer with over 250 books to his credit. He saw active service in the Second World War, serving in an armoured reconnaissance regiment attached to both the US and British Armies. He is therefore able to write with the insight and authority of someone who, as a combat soldier, actually experienced the horrors of World War II.

The glory of the Leibstandarte SS Adolph Hitler was their ambition even if death was the price - and of the of the 30,000 SS soldiers who signed up with this elite force only thirty would survive the war. Some perished in the abortive push on Normandy directed by the Fuhrer. Others suffered gruesome deaths in the hands of the Russians. But wherever they went they left a trail of terror as they butchered their way across Europe. In a chilling day-by-day account of the final year of this crack squad, Charles Whiting chronicles their bloody demise which culminated in humiliation at the Battle of the Bulge. CHARLES WHITING, the author, is Britain's most prolific military writer with over 250 books to his credit. He saw active service in the Second World War, serving in an armoured reconnaissance regiment attached to both the US and British Armies. He is therefore able to write with the insight and authority of someone who, as a combat soldier, actually experienced the horrors of World War II.