The High White Forest

"This deftly executed war novel is several cuts above such recent melodramas as Van Ryan's Express and scores bullseyes both for action and characters. Its central concern is the battle of Ardennes (""the Bulge"") and its three-part story weaves in the otivities of an American squad, a Canadian squad and some Nazi special troops. The Nazis are especially well-drawn, although the Americans and Canadians singled out have an authenticity far beyond the usual stereotypes of war stories. The Nazis have been specially trained to pose as American soldiers. Their putative mission is to capture General Eisenhower and abduct him. (The Zazis had carried off just such an abduction of Mussolini when he was captured.) Franz Koerner, a Nazi squad leader, was raised in Yorkville, the German section of Manhattan, had joined the American Bund and then left the U.S. for Berlin. As he and his troops prowl behind the Allied lines and mouth Americanese, they find their mission falling apart and their esprit buckling. But then they fined that the Allies are losing in the Ardennes. Their hopes are short-lived, however, and soon they are in a nightmare of vanished battle lines, with the Americans, Canadians and Nazis all cked together in a colossal lost cause. The climax is an extraordinary display of high rony."--Https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ralph-allen-3 /the-high-white-forest