In this new and exciting approach to history, John Ellis focuses on a single day when the Allied war machine was in top gear but victory was far from a foreseeable reality. Through a succession of illuminating vignettes, where concise background information is never allowed to swamp the vivid immediacy of the day's events, he describes a world-wide conflict as it is acted out by Allied and Axis forces; field-marshal or private; president, prime-minister; prisoner of war or munitions worker. Among the set-piece actions of the day are the titanic naval battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, Hitler planning an Ardennes offensive which is to lead to the Battle of the Bulge, the eruption of the Red Army into Eastern Europe, a frustrated wolf-pack in the Atlantic, the saturation bombing of Essen and Hamburg, V2 rocket attacks on London and the highly secret Manhattan Project. The war in the rear, where civilian families find themselves in the battle zone, the code-breakers are busy at Bletchley Park, or the 'final solution' is taking place at Auschwitz, brings the whole human race into the most bloody war the world has ever known. By setting just one day under the historical microscope, a pitiless tragedy is laid bare with heart-rending clarity.