Charles Whiting Charles Whiting ( 18 December 1926 – 24 July 2007 ) , was a British writer and military historian and with some 350 books of fiction and non - fiction to his credit , under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Duncan Harding , John Kerrigan , Klaus Konrad and Leo Kessler . Biography . Born in the Bootham area of York , England , he was a pupil at the Nunthorpe Grammar School , leaving at the age of 16 to join the British Army by lying about his age . Keen to be in on the wartime action , Whiting was attached to the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment and by the age of 18 saw duty as a sergeant in France , Holland , Belgium and Germany in the latter stages of World War II . While still a soldier , he observed conflicts between the highest - ranking British and American generals which he would write about extensively in later years . After the war , he stayed on in Germany completing his A - levels via correspondence course and teaching English before being enrolled at Leeds University reading History and German Language . As an undergraduate he was afforded opportunities for study at several European universities and , after gaining his degree , would go on to become an assistant professor of history . Elsewhere , Whiting held a variety of jobs which included working as a translator for a German chemical factory and spells as a publicist , a correspondent for The Times and feature writer for such diverse magazines as International Review of Linguistics , Soldier and Playboy . His first novel " The Frat Wagon " , written while still an undergraduate , was published by Jonathan Cape in 1954 and by 1958 had been followed by three wartime thrillers , " Lest I Fall " ( which was optioned by Rank but never filmed ) , " Journey to No End " and " The Mighty Fallen " . The first of these thrillers was awarded the George Dowty Prize at the 1956 Cheltenham Literature Festival which financed Whiting ' s study tour in North America and led on to a contract with the University of Maryland University College which at that time was providing degree courses for US military officers stationed in Europe . Whiting became a touring academic living in Spain , France , Germany , Turkey and Italy while teaching military history and strategy to the US Army . It was while doing this that he would meet his first wife , Irma , whose father had suffered persecution in Hamburg for his opposition to the Nazis , and eventually the couple settled in a remote Belgian village . It was while living there that Whiting ' s writerly muse began to pour forth novels and non - fiction at an unprecedented rate , initially overwhelming his publishers . Between 1970 and 1976 in a prolific burst he wrote a total of 34 books which he described as " Bang - bang , thrills - and - spills " . In dealing with his work rate , publishers would successfully develop a number of different markets for his output , publishing his work under his own name as well as the names Duncan Harding , John Kerrigan , and Klaus Konrad and , at the suggestion of publisher Anthony Cheetham , his most successful nom de plume , Leo Kessler whose annual sales would reach 60 , 000 copies during the 1980s . From 1976 , he was a full - time author and would average some six novels a year for the rest of his life . In addition to writing his novels , his weekly educational columns and dealing with his lecturing commitments , he also established a language centre in the German city of Trier and a European studies department at Bradford . He was also a prolific and popular military historian , who developed a niche market for writing about the Second World War from the point of view of the experiences of regular soldiers rather than the military strategists and generals . One of his most famous books of non - fiction is " York Blitz " ( also published as " Fire Over York " ) about the German bombing of York in April 1942 while his most controversial is " Hemingway Goes To War " , about the ( mis ) adventures of the writer Ernest Hemingway during World War II . The latter is being republished in 2008 by Humdrumming Ltd which is also republishing some early Leo Kessler titles , kicking off with " Fire Over Kabul " ( now available ) , his final title under the Kessler name : " Desperate Glory " , as well as his very first novel : " The Frat Wagon " . Some early Duncan Harding titles are now available from GH Smith & Sons of York .