Former Area Resident Stephen Harding Discusses and Signs The Last Battle at Barnes & Noble

 May, 1945. Hitler was dead, the Third Reich little more than smoking rubble, Germany’s surrender inevitable. Waffen-SS troops roamed the Austrian countryside, seeking to execute those who could bear witness to their crimes. With the end of the war in sight, a desperate note smuggled out of a fairy-tale castle high in the Alps sent Captain Jack Lee and his small band of GIs on one last, dangerous mission.
 
The true story of the rescue of a contentious group of prominent French prisoners held in Castle Itter is not surprising: there were many such tales of heroism among the “greatest generation” of American soldiers in World War II. But how Captain Lee and his men succeeded – and with whose help – is nearly unbelievable.
 
Author Stephen Harding will discuss and sign his new book The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe on Saturday, June 15 at 2 PM at Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks, 160 S. Westlake Blvd.
 
Based on official American, German, and French documents, The Last Battle tells the story of the most improbable battle of World War II, when Captain Lee and his outnumbered GIs joined forces with German soldiers to fight off the SS troops seeking to recapture Castle Itter and execute the French VIPs held inside. The unlikely cast of characters defending the castle included the hard-driving, hard-drinking Lee; Wehrmacht Major Sepp Gangl and Waffen-SS officer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader and their men, who put their lives on the line to save the French from execution; the elderly, squabbling, French statesmen themselves, imprisoned with their wives and mistresses; and even a professional tennis player, the “Bounding Basque”, whose athletic prowess enabled him to slip over the castle walls and through enemy lines to reach the American troops in the nick of time. This suspenseful true tale of unlikely comrades in arms bravely fighting a fanatical foe has been optioned for the movies by Stellar Productions, with award-winning screenwriter Bryce Zabel engaged to write the script.
 
Author Stephen Harding knows his subject well: he is a veteran journalist specializing in military affairs. For nearly two decades, Harding wrote for Soldiers, the official magazine of the US Army, and he is currently the senior editor of Military History magazine. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Air and Space Magazine, Smithsonian, World War II, Jane’s Defense Weekly, and Air Enthusiast. Originally from Camarillo, Harding now lives in northern Virginia. The Last Battle is his eighth nonfiction book. 

Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks is located in the Promenade at Westlake, at the corner of Westlake Blvd. and Thousand Oaks Blvd in Thousand Oaks. For more information on The Last Battle discussion and signing, call the store at (805) 446-2820.