Author: E. M. Nathanson

The Dirty Dozen is a classic that survived the circumstances that made it possible, yet alone keeps those circumstances alive.
The orders to Captain John Reisman were to select twelve General Prisoners convicted by courts-martial and doomed to be executed or serve lengthy prison terms for murder, rape, robbery and other crimes of violence, and to train and qualify them in as much of the clever and dirty business of behind-the-lines operations as they could absorb in a brief time; then to deliver them secretly onto the European mainland just prior to D-day, to wreak havoc upon segments and personnel of the Nazi war machine.