Book excerpt: Ernest Hemingway, literary giant of the 20th century, was renowned as a hard-drinking man of action. As the fighting reached its climax in the closing ten months of World War II, he spent time as a US war correspondent based in London, Paris and Luxembourg. It was during that period, by his own account, that he participated in the D-Day landings and saw action in the frontline at the Battle of the Bulge with the US Army. He also claimed to have flown on bombing raids with the Royal Air Force. This text examines Hemingway's trail through war-torn Europe during World War II, chronicling his tangled personal life and assessing the impact that first-hand experience of war had on him both as a writer and as a man.