A Time for Trumpets

There are a lot of books about the Battle of The Bulge, the biggest American engagement of World War II. I think this one is the best, and that’s because author Charles B. MacDonald fought in the Bulge as a rifle company commander, then for years after the war served as an official U.S. Army historian writing about the Bulge and the other major campaigns. MacDonald had that rare opportunity to figure out what really happened to him and his fellow soldiers. He makes a brief appearance in his own gripping narrative, just another tired, cold, young officer trying to… show more.

A meticulous examination of the Battle of The Bulge, the largest battle ever fought by the US Army. What I found so fascinating was that, even given the massive scale of the fight, it reads more like a wide series of small engagements, scattered and disconnected from each other.  Individual units, often cut off from each other and vastly outnumbered and outgunned, still put up a stiff resistance, enough to pick away at the juggernaut advance of the Germans, each one slowing the enemy a little more and a little more and a little more, until reinforcements can finally put… show more.

MacDonald’s Time for Trumpets was one of the first books I read about the Battle of the Bulge, and it is still one of my favorites. His narrative style is easy to read and almost immediately, you find yourself, shivering in a foxhole, somewhere in the Ardennes, and staring into the morning mist, wondering where the German invaders are. His descriptions of combat are compelling and riveting, and MacDonald’s work does not skip over any major portion of the massive battle that involved a quarter of a million men on both sides. If you have to read one book on… show more.

How many historians can claim to have fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a rifle company commander, documented it as a combat historian, and then written about it as a popular author? Only the great Charles B. MacDonald. In this remarkable work, published on the fortieth anniversary of the battle, he managed to convey both the human and strategic dimensions without missing a rhetorical beat. I love this book because it is so obviously the product of decades of reflection and research by a true master of the historical art.