Classic telling of the Battle of the Bulge story. ( )

This book suffers from being overly comprehensive, every time a unit moves its listed in the writing. It reads a lot like combat has been described, long periods of boredom followed by a few seconds of extreme adrenaline. The moments when the author uses the first hand accounts of the men on the ground are seemingly crushed under the paragraphs of 'Company K moved here, Brigade Y moved here'. The German side is included in some parts but the focus is heavily on the Allies side of things. The writing style shows its age, the author doesnt have the ability to weave the ground and strategic views like Beevor, Ambrose, or Atkinson. ( )

4457. A Time for Trumpets The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge, by Charles B. MacDonald (read 9 Jul 2008) One cannot but help getting caught up in the account of the fearsome battle which Hitler started on Dec 16, 1944, and this account tells of it in almost overwhelming detail. I thought the book should have had an index or table of contents as to the maps--which I did not think were as helpful as they should have been. Different aspects of the battle are told chronologically, and this results in some jumping forward and backward. One also tends to lose sight of the forest what with all the description of the trees--one suspects the book is designed to include as many individual names as possible, but the minute detail may be offputting for some. But the book does a good job telling what the battle was like, and anyone, even if not a wargamer (which I am not), will find much to admire in this book. My diary as a 16-year-old boy in Iowa on Dec 17, 1944 at 10:10 PM C.W.T..said "Germans launched an offensive"--seems I knew about the battle almost as soon as the generals, who seemed slow to realize how serious it was. ( )

One of the best, and most readable accounts of any battle that you will ever read. MacDonald is eminently qualified to write this book, after a lifetime spent as a US Army historian and a lifetime lived in the few days following December 15 1944. This account of the Battle of the Bulge is extremely detailed, almost-private-snuffy-shot-six-bullets-and-ducked-back-in-his-foxhole-kind-of-detailed. Broken down into four intial zones along the Siegfrieid line then, following two or three of the German spearheads as the German army advanced, then Bastogne and the collapse of the offensive, MacDonald keeps up the blow by blow account of both the American forces and the German's as well. Leaves one wishing that MacDonald had been in all battles and would write about them as well. ( )