A Time for Trumpets by Charles B. MacDonald: A book review
On December 16, 1944, elements of three German armies -- 14 infantry and five panzer divisions in all -- attacked part of the American First Army along an 80-mile front along Germany's border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The sudden and unexpected counteroffensive hit the Americans in an area the Allies thought would be a nice, quiet sector for combat-weary divisions to rest and refit while green divisions fresh from the States could be acclimated to life on the line: the dark and deep forests of the Ardennes. Planned and ordered by Adolf Hitler himself, this massive onslaught was launched with one objective in mind: penetrate the American lines, pass through the "impassable" Ardennes Forest, cross the Meuse River, and capture the vital port of Antwerp. At the very least, the Allied supply situation would deteriorate enough to slow the Anglo-American advance to the Reich's industrial heartland by a matter of months and buy time for Hitler and his tottering empire. At the very best, a German victory would split the Grand Alliance in three, trap the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group on the northern sector of the front, and the Fuhrer could attempt to convince the Soviets that further fighting was useless now that the Western Allies had been defeated at the Reich's very doorstep.
For a few snowy, foggy, and bitterly cold days, things seemed to be going Hitler's way. Caught off-guard by the sheer size of the counteroffensive, hampered by bad weather which prevented Allied air power to provide ground support to the tankers and infantrymen along the front, confused and misdirected by a small number of English-speaking German commandos wearing American uniforms, and, at some points along the 80-mile "Ghost Front," isolated, outnumbered, and forced to surrender, GIs fought a seemingly losing battle against hundreds of thousands of German soldiers. But even when some units panicked or were overrun, many American soldiers -- sometimes in dribs and drabs -- stood fast and delayed the enemy, giving Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, and his generals valuable time to plan a riposte and turn what seemed to be a disaster into a strategic opportunity. And sure enough, after a month's of heavy fighting in the awful cold of a European winter, the German counteroffensive was slowed, halted, and gradually pushed back to where it had started.
The late Charles B. MacDonald, one of America's premier military historians and himself a company commander in the Ardennes campaign, captures the chaos, misery, bravery, and drama of the U.S. Army's largest battle in history in A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. The author of such acclaimed works as Company Commander and The Mighty Endeavor, MacDonald uses his skills as a writer and his knowledge of the infantryman's combat experiences to paint a vivid picture of Hitler's last gamble to gain even a temporary victory in the West and the efforts of over 600,000 U.S. and several thousand British troops to contain the salient or "bulge" that gave the Ardennes counteroffensive its popular moniker.
A Time for Trumpets not only covers the well-known episodes of the small teams of German soldiers wearing American uniforms (they actually did very little material damage, but their very existence caused jumpy GI's to quiz each other about baseball teams, state capitals, even popular singers and bandleaders), the heroic stand of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and the infamous Malmedy massacre, but delves into the Allies' biggest intelligence failure of the war and the bitter recrimination between British and American commanders when Eisenhower placed the northern half of the "bulge" under the command of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery. Attention to detail is also given to the German high command's reluctance to execute Hitler's plan by the letter, knowing in their professional soldiers' hearts and minds that the Nazi dictator was overreaching.
Despite the complexity of the battle, A Time For Trumpets is highly readable and engrossing. There are helpful maps and many pages of photos to help the casual reader keep his or her bearings in this sprawling month-long battle, and the various appendices are valuable tools; they include organizational charts that depict the composition of a standard U.S. infantry regiment and the various Orders of Battle for the Allied and German forces engaged in the Battle of the Bulge.
For a few snowy, foggy, and bitterly cold days, things seemed to be going Hitler's way. Caught off-guard by the sheer size of the counteroffensive, hampered by bad weather which prevented Allied air power to provide ground support to the tankers and infantrymen along the front, confused and misdirected by a small number of English-speaking German commandos wearing American uniforms, and, at some points along the 80-mile "Ghost Front," isolated, outnumbered, and forced to surrender, GIs fought a seemingly losing battle against hundreds of thousands of German soldiers. But even when some units panicked or were overrun, many American soldiers -- sometimes in dribs and drabs -- stood fast and delayed the enemy, giving Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, and his generals valuable time to plan a riposte and turn what seemed to be a disaster into a strategic opportunity. And sure enough, after a month's of heavy fighting in the awful cold of a European winter, the German counteroffensive was slowed, halted, and gradually pushed back to where it had started.
The late Charles B. MacDonald, one of America's premier military historians and himself a company commander in the Ardennes campaign, captures the chaos, misery, bravery, and drama of the U.S. Army's largest battle in history in A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. The author of such acclaimed works as Company Commander and The Mighty Endeavor, MacDonald uses his skills as a writer and his knowledge of the infantryman's combat experiences to paint a vivid picture of Hitler's last gamble to gain even a temporary victory in the West and the efforts of over 600,000 U.S. and several thousand British troops to contain the salient or "bulge" that gave the Ardennes counteroffensive its popular moniker.
A Time for Trumpets not only covers the well-known episodes of the small teams of German soldiers wearing American uniforms (they actually did very little material damage, but their very existence caused jumpy GI's to quiz each other about baseball teams, state capitals, even popular singers and bandleaders), the heroic stand of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and the infamous Malmedy massacre, but delves into the Allies' biggest intelligence failure of the war and the bitter recrimination between British and American commanders when Eisenhower placed the northern half of the "bulge" under the command of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery. Attention to detail is also given to the German high command's reluctance to execute Hitler's plan by the letter, knowing in their professional soldiers' hearts and minds that the Nazi dictator was overreaching.
Despite the complexity of the battle, A Time For Trumpets is highly readable and engrossing. There are helpful maps and many pages of photos to help the casual reader keep his or her bearings in this sprawling month-long battle, and the various appendices are valuable tools; they include organizational charts that depict the composition of a standard U.S. infantry regiment and the various Orders of Battle for the Allied and German forces engaged in the Battle of the Bulge.
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