On December 16, 1944, the vanguard of three German armies, totaling half a million men, attacked U.S. forces in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, achieveing what had been considered impossible—total surprise. In the most abysmal failure of battlefield intelligence in the history of the U.S. Army, 600,000 American soldiers found themselves facing Hitler's last desperate effort of the war. The brutal confrontation that ensued became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the greatest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army—a triumph of American ingenuity and dedication over an egregious failure in strategic intelligence. A Time for Trumpets is the definitive account of this dramatic victory, told by one of America's most respected military historians, who was also an eyewitness: MacDonald commanded a rifle company in the Battle of the Bulge. His account of this unique battle is exhaustively researched, honestly recounted, and movingly authentic in its depiction of hand-to-hand combat. Mingling firsthand experience with the insights of a distinguished historian, MacDonald places this profound human drama unforgettably on the landscape of history.
Author
Charles B. MacDonald was a former Deputy Chief Historian for the United States Army. He wrote several of the Army's official histories of World War II. After graduating from Presbyterian College, MacDonald was commissioned as a US Army officer through the Army ROTC and deployed to Europe. By September 1944, as a 21 year old Captain, he commanded a rifle company in the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. MacDonald received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. His first book, ''Company Commander'', was published in 1947, while his wartime experiences were fresh in his mind. MacDonald wrote the final volume of the Green Series on the European Theatre, ''The Last Offensive''. He retired as Deputy Chief Historian, United States Army Center of Military History in 1979. After his retirement, MacDonald wrote ''A Time for Trumpets'', his last book, a personal history of the Ardennes Offensive which concentrates on the first two weeks of the battle, which he spent five years researching. MacDonald also wrote or co-wrote two other books of the Green Series, ''The Siegfried Line Campaign'' and ''Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt''. He also contributed to ''Command Decisions''. MacDonald suffered from cancer and lung disease and he died on December 4, 1990 at his home in Arlington, Virginia.
