Charles B. MacDonald > Quotes

“Never in history, as he perceived it, had war produced such strange bedfellows as the Western democracies and the Soviet Union. “Ultra-capitalist states on one side,” he would tell his generals on the eve of his big offensive, “ultra-Marxist states on the other; on one side a dying empire — Britain; on the other side a colony, the United States, waiting to claim its inheritance.”[6] Each of the three, he said, was determined “either to cheat the others out of something or get something out of it.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“He who defends everything,” Frederick the Great used to admonish his generals, “defends nothing.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“On the southern flank, Company B was fast going to pieces. As infiltrating Germans approached Britton’s command post in a house, they yelled in English: “Come on out!” To which Britton yelled back: “Fuck you, come on in!”[354]”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“Adolf Hitler set in motion preparations for a battle that was to assume epic proportions, the greatest German attack in the West since the campaign of 1940 had brought down the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France in swift and ignominious defeat. It was destined to involve more than a million men and to precipitate an unparalleled crisis for the Allied armies. It was also to involve one of the most egregious failures in the history of American battlefield intelligence. Yet it was also to become the greatest battle ever fought by the United States Army.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“As they sat down around a large square table, an SS guard assumed a position behind each chair, glowering with a ferocity that made at least one of the generals, Fritz Bayerlein, fear even to reach for his handkerchief.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“Night with its long hours of mysteries and uncertainties was the time to fear.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII

“Mighty Endeavor: American Armed Forces in the European Theater”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII

“That such a small force was entrusted with defending the critical Losheim Gap demonstrated the complacency with which American commanders viewed the possibility of a German offensive in the Ardennes.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“Inside the building the Colonel and the battalion staff were eating breakfast. The sight startled me at first and I said a bad word to myself. The pursuit of the war could not wait long enough for the rifle companies to eat, but there was time for battalion headquarters to breakfast in the luxury of a house that the sweat of the rifle companies had taken. I passed it off as another of the injustices”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII

“By way of Japan, there had been indications that the Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin, might be willing to parley, but Hitler forbade any dickering with the Untermenschen. “Probing the Soviet attitude,” he wrote the wife of his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, “is like touching a glowing stove to find out if it’s hot.”[5]”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“That such a small force was entrusted with defending the critical Losheim Gap demonstrated the complacency with which American commanders viewed the”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“Company G today committed a war crime. They are going to win the war, however, so I don’t suppose it really matters.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII

“Sergeant Jack Webster, an Oklahoman whose adventure in running across an enemy minefield in France at such a speed that the mines exploded harmlessly to his rear was a story told to every replacement upon arrival in the company.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII

“Two weeks later, fire bombs destroyed Peiper’s house and killed the sixty-year-old former commander of Kampfgruppe Peiper.”
― Charles B. MacDonald, A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

“When darkness came Sergeant”
― Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of WWII