Company Commander

Rating:
Summary: Detailed eye witness account
Review: The thing that sets this book apart is the amount of detail - MacDonald must have taken notes during the campaign. He first gets posted to a defensive position without a lot of action, although it was nerve racking for him (and a boring 100 pages). Things warm up when he fights a retreat from the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. After that, he attacks until the end of the war from Belgium through Germany to Czechoslovakia. The author always states where each platoon is, the lay of the ground, what was going through his mind at the time, what time they moved out, the risks involved, etc. - very thorough. As normal with a company commander, he is not usually at the forefront of the battle, but a couple hundred yards (?) back where he can control the platoons. I found several things interesting in the drive through Germany - the reaction of pro-allies populations, how they commandeered German houses to stay in at each town, more Germans surrendering as they went on, and the feelings of the soldiers as the outcome of the war became obvious. I'd give the second half of the book a 5.

Rating:
Summary: A clear concise account of leadership in war!
Review: This book is a must read for anyone seeking insite into the values a true leader must develope to succesfully lead troops into combat. Furthermore, it gives wonderful insight into the hardships endured by our soldiers to win the freedom American's enjoy. This book does not spend time discussing tactics, policies, or major operations. It simply gives a first person account of what it is like to lead a company of infantry soldiers into combat.

Rating:
Summary: Something is Rotten in Denmark
Review: This book sells itself as an insight into the command structure during the ETO of WW2.
After reading this novel I had to seriously question the author's integrity, he leaves out huge gaps in action, one minute he's at the Normandy shores the next he's camped in a field having breakfast with his troops. Without anything seeming to happen inbetween Also he consistently refers to the army company's as "company I" or "company C" rather than "Item Company" or "Easy Company" as so many other veterans refer to the units they were apart of. Tho I know nothing about Charles McDonalds personal contribution to the ETO or war history, this coupled with the fact that he seems to have such intricate detail of just about every name of every person he ever came across as well as what he had for breakfast and what the weather was like would almost have you wondering if he was army news reporter, running around with a notepad jotting down everything that might be of interest to possible readers. All of this suggests to me that his front line time was very limited if in fact he saw any action at all. I also found it odd that he makes several references to the other soldiers in his recount as "characters" as tho he was trying to pass of a novel of fiction as a memoir . If your looking for a real WW2 recount it doesn't get any better than "Foot Soldier": by Roscoe C. Blunt