The day-to-day experience of leading an American infantry company into the heart of German and beyond is given real feeling as well as facts in this first-person World War II memoir. What it lacks in taut adventure it makes up for in authenticity.
Charles B. MacDonald testifies to the grim nature of war in many forms, including a night retreat under bombardment and advancing into enemy flak positions. Boredom and terror were frequent companions; so too was death.
The time we spend with MacDonald and his company are in places that don’t get much attention in histories of the war. But calling it rear-echelon duty isn’t right, either. They had more than enough to do.