Company Commander
Memoir Accessible Primary Sources
🇺🇸 American
A 21-year-old captain leads a rifle company through the Siegfried Line and the Bulge.
The Verdict
The classic American account of junior command in combat, written while it was still fresh. Charles MacDonald was a twenty-one-year-old captain when he led a rifle company through the Siegfried Line and the Battle of the Bulge, and he wrote this memoir just two years later, before memory could smooth the edges. It is precise and unpretentious about the weight of responsibility — the decisions, the fear, the men lost — and it became the model account of what it meant to command at the sharp end. MacDonald later became the Army's official historian.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The reality of leading an infantry company
- Readers who want the weight of command
- The Siegfried Line and the Bulge, first-hand
- A clear, classic combat memoir
Look elsewhere if you want
- Grand strategy
- Readers wanting a literary memoir
- The war beyond the Western Front
Why We Rated It 4.5
Historical Context
MacDonald commanded an infantry company in the US Army during the fighting along the Siegfried Line and in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45. He wrote Company Commander shortly afterward; it was published in 1947. He later became a prominent US Army historian and wrote A Time for Trumpets about the Bulge.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Infantry Journal Press (1947)First edition.
Modern paperbackThe standard reading edition.
Read It Alongside
A Time for Trumpets Charles B. MacDonald · 1985 · ★ 4.6
Popular History 
If You Survive George Wilson · 1987 · ★ 4.5
Memoir 
Band of Brothers Stephen Ambrose · 1992 · ★ 4.6
Popular History Collector's Corner
Early firsts are collected; reprints are inexpensive. Check current listings. → Check listings on AbeBooks.
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0883659229
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Frequently Asked Questions
- How does Company Commander relate to A Time for Trumpets?
- Company Commander is MacDonald's contemporaneous memoir of leading a company; A Time for Trumpets is his later, full-scale history of the Battle of the Bulge.
- Was it written soon after the war?
- Yes — about two years after the events, which gives it unusual freshness and immediacy.