Omar Bradley

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Omar Bradley
February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981
General Omar Bradley, United States Army, 1949 official photo
Place of birth	Clark, Missouri
Place of death	Fort Bliss, Texas
Allegiance	United States Army
Years of service	1915–1953
Rank	General of the Army
Commands	82nd Infantry Division 28th Infantry Division U.S. II Corps First Army 12th Army Group Army Chief of Staff Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Battles/wars	Mexican Border Service World War II
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal Navy Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star Medal Legion of Merit Bronze Star Medal

Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981) was one of the main U.S. Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II and a General of the Army of the United States Army. He was the last surviving five star officer of the United States. On May 5, 2000, the United States Postal Service issued the Distinguished Soldiers stamps in which Bradley was honored.

[edit] Early life and career

Bradley at West Point

Bradley was born to a poor family near Clark, Missouri, the son of a schoolteacher. He attended Higbee (MO) Elementary School and graduated from Moberly (MO) High School. He intended to enter the University of Missouri. Instead, he was advised to try for West Point. He placed first in his district placement exams and entered the academy in 1911. He graduated from West Point in 1915 as part of a class that contained many future generals, which military historians have called, "The class the stars fell upon."

He joined the 14th Infantry Regiment but, like many of his peers, did not see action in Europe, but held a variety of stateside assignments. He served on the U.S.-Mexico border in the army in 1915. When war was declared, he was promoted to captain, but was posted to Montana. Bradley joined the 19th Infantry Division in August 1918, which was intended for European deployment, but the influenza pandemic and the armistice prevented him from leaving the US.

Between the wars he taught and studied. From 1920–24 he taught mathematics at West Point. He was promoted to a major in 1924 and took the advanced infantry course at Fort Benning, Georgia. After a brief service in Hawaii he then studied at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in 1928–29. From 1929 he taught at West Point again, taking a break to study at the Army War College in 1934. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1936 and worked at the War Department working directly for Army Chief of Staff George Marshall from 1938. In February 1941 he was promoted to brigadier general and sent to command Fort Benning. In February 1942 he took command of the 82nd Infantry Division before being switched to the 28th Infantry Division in June.

[edit] World War II

Bradley did not receive a frontline command until early 1943 after Operation Torch. He had been given VIII Corps but instead was sent to North Africa to serve under George S. Patton. He became head of II Corps in April and directed them in the final battles of April and May. He then led his corps onto Sicily in July. In the approach to Normandy Bradley was chosen to command the substantial 1st Army. During Operation Overlord he commanded three corps directed at the areas codenamed Utah and Omaha. Later in July he planned Operation Cobra, the beginning of the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. By August, Bradley's command, the renamed 12th Army Group, had swollen to over 900,000 men and ultimately consisted of four field armies. It was the largest group of American soldiers to ever serve under one field commander.

Lt Gen Omar Bradley (left), Commanding General, U.S. First Army, listens as Maj Gen J. Lawton Collins, Commanding General, Seventh Corps, describes how the city of Cherbourg was taken. (c. June 1944)

Unlike some of the more colorful generals of World War II, Bradley was a polite and courteous man. First favorably brought to public attention by correspondent Ernie Pyle, he was informally known as "the soldier's general." Will Lang Jr. of Life magazine said "The thing I most admire about Omar Bradley is his gentleness. He was never known to issue an order to anybody of any rank without saying 'Please' first."

After the German attempt (Operation Lüttich) to split the US armies at Mortain, Bradley's force was the southern half of an attempt to encircle the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army in Normandy, trapping them in the Chambois pocket (or Falaise pocket) (Operation Totalise). Although only partially successful, the German forces still suffered huge losses during their retreat.

The American forces reached the 'Siegfried Line' or 'Westwall' in late September. The sheer scale of the advance had taken the Allied high command by surprise. They had expected the German Wehrmacht to make stands on the natural defensive lines provided by the French rivers, and consequently, logistics had become a severe issue as well.

At this time, the Allied high command under Eisenhower faced a decision on strategy. Bradley favored a strategy consisting of an advance into the Saarland, or possibly a two-thrust assault on both the Saarland and the Ruhr Area. Newly promoted to Field Marshal, Bernard Montgomery argued for a narrow thrust across the Lower Rhine, into the open country beyond and then to the northern flank into the Ruhr, thus avoiding the Siegfried Line. Montgomery's arguments and the eagerness of George Marshall and Henry Arnold to use the First Allied Airborne Army, ultimately carried the day, leading to Operation Market-Garden. The debate, while not fissuring the Allied command, nevertheless led to a serious rift between the two Army group commanders of the European Theater of Operations. Bradley bitterly protested to Eisenhower the priority of supplies given to Montgomery, but Eisenhower, mindful of British public opinion, held Bradley's protests in check.

Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall (center) and Army Air Forces Commander General Henry H. Arnold confer with Bradley on the beach at Normandy, France in 1944.

Bradley's Army Group now covered a very wide front in hilly country, from the Netherlands to Lorraine and, despite his being the largest Allied Army Group, there were difficulties in prosecuting a successful broad-front offensive in difficult country with a skilled enemy that was recovering his balance. Courtney Hodges' 1st Army hit difficulties in the Aachen Gap and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest cost 24,000 casualties. Further south, George Patton's 3rd Army lost momentum as German resistance stiffened around Metz's extensive defences. While Bradley focused on these two campaigns, the Germans had assembled troops and materiel for a surprise offensive.

Bradley's command took the initial brunt of what would become the Battle of the Bulge. In a move without precedent in modern warfare, the US 3rd Army under George Patton disengaged from their combat in the Saarland, moved 90 miles to the battlefront, and attacked the Germans' southern flank to break the encirclement at Bastogne.

Bradley used the advantage gained in March 1945—after Eisenhower authorized a difficult but successful Allied offensive (Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade) in February 1945—to break the German defenses and cross the Rhine into the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. Aggressive pursuit of the disintegrating German troops by Bradley's forces resulted in the capture of a bridge across the River Rhine at Remagen. Bradley and his subordinates quickly exploited the crossing, forming the southern arm of an enormous pincer movement encircling the German forces in the Ruhr from the north and south. Over 300,000 prisoners were taken. American forces then met up with the Soviet forces near the River Elbe in mid-April. By V-E Day, the 12th Army Group was a force of four armies (1st, 3rd, 9th, and 15th) that numbered over 1.3 million men.

[edit] Post-war

General Omar N. Bradley

Bradley headed the Veterans Administration for two years after the war. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping veterans receive their educational benefits under the G. I. Bill of Rights. He was made army chief of staff in 1948 and first official Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949. On September 22, 1950 he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, the fifth—and last—man in the 20th century to achieve that rank. Also in 1950 he was made the first Chairman of the NATO Committee. He remained on the committee until August 1953 when he left active duty to take a number of positions in commercial life. One of those positions was Chairman of the Board of the Bulova Watch Company from 1958 to 1973 [1].

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bradley strongly rebuked General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, for his desire to expand the Korean War into China. Soon after Truman relieved MacArthur of command in April 1951, Bradley said in Congressional testimony, "Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."

He published his memoirs in 1951 as A Soldier's Story (ISBN 0-375-75421-0) and took the opportunity to attack Field Marshal Montgomery's 1945 claims to have won the Battle of the Bulge. Bradley spent his last years at a special residence on the grounds of the William Beaumont Army Medical Center, part of the complex which supports Fort Bliss, Texas. He also served as a consultant during the making of the film Patton. One of his last public appearances was in connection with the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in January 1981. Upon Bradley's death, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

General Bradley's headstone in Arlington Cemetery

Bradley is known for saying, "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than about peace, more about killing than we know about living."

The U.S. Army's M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicle are named after General Bradley.

Bradley had been criticized by some quarters in recent news reports. These reports claimed that when President Truman ordered the total racial desegregation of the United States Military in 1947, Bradley—along with other famous senior military officers—sought to selectively 'interpret' the order so as to maintain military racial segregation under other guises. General Bradley stated in his 1981 autobiography that he supported integration of the armed forces, but feared a loss of morale and effectiveness if the services were "instantly" integrated. Bradley supported a phased-in integration policy.

[edit] Summary of service

Omar Bradley

[edit] Dates of rank

• Graduated from the United States Military Academy - Class of 1915, 44th of 164
• Second Lieutenant, United States Army: June 12, 1915
• First Lieutenant, United States Army: October 13, 1916
• Captain, United States Army: August 22, 1917
• Major, National Army: July 17, 1918
• Captain, Regular Army (reverted to peacetime rank): November 4, 1922
• Major, Regular Army: June 27, 1924
• Lieutenant Colonel, Regular Army: July 22, 1936
• Brigadier General (Temporary), Regular Army: February 24, 1941
• Major General, Army of the United States: February 18, 1942
• Lieutenant General, Army of the United States: June 9, 1943
• Promoted to permanent rank of Colonel in the Regular Army: November 13, 1943
• General, Army of the United States: March 29, 1945
• Appointed a General in the Regular Army: January 31, 1949
• General of the Army: September 22, 1950

[edit] Primary decorations

• Army Distinguished Service Medal (With three oak leaf clusters)
• Navy Distinguished Service Medal
• Silver Star
• Legion of Merit (w/oak leaf cluster)
• Bronze Star Medal
• Mexican Border Service Medal
• World War I Victory Medal
• American Defense Service Medal
• European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
• World War II Victory Medal
• Army of Occupation Medal
• National Defense Service Medal

[edit] Assignment history

• 1911: Cadet, United States Military Academy
• 1915: 14th Infantry Regiment
• 1919: ROTC professor, South Dakota State College
• 1920: Instructor, United States Military Academy (West Point)
• 1924: Infantry School Student, Fort Benning, Georgia
• 1925: Commanding Officer, 19th and 27th Infantry Regiments
• 1927: Office of National Guard and Reserve Affairs, Hawaiian Department
• 1928: Student, Command and General Staff School
• 1929: Instructor, Fort Benning, Infantry School
• 1934: Plans and Training Office, USMA West Point
• 1938: War Department General Staff, G-1 Chief of Operations Branch and Assistant Secretary of the General Staff
• 1941: Commandant, Infantry School Fort Benning
• 1942: Commanding General, 82nd Infantry Division and 28th Infantry Division
• 1943: Commanding General, II Corps, North Africa and Sicily
• 1943: Commanding General, Field Forces European Theater
• 1944: Commanding General, First Army (Later 1st and 12th U.S. Army Groups)
• 1945: Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Administration
• 1948: United States Army Chief of Staff
• 1949: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• 1953: Retired from active service

[edit] External links

• Bradley's biography at the U.S. Army website.
• Omar Nelson Bradley, General of the Army, Arlington National Cemetery profile.

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Omar Bradley

Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States
Bradley | Radford | Twining | Lemnitzer | Taylor | Wheeler | Moorer | Brown | Jones | Vessey | Crowe | Powell | Jeremiah (acting) | Shalikashvili | Shelton | Myers | Pace