Omar Nelson Bradley

„The GI’s general”

Omar Bradley is deceptively easy to overlook when talking about World War II commanders. An unassuming man, he is overshadowed by more colorful personalities such as Patton (The Wars of George S. Patton), MacArthur (Douglas MacArthur) or Joe Stillwell (General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell). And yet, he was one of the five men promoted to the five-star rank of General of the Army during or after World War II, he oversaw the expansion of Veterans Affairs, and served as Army Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accomplishments that don’t happen to unremarkable people.
 
Omar Nelson Bradley (1893-1981) was born into the impoverished family of a Missouri schoolteacher. His father died when Omar was 15, but he inherited his love of books, baseball and shooting. At 17, Bradley was working as a boilermaker to save up money for a college education. He was persuaded by a Sunday school teacher to take the entrance exam to West Point instead, since military education was free.

He loved West Point: the military rigor, the code of conduct and honor, and the athletics opportunities. He was less avid about academics, but still finished 44th of 164 in his class. The class of 1915 became known as “the class the stars fell on” because 59 graduates went on to become generals, including Bradley and Eisenhower.
 
Bradley was sent to the Mexican border after graduation to react to any potential incursions arising from the Mexican Civil War. He saw no action, but learned about handling troops in unfavorable circumstances. Once the U.S. entered World War I, he was given charge of a unit guarding strategically important copper mines in Montana. He was eager to go to Europe, but the 1918 influenza epidemic and the end of the war in November foiled him.
 
Bradley taught and studied in different positions between the wars, reaching the rank of major in 1924. While teaching mathematics at West Point, he also studied the campaigns of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, whom he considered the master of maneuver warfare. Bradley correctly realized that the trench warfare (Inside the Trenches) of World War I gave American officers who fought in it the wrong ideas, and Sherman’s mobility was a better model for a future war.

Bradley found a mentor while teaching at the U.S. Army Infantry School: then-Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall (George C. Marshall). He became a member of the “Marshall men,” a hand-picked group including Joseph Stilwell, Matthew Ridgway (The American War Hero who Also Saved Korea) and J. Lawton Collins (General “Lightning” Joe Collins). Bradley later remarked that no man had a more profound effect on him, professionally or personally, than Marshall. He adopted Marshall’s off-hand approach to management, giving a man a job and then letting him work without interference as long as he performed as expected.
 
In 1938, after 16 years of studying and teaching, Bradley left for the War Department General Staff. With the U.S. expecting involvement in World War II and a corresponding massive buildup of forces, he was promoted directly to brigadier general, skipping the rank of colonel, in February 1941, and sent to command the Infantry School in Fort Benning. There, he supported the formation of tank and airborne forces, and also developed a prototype for the officer candidate school model, which would produce tens of thousands of officers for the wartime army.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, in March 1942, Bradley took command of the 82nd Infantry Division. He made sure that incoming draftees were welcomed in an orderly and warm manner to boost their morale; he introduced a rigorous physical training program, and he invited former 82nd Division war hero Alvin York to meet with the rookies. On York’s advice, he also modified the marksmanship training system to include firing at very close targets.
 
On Marshall’s orders, Bradley handed over the division to General Ridgway, who would go on to command it as the 82nd “All American” Airborne Division, and moved on to the 28th Division, a National Guard unit in bad need of a shakeup. He combined reassignments, physical training and increasingly complex tactical exercises with a simplified military doctrine for the benefit of soldiers and officers who were not professionals.

Bradley was sent to North Africa in early 1943 to act as a “troubleshooter” for Eisenhower and fix the American forces there after their dismal performance at the Battle of Kasserine Pass. He advised Ike to relieve General Lloyd Fredendall, the commander of II Corps. Fredendall was replaced by Patton, with Bradley serving as his deputy corps commander. The North African campaign gave the U.S. Army the opportunity to gain valuable experience and to refine its tactics and strategy. In Bradley’s words, the Army "learned to crawl, to walk-then run.”  Bradley inherited II Corps from Patton in the final stage of the campaign. His performance earned him a promotion to lieutenant general, and a glowing accolade Eisenhower wrote to Marshall: “There is very little I need to tell you about [Bradley] because he is running absolutely true to form all the time. He has brains, a fine capacity for leadership and a thorough understanding of the requirements of modern battle. He has never caused me one moment of worry. He is perfectly capable of running an Army. He has the respect of all his associates, including all the British officers that have met him.”
 
It was during the Sicily campaign that Bradley was “discovered” by famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Pyle invented the nickname “the GI’s general,” which stuck with Bradley for the rest of his career. Another correspondent once noted: "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."

It should be noted that not all historians agree with Bradley’s image as an unassuming “common man” general popular with the troops. S. L. A. Marshall, the Army’s official World War II combat historian, claimed that Bradley had so little contact with the rank-and-file that the latter didn’t even know, let alone idolize him. Other critics point out that Bradley was very quick to relieve senior officers whose command style did not match his own, such as Terry Allen (“Terrible” Terry, the Bad Boy General).
 
Bradley was selected to command the U.S. First Army for the invasion of Normandy. (The army, along with the British Second Army, made up Montgomery’s (Montgomery) 21st Army Group.) During the planning of the landings, Bradley fought to have the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division (The Screaming Eagles) jump behind enemy lines to sow confusion and hinder German reaction to the landings. Deploying the airborne troops proved to be a good idea, but Bradley was later criticized for refusing to use most of the British engineering vehicles designed to help the landing (Hobart’s Funnies), only accepting the amphibious Shermans (most of which entered the water too far out and sank). In his defense, he was concerned about the extra stress the British vehicles would have put on his supply lines with their need for non-American spare parts.

After the landings and during the buildup in Normandy, Bradley eventually got his own army group, the 12th Army Group. Ultimately incorporating four field armies, it was the largest group of American soldiers to ever serve under a single commander.  He came under criticism once more, after the closing of the Falaise pocket (The Falaise Pocket). The Americans were responsible for surrounding the German forces in Normandy from the south. During the encirclement, Bradley ordered Patton to stop his advance for fear that he would be stretched too thin. Patton’s stop left a gap in the lines, allowing 20 to 50 thousand Germans to escape (but without their heavy equipment). Bradley admitted to a mistake (he incorrectly assumed that most Germans had already escaped), but still blamed Montgomery’s forces in the north for advance too slowly on their own side.

Once out of Normandy, Bradley supported a wide-front push toward Germany, which ran counter to Montgomery’s strategy of a thrust on a narrow front. Montgomery got his narrow thrust with Operation Market Garden (Operation Market Garden) in September 1944, but the operation was a failure. Bradley was also having trouble with his wide front, with the armies under him having confused objectives and vying with each other for limited supplies. The slowing down of the army group gave the Germans a chance to plan and prepare for a counteroffensive, the Battle of the Bulge.

Bradley had a brief, angry clash with his superior, General Eisenhower, during the battle. With the Germans advancing fast, Ike decided to place two of Bradley’s armies under Montgomery’s command in the northern part of the salient to help stabilize Allied lines. Incensed, Bradley shouted at Eisenhower "By God, Ike, I cannot be responsible to the American people if you do this. I resign." Eisenhower took a breath and replied "Brad, I—not you—am responsible to the American people. Your resignation therefore means absolutely nothing." It has since been speculated that Bradley’s promotion to four-star general in March 1945 was Eisenhower’s effort to smooth his ruffled feathers. Other explanations are that Eisenhower had just been promoted to five stars, and it made sense for his immediate subordinate to be only one step behind him in rank; or that Ike wanted to promote Patton, but also had to promote Bradley so the former wouldn’t “jump over” the latter, who was his superior.

President Truman appointed Bradley to the head of the Veterans Administration (VA) after the end of the war. Bradley was reluctant to take the post, but was convinced by a reassurance that he would eventually get to be Army Chief of Staff. Despite his initial reluctance, Bradley’s handling of the VA was a high point of his career. The rapid demobilization of over 10 million servicemen (Operation Magic Carpet), many of whom young with no previous work experience to lean on, forced the VA to undergo similarly rapid expansion. Bradley decentralized that organization, forming 13 branch offices, each of which functioned as a small-scale VA. He bolstered VA personnel from 65,000 to 200,000 and moved VA hospitals from rural areas to the vicinity of big city medical schools so interns and residents could take part in the VA’s medical work. 70 hospitals were added to VA and 63 medical schools became affiliates during Bradley’s tenure. Even though he went into the position knowing nothing, the press lauded him for transforming the VA "from a national scandal to a model establishment."
 
Bradley got his promised appointment to Army Chief of Staff in 1948, succeeding Eisenhower in the position, then passed it on to J. Lawton Collins the next year, when he became the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He served in these two positions at a difficult time. The military was undergoing massive downsizing even as the Cold War was getting more hostile. The Navy and the Air Force were fighting over roles and missions, and the balance between conventional forces and nuclear weapons was also in question. Bradley failed to introduce universal military training or to bring the National Guard into the Army, but he did manage to extend the Selective Service System. He mediated between proponents of nuclear and conventional forces, got involved in the creation of NATO and rearmament of Western Europe, and took a stand against troublesome Navy admirals whom he called "fancy dans who won't hit the line with all they have on every play unless they can call the signals."

Bradley was promoted to the five-star rank of General of the Army, the only man to reach it since World War II. He was the chief policy maker during the Korean War: he initially supported Truman’s idea of “rolling back” the communists and taking all of North Korea, but scaled his ambitions back to merely containing them once China became involved. He played a major role in relieving Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to extend the war to encompass China. Considering Europe the true key to the Cold War, he testified to Congress in 1951: "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."

Bradley retired in 1953, holding several commercial positions afterward and spending much of his free time at the racetracks. He was one of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Wise Men,” his advisors on the Vietnam War in 1967-68, where he acted as a war hawk and recommended against withdrawal. He died of cardiac arrhythmia in 1981, and is buried next to his two wives at Arlington National Cemetery. Just a couple of months after his death, the new M2 and M3 Fighting Vehicles were named after him. They are still in service several decades later.
 
Join us on our tours to explore some of the battlefields Bradley led his armies, such as our Band of Brothers Tour, Normandy-Channel Islands Tour, Beaches of Normandy Tour or the American Normandy Tour.

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