Bradley was the natural successor to Eisenhower as the Army’s chief of staff. Ike had been given the painful task of taking apart the Army he had helped create. Demobilization happened quickly following the end of the war, and the downsizing left an army consisting of what seemed more like police and clerks than soldiers. Truman had made it clear that he intended to bring federal deficits down, and the U.S. military would pay for the reductions. Events in Europe and Asia brought a reevaluation of this decision. The Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin increasingly seemed to see the Red Army as an occupation force in areas it had conquered during the war, while it systematically created puppet governments to solidify its gains. The question facing American military leadership was how to ensure that the Soviets were contained within the areas they already held. Bradley faced this issue as well as others when he became the Army’s chief of staff in February 1948.
The War Department’s answer to the Soviet threat rested on airpower in the form of Operation Halfmoon, the first unified war plan of the postwar era. In the event of war with the Soviet Union, the U.S. military would hit seventy Soviet cities with 133 atomic bombs. U.S. Army units would secure the airbases from which the air attacks would be launched and then, following full mobilization, occupy western Europe and the Soviet Union. The plan required eighteen combat-ready divisions at the onset, and would cost $30 billion, two and a half times what the Truman administration was willing to spend. Operation Off Tackle was the successor to Halfmoon. Depending on airpower to decide the conflict, the plan called for the dropping of 292 atomic bombs as well as 17,000 tons of conventional munitions. Its requirements for ground forces were less clear. In the disparity between war plans and budgets, the Truman administration came increasingly to rely on airpower and atomic weapons to fight war on the cheap. Dubbing the effort “cheap-easy-victory through air power alone,” Bradley increasingly found himself on the defensive, believing the reliance on atomic weapons to be shortsighted and too rigid. He would prove to be right on both accounts.79
During the last two years of his tenure as Army chief of staff, Bradley adamantly defended his service—with mixed results. He successfully won the argument to increase pay and allowances for the military, arguing that little had been done to address the buying power of military salaries in the face of postwar inflation. Understanding the need to have a mobilization plan available that could quickly generate capable units, he unsuccessfully lobbied Congress for universal military training.80 A war-weary nation had no interest in a universal draft. He proclaimed the National Guard “virtually useless in a national crisis” and proposed that the Guard be federalized.81 The suggestion was dead on arrival in Congress. When Truman announced he wanted the U.S. military desegregated, Bradley warned that however good the idea, the devil was in the details, and that if done in haste, integration had the potential to cripple combat readiness.82 Throughout his tenure as Army chief of staff, he remained steadfast in stating his beliefs, regardless of their popularity. When Truman proposed a reorganization of the War Department into what would become the Department of Defense, Bradley was among a select few considered for the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Omar Bradley as chief of staff, in a portrait by C. L. MacNelly. (National Archives)
Not surprisingly, Truman’s first pick for the new position was Eisenhower. For various reasons, Eisenhower declined the offer, and Truman offered the position to Bradley, who became the nation’s first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 1949. The following month Truman asked Congress for authorization to promote Bradley to his fifth star. The decision proved a wise one, for Bradley would need the prestige the rank provided him when the last challenge of his army career presented itself in Korea.
In the fall of 1950 Communist forces in North Korea crossed the 38th parallel driving south, overwhelming poorly trained and equipped South Korean and U.S. forces sent to slow them down. U.S. airpower immediately came into play, impeding but not halting the invasion. The North Koreans pinned South Korean and U.S. forces to the southeast corner of the peninsula around the port city of Pusan. With the approval of both Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Douglas MacArthur conducted a daring amphibious landing at Inchon, north of Seoul, effectively cutting the lines of supply and communication to North Korean forces to the south. What followed was an American–South Korean advance to the north similar in some respects to the American pursuit following the Normandy breakout. North Korean forces appeared in disarray. Rather than stop at the 38th parallel, MacArthur pushed northward toward the Yalu River and the border with Communist China.83 MacArthur, citing his own intelligence sources, said that the possibility of Chinese intervention was minimal and that the war would be over by Thanksgiving.84
It was Bradley’s position as chairman that combatant commanders such as MacArthur be given as much freedom of action as possible to allow them to do their jobs. He was not about to micro-manage MacArthur, had that even been possible. He, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accepted MacArthur’s view of the situation; this proved shortsighted. When Chinese units began to infiltrate in large numbers across the Yalu, U.S. intelligence noted their presence but discounted their numbers, intentions, and capabilities. When the Chinese attack came, it caught MacArthur by surprise, driving his forces back down the peninsula, a situation not stabilized until January 1951. MacArthur’s planning had failed to anticipate the offensive, let alone determine what to do if it came.
General Bradley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Department of Defense, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library)
Truman realized that U.S. policy might well have to change and accept the idea of a truce at the 38th parallel. Seemingly in direct violation of the president’s intentions, as well as guidance that the White House approve all policy pronouncements, MacArthur stated that the successful conclusion of the conflict required reunification of Korea. MacArthur followed this by asking the Joint Chiefs not to impose any further military restrictions, particularly regarding the use of airpower. He warned that bombing restrictions against the Chinese “made it completely impractical to clear North Korea.”85 He went on to comment openly that the Chinese had proven themselves militarily incompetent. Truman believed this remark would jeopardize chances of reaching any settlement in Korea that would be acceptable to Communist China. What MacArthur wanted was a wider war. Ridgway noted in his account of the Korean War that MacArthur intended to strike Communism “a blow from which it would never recover.” As part of this vision, MacArthur not only wanted to drive American forces to the Yalu, but also wanted an air campaign to destroy air bases and industrial capacity in Manchuria and a blockade of the Chinese coast. All this he saw as preparatory to a U.S.–supported invasion of the Chinese homeland by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army.86 Implicit in MacArthur’s vision was the possible employment of atomic weapons.87 With earlier issues such as the landing of the Chinese Nationalist Army on the Chinese mainland and the possible use of atomic weapons weighing on his mind, Truman wanted MacArthur relieved. Bradley, as well as Secretary of State Marshall, argued for a go-slow approach. Bradley was unsure whether MacArthur had actually disobeyed Truman’s orders, as the president contended. Nonetheless, in what would become one of his last acts as chairman, Bradley recommended the relief of MacArthur. Though the relief was without prejudice, the ticker-tape parades that greeted MacArthur upon his return to the United States failed to mask the break between Truman and MacArthur.
MacArthur’s relief proved hard for Bradley, for despite his reservations about MacArthur’s behavior, he understood that the general’s return marked the passing of an age. By the end of the summer, it would be Bradley’s turn to fade from public view. He had served two tours as the nation’s first chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Those years had been contentious, as the services argued over missions and budgets. He had served largely as a mediator. He had helped give birth to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and had served as a faithful counsel t
o President Truman. In August 1953, thirty-eight years after his commissioning at West Point, he yielded his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and retired. Bradley would live another twenty-eight years before his death on April 8, 1981. He filled the years between 1953 and 1981 well, directing Bulova Watch Company as well as being a popular speaker in the military’s service colleges. In the 1960s President Lyndon B. Johnson called on him for advice regarding the war in Vietnam. He saw the passing of many of his wartime peers, marking more than one funeral at the graveside of a departed friend. No friend stood dearer than his wife, Mary, who passed away in 1964. He took the death hard but would marry again, wedding Kitty Buhler, who remained his constant companion until his own death. The Army laid him to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, in the company of his soldiers.
In the years since his death, historians have debated his position among the nation’s military greats. Some have called into question his handling of the race to the Rhine. Others have argued that the decision to accept risk in the Ardennes without an adequate reserve constituted recklessness. Some or all of the criticisms may have their validity, yet, in truth, no American field commander ever faced his challenges or possessed his knack for commanding the respect of soldiers. He could handle the likes of a Patton, bringing out the best while compensating for the flaws. To superiors, he was a loyal subordinate while at the same time a vocal advocate on behalf of his men. Ernie Pyle summarized the men who waded ashore at Normandy as simply “Brave Men,” and so they were, made so by their soft-spoken commanding general. He always carried an awareness of the responsibilities of command, the gut-wrenching realization that his decisions determined the lives of men. For a Missouri boy born of humble parents, the journey across a life to five stars and chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the stuff of Horatio Alger stories. Though never intending to be one, he became an icon to the Willies, Joes, and Rosies of an era.
Notes
1. Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story (New York: Henry Holt, 1951), 485.
2. Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II (New York: Random House, 1991), 117.
3. Omar N. Bradley, A General’s Life: An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 60.
4. Following World War I, the U.S. Army created an Infantry Board, whose purpose was to capture the lessons of the war as well as to create new schooling to teach those lessons. Ibid., 10
5. Ibid., 71–72.
6. Jim DeFelice, Omar Bradley: General at War (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2011), 46.
7. Bradley, A General’s Life, 108.
8. Ibid., 115.
9. Ibid., 97, 99–101.
10. Ibid., 107.
11. The 82nd Division would go on to be the first U.S. division selected for duty as paratroopers.
12. Bradley clearly saw the job of being Eisenhower’s eyes as meaning just that. He intended to go as far forward as necessary, if need be down to platoon and even squad level. He backed his intentions with actions. Rather than the standard .45-caliber Colt pistol carried by most general officers, Bradley picked out a 1903 Springfield as an additional personal firearm. Bradley, A General’s Life, 133.
13. Russell Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaigns of France and Germany, 1944–1945, 2 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 1:119.
14. Ibid., and Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 500.
15. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 1:120.
16. Perret, There’s a War to Be Won, 165, and Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 67, 87.
17. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 78.
18. Ibid., 80–81.
19. Allied planners had considered an invasion of Sardinia (Operation Brimstone), but the island’s location seemed to offer no real advantages for subsequent operations on the continent of Europe. Furthermore, Marshall believed that an invasion of Sardinia carried the risk of greater shipping losses, something that would jeopardize the cross-Channel attack into northwestern France he strongly favored. Sicily was somewhat of an ad hoc compromise. Though a major movement of German Army units into Italy might require operations on the Italian mainland, both the Americans and the British hoped to avoid getting embroiled there. A successful invasion of Sicily would, it was hoped, secure the Mediterranean’s sea lines of communication, meet Stalin’s plea for an Anglo-American second front, and cause Italy to exit the conflict. See Albert N. Garland and Howard McGraw Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2002), 7–11.
20. Bradley, A General’s Life, 186.
21. Michael Veranov, ed., The Mammoth Book of the Third Reich at War (London: Constable and Robinson, 1997), 306.
22. Though the preliminary plans for the invasion of Sicily calling for the Americans to land on the northern coast and the British on the east left the capture of Messina more or less open to whichever army pressed faster, the actual landing plan in which Patton’s Seventh Army provided flank security to Montgomery’s Eighth assumed Messina’s fall to the latter. See Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, 89.
23. Bradley, A General’s Life, 199.
24. Bradley’s style of leadership clashed with that of Patton. While complimentary of Patton as Third Army commanding general in France, in Sicily Bradley bit his tongue and wrote in his diary: “To his troops an army commander is little more than a distant figure who occasionally shows himself at the front. As a consequence the impressions of those men come directly from what they see. George irritated them by flaunting the pageantry of his command. He traveled in an entourage of command cars followed by a string of nattily uniformed staff officers. His own vehicle was gaily decked with oversize stars and the insignia of his command. These exhibitions did not awe troops as perhaps Patton believed. Instead, they offended the men as they trudged through the clouds of dust left in the wake of that procession. In Sicily Patton, the man, bore little resemblance to Patton the legend.” See Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 159–60.
25. Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, 412.
26. Ibid., 198, and Veranov, Mammoth Book of the Third Reich at War, 319.
27. Bradley had received a report from his medical staff about Patton’s slapping of Kuhl. Kuhl had been diagnosed by the physicians as suffering from “psychoneurosis, anxiety state moderately severe.” At the time of the slapping, Kuhl had been evacuated three times, was suffering from severe chronic diarrhea, and had malaria and a temperature of 102.2 degrees. Bradley made no attempt to forward the report to Eisenhower out of deference to the reality that Patton was his immediate superior at the time. See Bradley, A General’s Life, 195.
28. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 1:120.
29. Bradley, A General’s Life, 211.
30. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 1:120.
31. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1948), 215.
32. Ibid., 211.
33. Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, U.S. Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2007), 15.
34. The arrangement of Allied forces based on ports of debarkation created its own set of problems once the landings occurred. The British manpower pool was nearly expended by 1944, whereas American numbers were still on the rise. The Americans were going to carry most of the combat burden in the drive across France. Furthermore, U.S. industries were producing a wide variety of good-quality armored vehicles in astonishing numbers, so that it was clear that once Allied forces were established on the European mainland, the Americans were going to generate the greater number of armored units. Because the British landed to the east of the Americans, their forces were closest to the best mechanized avenues of approach into Germany while lacking the mobility American armies possessed.
35. Gerhard L. Weinberg, “Some Myths
of World War II,” Journal of Military History 75.3 (July 2011): 714.
36. Operation Anvil was initially to coincide with Overlord (originally code-named Sledgehammer). Anvil would send at least one and preferably three divisions against German defenders in the south of France for an offensive northward along the Rhône River. Planners hoped that opening up a line of communications (LOC) north along the Rhône would help alleviate the logistics problems that threatened a wider Allied advance into France. The air war against French railroads had been too successful, which made it difficult for logisticians to use them to resupply Allied armies without significant and lengthy repairs. Anvil’s initial cancellation came as an answer to Overlord’s growing need for amphibious lift as well as the Allied losses suffered in support of the Anzio landings. Allied planners did reschedule and execute Anvil in August 1944. See Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 219, and Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1993), 13–21.
37. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 215.
38. Allied planners sought to give combat engineers thirty minutes in advance of the main landing force to clear lanes through the obstacles. The assault craft would ride the rising tide onto the beach and as close to the seawall as possible. Ibid., 261.
39. There had been considerable debate over the use of airborne units in support of the Normandy landings. James M. Gavin, later commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, wrote that Bradley had threatened to cancel the assault on Utah Beach unless the airborne drop went according to plan. None other than Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory had warned that to drop the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions behind Omaha and Utah beaches would result in the “futile slaughter of two fine divisions.” In the face of very real opposition, Bradley got his way. See James M. Gavin, On to Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander, 1943–1946 (New York: Viking Press, 1978), 94.
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