Press, 1977); Stewart, Andrew, “Was Gen. Braddock Shot
Down by One of His Own Army?,” The New York Times,
Magazine sect., 19 October 1913, 5.
Bradley, Omar Nelson (1893–1981) American
general
Along with Generals Dwight D. eisenhoWer and
George S. Patton, Omar Bradley is considered one of
the major Second World War American commanders.
Born in Clark, Missouri, on 12 February 1893, he was
the son of a schoolteacher father who died young. His
mother worked as a seamstress to support the family
and send her son to the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, from which he graduated in 1915. He served on
the Mexican border, was then posted to Montana, and
was disappointed that the 1918 armistice ending World
War I arrived before he could serve in Europe. Following
the end of the war, Bradley lectured in mathematics at
West Point. He attended the general staff school in 1929
and the Army War College in 1934. In 1941, he served
as an infantry instructor at Fort Benning, Georgia. He
was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1941.
When the United States entered the Second World
War after the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl
Harbor in Hawaii, Bradley was named as the com-
mander of the 82nd Infantry Division; later, he was
appointed to command the 28th Infantry Division.
Early in 1943, he was sent to North Africa, succeeding
General George S. Patton as commander of the United
States’ II Corps, which he led through the defeat of the
Germans in North Africa and the allied invasion of Sic-
ily. He played a key part in the defeat of the Germans on
7–9 May 1943 at Tunis and Bizerte (also called Bizerta),
part of the dual American and British action called Op-
eration Torch.
For his service in North Africa, Bradley was pro-
moted to lieutenant general in June 1943 and awarded
the Distinguished Service Medal. In autumn 1943, he
was transferred to London and named by the Allied
commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower to become
commander of U.S. ground forces in Europe. His first
practical test in this role came on 6 June 1944, when
American, British, and other Allied troops stormed the
beaches of Normandy, France, in Operation Overlord,
better known as D-Day. Bradley’s troops landed on the
beaches codenamed Omaha and Utah. When the attack
on Omaha beach became bogged down with terrible
American casualties, Bradley briefly considered with-
drawal, but his men held their ground and eventually
achieved their objectives, making the landings a tremen-
dous success. Bradley’s leadership of the First Army is
widely considered to have made the difference in the
successful Allied advance toward the east from north-
ern France. The inclusion of troops from Patton’s Third
Army allowed Bradley to form the 12th Army Group, of
which he became commander, and he was present when
American forces liberated Paris on 25 August 1944.
On 12 March 1945, shortly before the end of the
war, Bradley was given a fourth star. He was one of the
leaders who coordinated the allied rout of the German
army, crossing the Rhine River at the captured bridge at
Remagen and eventually halting at Pilsen in Czechoslo-
vakia as the war ended. Historians speculate that Brad-
ley, in command of some 1.2 million troops, could have
taken Berlin had the Soviet army not done so first.
From 1945 until 1947, Bradley acted as the interim
administrator of the Veterans Administration, later to
become the cabinet-level Department of Veterans Af-
fairs. On 7 February 1948, he succeeded Eisenhower as
chief of staff of the U.S. Army, serving until 16 August- On that same day, he was named chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of all U.S. armed ser-
vices. He also served as the first chairman of the Military
Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) from 1949 to 1950. Bradley was given a fifth
star in September 1950, earning the title General of the
Army. His memoirs, A Soldier’s Story, were published in - He retired from active duty in August 1953, going
to work for the Bulova Watch Company and rising to
become chairman of the board in 1958. After his death
in New York City on 8 April 1981, age 88, he was laid
to rest with full military honors in Arlington National
Cemetery in Virginia. His stone simply reads: “Omar
Nelson Bradley. General of the Army.”
Historians contrast Bradley’s mild demeanor with
that of his fellow American, George S. Patton. Historian
James Lucas writes, “Bradley was a quiet spoken, well-
mannered man, who, having given an order, expected
it to be carried out thoroughly and swiftly without his
interference. Nor did he welcome interference from his
superiors. Once he had been given a job, he would carry
it out. He needed no supervision. Because of his reluc-
tance to interfere with a subordinate’s operations, he at
times seemed not to exercise sufficient control over Pat-
ton—but that was Bradley’s way. His aim was to teach by
bRADley, omAR nelSon