maneuvers during this battle later noted that “[despite]
exposing himself continuously to fire” he “personally di-
rected the operations in [the] important task of securing
the bridgehead over the Merderet River.”
Ridgway became one of the highest-ranking officers
to physically lead his troops into battle against the Ger-
mans in the war. A few months later, he was given the
command of the 18th Airborne Corps, recently estab-
lished, and he led this formation to the Rhine River and
into Germany. It was Ridgway’s forces that met Soviet
forces on the Baltic on 2 May 1945. General Marshall
later wrote, “General Ridgway has firmly established
himself in history as a great battle leader. The advance
of his Army corps to the Baltic in the last phase of the
war in Europe was sensational to those fully informed
of the rapidly moving events of that day.” Another con-
temporary used less-diplomatic words to describe Ridg-
way: “[He was] a kick-ass man.” Ridgway’s men called
him “Tin-tits” because he went into battle with grenades
strapped to his chest. In his memoirs, published in 1956,
he explained that this was not showing off but simply an
easy way to carry them: “They were purely utilitarian.
Many a time in Europe and Korea, men in tight spots
blasted their way out with hand grenades.”
Following the end of the war, Ridgway was sent to
London, where he served as military adviser to General
Dwight D. eisenhoWer on the U.S. delegation to the
United Nations General Assembly. Ridgway presented
the United Nations with a plan to establish an inter-
national fighting force, under UN auspices, that could
fight in minor conflicts around the world. (Within
a few years, such a force would be sent to the Korean
peninsula.)
Ridgway was then given command of American
forces in the Caribbean. In 1950, he was named as dep-
uty army chief of staff at the Pentagon in Washington,
D.C. Following the death of Lieutenant General Wal-
ton A. Walker, the commander of U.S. ground forces in
Korea, in a jeep accident on 23 December 1950, Gen-
eral Douglas macarthur, commander of UN forces,
named Ridgway as Walker’s replacement. MacArthur
allegedly told Ridgway, “The Eighth Army is yours,
Matt. Do what you think best.” When Ridgway took
command, the American army and its allies were in full
retreat from North Korean and Chinese forces pouring
over the border at the Yalu River, and were threatened
with being expelled from the entire Korean peninsula.
Ridgway was able to rally his men to halt the North
Korean advance north of the South Korean capital of
Seoul, and in early January he was able to open up an of-
fensive that carried American forces into North Korean
territory. This offensive inflicted massive casualties on
the Chinese and North Koreans, and the attack became
known as the “meatgrinder.”
On 11 April 1951, only four months after Mac-
Arthur was named as the head of U.S. forces in Korea,
President Truman relieved him of his command and
replaced him with Ridgway. Truman called Ridgway
personally, and Colonel Harry Maihafer later noted,
“[Army] Secretary [Frank] Pace came over, took the
phone call.... Then, he and General Ridgway went
outside. As I recall, it was raining cats and dogs and a
hail storm was going on. And they came back in and
General Ridgway looked as though he had the weight
of the world on his shoulders.” Ridgway continued the
fight in Korea, stabilizing the war and leaving it in a
deadlock not unlike that on the western front in the
First World War. On 3 July 1951, working through the
United Nations, he agreed to start cease-fire talks with
the North Koreans and the Chinese. In his letter to both
parties, he stated, “Since an agreement on armistice
terms has to precede the cessation of hostilities, delay
in initiating the meeting and reaching agreement will
prolong the fighting and increase tension.”
In June 1952, Ridgway was promoted to succeed
Eisenhower as supreme commander of allied forces in
Europe. A year later, Eisenhower, newly elected as U.S.
president, named him as army chief of staff. During his
two years in this position, Ridgway, who had worked
closely with Eisenhower during the Second World War,
quarreled with the president over policy and was con-
stantly overruled in favor of Eisenhower’s secretary of
defense, Charles E. Wilson. Ridgway saw Wilson reduc-
ing the postwar military to dangerous levels and tried
to prevent it, without any success. Finally, he asked to
be allowed to retire. On 28 June 1955, Eisenhower pre-
sented him with the Distinguished Service Medal. The
president praised him:As Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Gen-
eral Ridgway was charged with the responsibility
of welding an effective military structure for the
defense of Western Europe. Through dynamic
leadership, he furthered the development of the
elements of the North Atlantic Treaty Orga-
nization into an alert, efficient, fighting team. RiDgwAy, mAtthew bunkeR