Omar Bradley

Source

• Born: 12 February 1893
• Birthplace: Clark, Missouri
• Died: 8 April 1981
• Best Known As: American general during World War II

Omar Nelson Bradley graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1915, where he later taught mathematics. After years of administrative posts, Bradley was a brigadier general when the United States entered World War II. He commanded forces in North Africa and Sicily, then moved to command the American involvement in the D-Day invasion of 1944, ultimately liberating Paris, France from the German occupied forces. Quiet, polite and popular with enlisted men, Bradley has often been contrasted with his more colorful and blustery colleague, General George S. Patton, Jr. After the war, Bradley served in the Veterans' Administration and as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retiring in 1953.

For more information on Omar Nelson Bradley, visit Britannica.com.

Bradley, Gen Omar Nelson (1893-1981), known as ‘the soldier's general’, one of the most distinguished US commanders of WW II. In 1943, during the campaign in North Africa, Bradley made his mark while in command of II Corps, which he then led into Sicily. Selected to command First Army for the Normandy landings in June 1944, he held the initially precarious right flank of the OVERLORD beachhead. On 1 August 1944 he was given command of the massive Twelfth Army Group which he took across France and into Germany, meeting up with Soviet forces on the Elbe. After the war, Bradley was US army COS (1948-9), and then the first chairman of the new Joint Chiefs of Staff (1949-53). In 1950 he was appointed general of the army. The M2/M3 infantry fighting vehicle, currently in service, is named after him.

— Paul Cornish

Born in Clark, Missouri, and graduating from West Point, Bradley served in World War I, then spent most of the interwar years as student or instructor. In 1942, he trained the 28th and 82nd Divisions and took combat command in spring 1943 of II Corps in the North Africa campaign and the subsequent invasion of Sicily. Bradley led the First Army in the invasion of Normandy and on 1 August 1944 took charge of 12th Army Group, which by V‐E Day included four U.S. armies with forty‐three divisions. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower rated Bradley as a battle‐line commander without peer, but controversies continue about his approval of close‐in carpet bombing to facilitate the breakout at St. Lô in Normandy; his failure to close the Falaise‐Argentan gap; his advocacy of a broad‐front approach to the battle for Germany; his failure to foresee the Germans' surprise counteroffensive in the Battle of the Bulge; as well as his tense relations with the British field marshal, Bernard Law Montgomery.

Bradley served as head of the Veterans Administration (1945–47), then became army chief of staff in February 1948, and served as first permanent chairman of the JCS (1949–53). He was made four‐star General of the Army in September 1950. As JCS chairman, Bradley supported President Harry S. Truman's rejection of the navy's supercarrier in 1949 and helped oversee the Cold War defense buildup after 1950. In the Korean War, Bradley recommended sending troops to oppose North Korea's invasion in 1950, favored confining hostilities after the Chinese intervention in November, and supported Truman's decision to relieve Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951. Speaking for the JCS that year, he testified that the Soviet Union posed the main threat and that conflict with China—which MacArthur seemed willing to widen—would be “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” Bradley retired in 1953; he died in 1981.

[See also World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bradley, Omar Nelson (1893-1981) World War II commander and the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, born in Clark, Missouri. Bradley was the head of the Veterans Administration (1945-47); army chief of staff (1948); the first permanent chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1949-53); and a four-star general (1950). Bradley supported President Harry S. Truman's decision to replace Gen. Douglas MacArthur (1951). Bradley, well trusted by Dwight D. Eisenhower, was given a series of large, crucial assignments. He commanded the II Corps in the North Africa campaign and Sicily (1943) and led the 1st Army in the Normandy invasion (1944). He was the commander of the 12th Army Group, comprising four U.S. armies, forty-three divisions, and 1.3 million men, the largest ground force ever commanded by a U.S. general. Advising against expanding Korean War against Chinese or Soviets, warned it would be “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.”

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

U.S. General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley (1893-1981) was one of the outstanding Allied combat commanders in World War II.

Omar Bradley was born in Clark, Missouri, on February 12, 1893. After his father's death he moved with his mother to Moberly, where he graduated from high school. He attended West Point, graduating in 1915 as a second lieutenant of infantry. During World War I he became a temporary major.

After the war Bradley served in various military capacities and graduated from both the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1934 he graduated from the Army War College and went to Washington, D.C., for General Staff duty in 1938, becoming assistant secretary of the General Staff. In February 1941, promoted from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general, he became commandant of the Infantry School. He was promoted to major general in February 1942 and assigned to command the 82d Infantry Division and later the 28th Infantry Division.

Early in 1943 Bradley became Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal representative in the field in North Africa. Bradley soon rose to commander of the II Corps, which drove through German lines in northern Tunisia, captured Hill 609, took Bizerte, and helped end the war in Africa. He then was promoted to lieutenant general and in July 1943 invaded Sicily with his II Corps.

In the summer of 1943 Bradley was selected to command the 1st U.S. Army in the Normandy invasion and was designated commanding general, 1st U.S. Army Group. On June 6, 1944, his 1st Army landed in France and smashed through the German lines at Saint-Lô, resulting in the speedy liberation of France in July. On Aug. 1, 1944, he took command of the 12th Army Group, which eventually comprised the 1st, 3d, 9th, and 15th American armies, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under one field commander. In the spring of 1945, after his armies had broken the German winter attacks, captured the Siegfried Line, and reached the Rhine, Bradley was promoted to four-star general.

In August 1945 Bradley became administrator of veterans affairs; in February 1948, the chief of staff, U.S. Army, succeeding General Eisenhower; and in August 1949, the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving two terms. He was appointed to the rank of general of the Army in September 1950, making him the fourth five-star general officer in the American Army.

Bradley held many United States and foreign military decorations and university honorary degrees. After 43 years of active service he was placed on the unassigned list in August 1953. He then pursued a business career, serving as Chairman of the Board of the Bulova Watch Company from 1958-73.

Bradley lived his last years in Texas, occasionally providing lectures on military leadership. He died having contributed 69 years of service to the U.S. military. Throughout his career Bradley was known as "The GI's General, " so it was only fitting that President Ronald Reagan eulogized Bradley with "He was the GI's general because he was, always, a GI."

Further Reading

The most informative work on Bradley is his own autobiography and history, A Soldier's Story (1951). Other books containing authoritative information about him are Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (1948), and a series of books prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, United States Army in World War II: Mediterranean Theater of Operations (3 vols., 1957-1959) and United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations (7 vols., 1950-1965). See also A. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II (2 vols., 1964), Kenneth S. Davis, Experience of War: The United States in World War II (1965) and Newsweek, April 20, 1981.

(1893-1981), U.S. Army general. Bradley was the first member of his 1915 West Point class to receive a star. Much of his rapid advance he owed to Gen. George C. Marshall, under whom he served four years as professor of tactics at the Infantry School and one year as an assistant in the War Department. Jumping him from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general in 1940, Marshall made Bradley head of the Infantry School, gave him a second star in 1941, and in succession appointed him commanding general of the Eighty-second and Twenty-eighth divisions. Impressed by Bradley's success as a planner, Marshall sent him to North Africa early in 1943 to be Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's "eyes and ears." Soon Bradley commanded the U.S. Second Corps in clearing the enemy from the American sector of Tunisia. As a corps commander under Gen. George S. Patton's Fifth Army, Bradley played a key role in the thirty-eight-day conquest of Sicily in the summer of 1943.

Early in preparations for the 1944 invasion of Normandy, Marshall selected Bradley to command the First Army, which he later directed in the D-Day landings and Normandy campaign. When Patton was sent with the Third Army to assist in the breakout from France several weeks later, Bradley became the Twelfth Army Group commander, with Gen. Courtney Hodges's First and Patton's Third armies under his command. He led this force in a rapid dash across northern France and Belgium to the German frontier. Slowed by rugged terrain and supply shortages, Bradley's forces were hard hit in the Ardennes area in mid-December. When the German advance made it necessary for him to hand over to British field marshal Bernard Montgomery command of the American forces north of the German penetration, Bradley used Patton's army to restore his lines in the south. His renewed drive in February forced the Germans back across the Roer and led to seizure of a bridge across the Rhine in early March. In April Bradley's Army Group, now consisting of the First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth armies, led a massive drive through central Germany to the Elbe and beyond, to link up with the Russians at Torgau on April 25 before pushing into Czechoslovakia at the war's end.

President Harry S. Truman after World War II picked Bradley to head the Veterans' Administration in its difficult job of arranging demobilization, hospital care, education, and housing for returning troops.

When General Eisenhower retired as chief of staff in 1948, Bradley assumed the post until he became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position made necessary by the recent unification of the armed forces. Soon involved in supporting military operations in Korea, Bradley was caught up first with getting additional forces to MacArthur and then in the controversy between the Far East commander and Washington over policy. Bradley and the Joint Chiefs supported the president. Bradley became the last five-star general upon his elevation to chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He retired in 1953.

Bradley's disdain for military pomp and his concern for the welfare of the individual soldier won him acclaim as "the soldiers' general." Marshall praised his ability to organize great forces and his skill in devising bold plans. Eisenhower called him "a master tactician" and predicted that the quiet, almost diffident general eventually would be considered "America's foremost battle leader."

Bibliography:

Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier's Story (1951); Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General's Life: An Autobiography (1983).

Author:

Forrest C. Pogue

See also Armed Forces; Korean War; World War II.

A general of the twentieth century. Bradley commanded the United States ground forces in the liberation of France and the invasion of Germany in World War II.

Quotes:

"We are given one life, and the decision is our whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live."

"Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."

"I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit, and to mothball his opinions."

"We've learned how to destroy, but not to create; how to waste, but not to build; how to kill men, but not how to save them; how to die, but seldom how to live."

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship."

"I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking a world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow. Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war from Korea to also include Red China. The course of action often described as a limited war with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the critical strategic prize. 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."

See more famous quotes by Omar Nelson Bradley

For the U.S. politician, see Omar Bradley (California politician).

Omar Nelson Bradley
February 12, 1893(1893-02-12) – April 8, 1981 (aged 88)
General of the Army Omar Bradley in 1950
Nickname	"The G.I.'s General"
Place of birth	Clark, Missouri
Place of death	New York, New York
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1915–1953
Rank	General of the Army
Commands held	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 Korean War
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal Navy Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star Legion of Merit Bronze Star Knight Commander of the British Empire Order of Polonia Restituta Presidential Medal of Freedom

General of the Army 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 in the United States Army. He was the last surviving five-star commissioned officer of the United States and the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 World War II 3 Post-war 4 Summary of service 5 Dates of rank 5.1 Primary decorations 5.2 Assignment history 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Bibliography 7 External links

Early life and career

Bradley at West Point

Bradley, the son of a schoolteacher, was born into a poor family near Clark, Missouri. He attended Higbee Elementary School and graduated from Moberly High School. Bradley intended to enter the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Instead, he was advised to try for West Point. He placed first in his district placement exams^{[citation needed]} and entered the academy in 1911. While at West Point, General Bradley joined the local Masonic Lodge in Highland Falls, New York.

Bradley lettered in baseball three times, including on the 1914 team, where every player remaining in the army became a general. He graduated from West Point in 1915 as part of a class that contained many future generals, and which military historians have called "the class the stars fell on". There were ultimately 59 generals in that graduating class, with Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower attaining the rank of General of the Army.

Bradley was commissioned into the Infantry and was first assigned to the 14th Infantry Regiment, but like many of his peers, did not see action in Europe. Instead, he held a variety of stateside assignments. He served on the U.S.-Mexico border in 1915. When war was declared, he was promoted to captain, but was posted to the Butte, Montana copper mines. He courted and later married Mary Elizabeth Quayle on December 28, 1916. Bradley joined the 19th Infantry Division in August 1918, which was scheduled for European deployment, but the influenza pandemic and the armistice prevented it.

Between the wars, he taught and studied. From 1920–24, he taught mathematics at West Point. He was promoted to major in 1924 and took the advanced infantry course at Fort Benning, Georgia. After a brief service in Hawaii, he 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 directly under Army Chief of Staff George Marshall from 1938. In February 1941, he was promoted to brigadier general (bypassing the rank of colonel)^[1] and sent to command Fort Benning (the first from his class to become a general officer). In February 1942, he took command of the 82nd Infantry Division before being switched to the 28th Infantry Division in June.

World War II

Bradley did not receive a front-line command until early 1943, after Operation Torch. He had been given VIII Corps, but instead was sent to North Africa to be Eisenhower's front-line troubleshooter. At Bradley's suggestion, II Corps, which had just suffered the devastating loss at the Kasserine Pass, was overhauled from top to bottom, and Eisenhower installed George S. Patton as corps commander. Patton requested Bradley as his deputy, but Bradley retained the right to represent Eisenhower as well.^[2]

Bradley succeeded Patton as head of II Corps in April and directed it in the final Tunisian battles of April and May. He then led his corps, by then the only corps in Patton's Seventh Army, on to Sicily in July.

In the approach to D-Day, Bradley was chosen to command the substantial US First Army, which alongside the British Second Army made up General Montgomery's 21st Army Group. Bradley undertook detail planning for Omaha Beach at his headquarters at Clifton College, Bristol, England. He embarked for Normandy from Portsmouth aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31). During the bombardment on D-day, Bradley worked in a steel command cabin built for him on the deck of the Augusta, 20 feet by 10 feet, the walls dominated by Michelin motoring maps of France, a few pin-ups and large scale maps of Normandy. A row of clerks sat at typewriters along one wall, while Bradley and his personal staff clustered around the large plotting table in the center.^{[citation needed]} Much of that morning, however, Bradley stood on the bridge standing next to Task Force Commander Admiral Alan G. Kirk, observing the landings through binoculars, his ears plugged with cotton to muffle the blast of the cruiser's guns.

On 10 June, General Bradley and his staff debarked to establish a headquarters ashore. During Operation Overlord, he commanded three corps directed at the two American invasion targets, Utah Beach and Omaha Beach. Later in July, he planned Operation Cobra, the beginning of the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. As the build-up continued in Normandy, the Third Army was formed under Patton, Bradley's former commander, while General Hodges succeeded Bradley in command of the First Army; together, they made up Bradley's new command, the 12th Army Group. By August, the 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, US VII 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 war 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."

Bradley has a reputation today as a general who was very patient with the officers under his command, compared to his most famous colleague, George S. Patton, but the truth is far more complicated. Bradley sacked more than a dozen generals during the Second World War with little provocation, whereas Patton actually fired only one general during the entire war, Orlando Ward, and only after repeated warnings.

After the German attempt to split the US armies at Mortain (Operation Lüttich), Bradley's Army Group formed the southern pincer in the forming Falaise pocket, trapping the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army in Normandy. Although only partially successful, it inflicted huge losses on the German forces 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 became a severe problem.

At this time, the Allied high command under Eisenhower faced a decision on strategy. Bradley favored 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 (British Army) argued for a narrow thrust across the Lower Rhine, preferably with all Allied ground forces under his personal command as they had been in the early months of the Normandy campaign, into the open country beyond and then to the northern flank into the Ruhr, thus avoiding the Siegfried Line. Although Montgomery was not permitted to launch an offensive on the scale he had wanted, George Marshall and Hap Arnold were eager to use the First Allied Airborne Army to cross the Rhine, so Eisenhower agreed to Operation Market-Garden. The debate 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' First Army hit difficulties in the Aachen Gap, and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest cost 24,000 casualties. Further south, George Patton's Third 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. Over Bradley's protests, for logistical reasons, the First Army was once again placed under the temporary command of Field-Marshal Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group. In a move without precedent in modern warfare, the US Third Army under Patton disengaged from combat in the Saarland, moved 90 miles to the battlefront, and attacked the German southern flank to break the encirclement at Bastogne (although clearing weather allowed air superiority to relieve Bastogne and break the German offensive). In his 2003 biography of Eisenhower, Carlo d'Este implies that Bradley's subsequent promotion to full general was to compensate him for the way in which he had been sidelined during the Battle of the Bulge.

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 Rhine River 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 Elbe River in mid-April. By V-E Day, the 12th Army Group was a force of four armies (First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth) that numbered over 1.3 million men.

Post-war

General Omar Bradley, 1949 official photo

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.

Bradley served as the Army Chief of Staff in 1948. On August 11, 1949, President Harry S Truman appointed him the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On September 22, 1950^[3], 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 Military Committee. He remained on the committee until August 1953, when he left active duty to take a number of positions in commercial life, among them Chairman of the Board of the Bulova Watch Company from 1958 to 1973.^[4]

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."

General Omar N. Bradley Portrait

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.

On December 1, 1965, Bradley's wife Mary died of leukemia. He met Esther Dora "Kitty" Buhler and married her on September 12, 1966; they were married until his death.

Bradley also served as a member of President Lyndon Johnson's Wise Men, a think-tank composed of well-known Americans considered experts in their fields. Their main purpose was to recommend strategies for dealing with the nation's problems, including the Vietnam War. While agreeing with the war in principle, Bradley believed it was being micromanaged by politicians and Pentagon bureaucrats.^{[citation needed]}

In 1970, Bradley also served as a consultant for the film Patton. The film, in which Bradley was portrayed by actor Karl Malden, is very much seen through Bradley's eyes: while admiring of Patton's aggression and will to victory, the film is also implicitly critical of Patton's egoism (particularly his alleged indifference to casualties during the Sicilian campaign) and love of war for its own sake. Bradley is shown being praised by a German intelligence officer for his lack of pretentiousness, "unusual in a general".

In 1971, Bradley was honored by the television series, "This Is Your Life."

On January 10, 1977, Bradley was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.

His posthumous autobiography, A General's Life, was published in 1983 and ghostwritten by Clay Blair.^[5]

One of his last public appearances was in connection with the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981. Omar Bradley died on April 8, 1981 in New York City of a cardiac arrhythmia, just a few minutes after receiving an award from the National Institute of Social Sciences. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, next to his two wives.^[6]

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."^[7]

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

On May 5, 2000, the United States Postal Service issued a series of Distinguished Soldiers stamps in which Bradley was honored.^[8]

Summary of service

Dates of rank

No pin insignia in 1915	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, Army of the United States: February 24, 1941
	Major General, Army of the United States: February 18, 1942
	Lieutenant General, Army of the United States: June 9, 1943
	Colonel, Regular Army: November 13, 1943
	General, Army of the United States: March 29, 1945
	General rank made permanent in the Regular Army: January 31, 1949
	General of the Army, Regular Army: September 22, 1950

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
	Mexican Border Service Medal
	World War I Victory Medal
	American Defense Service Medal
	European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one silver and three campaign stars
	World War II Victory Medal
	Army of Occupation Medal with Germany clasp
	National Defense Service Medal with star
	British Order of the Bath Knight Commander
	Order of Polonia Restituta
	French Croix de guerre with palm
	Luxembourg War Cross

Assignment history

Omar Bradley

• 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

United States Army portal

Military of the United States portal

• 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

References

Notes

1. ^ Hollister, Jay. "General Omar Nelson Bradley". University of San Diego History Department. May 3, 2001. Retrieved on May 14, 2007.
2. ^ Weigley, p.81
3. ^ "GENERAL OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND GENERAL OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES". http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/armyorank/blgoa.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-28. "General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, appointed 22 Sep 50. Deceased Apr 81. (General Bradley appointed pursuant to PL 957, on 18 Sep 1950.)" 
4. ^ "The History of Bulova". Bulova. Retrieved on May 14, 2007.
5. ^ Bradley, Omar; Clay Blair. A General's Life. ISBN 978-0671410247. 
6. ^ Omar Nelson Bradley, General of the Army
7. ^ Omar Bradley (1948-11-11). "Quotation 8126". The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996. Columbia University Press.. http://www.bartleby.com/66/26/8126.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. "The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. NUMBER: 8126 QUOTATION: We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.... The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. ATTRIBUTION: Omar Bradley (1893–1981), U.S. general. speech, November 11, 1948, Armistice Day. Collected Writings, vol. 1 (1967)." 
8. ^ "Distinguished Soldiers". United States Postal Service. Retrieved on May 16, 2007.

Bibliography

Russell F. Weigley Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany 1944-1945 Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-253-20608-1

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Omar N. Bradley

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Omar Bradley

• Bradley's biography at the U.S. Army website.
• Omar Nelson Bradley, General of the Army, Arlington National Cemetery profile.
• The American Presidency Project
• Omar Bradley at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-07-31

Military offices
Preceded by Gen. Courtney Hodges	Commanding General of the First United States Army 1943–1944	Succeeded by Gen. George Grunert
Preceded by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower	Chief of Staff of the United States Army 1948–1949	Succeeded by Gen. J. Lawton Collins
Preceded by Adm. William D. Leahy as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief	Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1949–1953	Succeeded by Adm. Arthur W. Radford
Preceded by None	Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 1949–1951	Succeeded by Lt.Gen. Etienne Baele
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Billy Graham	Sylvanus Thayer Award recipient 1973	Succeeded by Robert Daniel Murphy

v • d • e Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Bradley • Radford • Twining • Lemnitzer • Taylor • Wheeler • Moorer • Brown • Jones • Vessey • Crowe • Powell • Jeremiah (acting) • Shalikashvili • Shelton • Myers • Pace • Mullen

v • d • e Administrators of Veterans Affairs (1930–1989) Hines • Bradley • Gray • Higley • Whittier • Gleason • Driver • Johnson • Roudebush • Cleland • Nimmo • Walters • Turnage • Derwinski

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