Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981) was a senior officer of the United States Army during and after World War II. Bradley was the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the U.S. military's policy-making in the Korean War.
Born in Randolph County, Missouri, Bradley worked as a boilermaker before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from the academy in 1915 alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of "the class the stars fell on." During World War I, Bradley guarded copper mines in Montana. After the war, Bradley taught at West Point and served in other roles before taking a position at the War Department under General George Marshall. In 1941, Bradley became commander of the United States Army Infantry School.
After the U.S. entrance into World War II, Bradley oversaw the transformation of the 82nd Infantry Division into the first American airborne division. He received his first front-line command in Operation Torch, serving under General George S. Patton in North Africa. After Patton was reassigned, Bradley commanded II Corps in the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Sicily. He commanded the First United States Army during the Invasion of Normandy. After the breakout from Normandy, he took command of the Twelfth United States Army Group, which ultimately comprised forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a single field commander.
After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration. He became Chief of Staff of the United States Army in 1948 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949. In 1950, Bradley was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, becoming the last of only nine people to be promoted to five-star rank in the United States Armed Forces. He was the senior military commander at the start of the Korean War, and supported President Harry S. Truman's wartime policy of containment. He was instrumental in persuading Truman to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 after MacArthur resisted administration attempts to scale back the war's strategic objectives. Bradley left active duty in 1953 (though remaining on "active retirement" for the next 27 years), then continued to serve in public and business roles until his death in 1981.
Early life and education[]
Bradley, the son of schoolteacher John Smith Bradley (1868–1908) and Mary Elizabeth Hubbard (1875–1931), was born into poverty in rural Randolph County, Missouri, near Moberly. Bradley was named after Omar D. Gray, a local newspaper editor admired by his father, and a local physician, Dr. James Nelson. He was of British ancestry, his ancestors having emigrated from Great Britain to Kentucky in the mid-1700s. He attended at least eight country schools where his father taught.
The elder Bradley never earned more than $40 a month in his lifetime, teaching school and sharecropping. The family never owned a wagon, horse, ox or mule. When Omar was 15, his father, with whom he credited passing on to him his love of books, baseball and shooting, died. His mother moved to Moberly, Missouri and remarried. Bradley graduated from Moberly High School in 1910, an outstanding student and athlete, captain of both the baseball and track teams.
Bradley was working as a 17-cents-an-hour boilermaker at the Wabash Railroad when he was encouraged by his Sunday school teacher at Central Christian Church in Moberly to take the entrance examination for the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. Bradley had been saving his money to enter the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he intended to study law. He finished second in the West Point placement exams at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in St. Louis, Missouri. The first-place winner was unable to accept the Congressional appointment, however, and the nomination was passed to Bradley in August 1911.
While at the academy, Bradley's devotion to sports prevented him from excelling academically, although he was 44th in a class of 164. He was a baseball star and often played on semi-pro teams for no remuneration (to ensure his eligibility to represent the academy). He was considered one of the most outstanding college players in the nation during his junior and senior seasons at West Point, noted as both a power hitter and an outfielder with one of the best arms in his day. He rejected multiple offers to play professional baseball, choosing to pursue his Army career.
While stationed at West Point as an instructor, Bradley became a Freemason in 1923, becoming a member of the West Point Lodge #877, Highland Falls, New York until his death.
Bradley's first wife, Mary Quayle, grew up across the street from him in Moberly, the orphaned daughter of the town's popular police chief. The pair attended Central Christian Church and Moberly High School together. They were pictured across from each other on the Moberly High School yearbook of 1910, The Salutar, although they did not date in high school. His picture bore the motto "calculative" and hers "linguistic." She earned a college degree in education.
Moberly called Bradley its favorite son and throughout his life Bradley called Moberly his hometown and his favorite city in the world. He was a frequent visitor to Moberly throughout his career, was a member of the Moberly Rotary Club, played near handicap golf regularly at the challenging Moberly Country Club course and had a "Bradley pew" at Central Christian Church.
West Point and early military career[]
At West Point, Bradley played three years of varsity baseball including the 1914 team, from which every player who remained in the army ultimately 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". Bradley's Cullum Number is 5356. There were ultimately 59 general officers in that graduating class, among whom Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower attained the rank of General of the Army, with Eisenhower becoming the 34th President of the United States. Among the numerous others were Joseph T. McNarney, Henry Aurand, James Van Fleet, Stafford LeRoy Irwin, John W. Leonard, Joseph May Swing, Paul J. Mueller, Charles W. Ryder, Leland Hobbs, Vernon Prichard, John B. Wogan, Roscoe B. Woodruff, John French Conklin, Walter W. Hess, and Edwin A. Zundel.
Bradley was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Infantry Branch of the United States Army and was first assigned to the 14th Infantry Regiment. He served on the Mexico–United States border in 1915. When the United States entered World War I, in April 1917 (see the American entry into World War I), he was promoted to captain and sent to guard the Butte, Montana copper mines. Bradley joined the 19th Infantry Division in August 1918, which was scheduled for European deployment, but the influenza pandemic and the armistice with Germany intervened.
From September 1919 until September 1920, Bradley served as assistant professor of military science at South Dakota State College (now University) in Brookings, South Dakota.
Between the wars, he taught and studied. From 1920 to 1924, Bradley taught mathematics at West Point. He was promoted to major in 1924 and took the advanced infantry course at Fort Benning, Georgia. After brief duty in Hawaii, Bradley studied at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1928–29, and upon graduating served as an instructor in tactics at the U.S. Army Infantry School. While serving in this assignment, the assistant commandant, Lieutenant Colonel George Marshall called him "quiet, unassuming, capable, with sound common sense. Absolute dependability. Give him a job and forget it." From 1929, he taught at West Point again, taking a break to study at the U.S. Army War College in 1934.
Bradley was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1936 and worked at the War Department; after 1938 he was directly under the U.S. Army Chief of Staff Marshall. In February 1941, Bradley was promoted to (wartime) temporary rank of brigadier general (bypassing the rank of colonel) (this rank was made permanent in September of 1943). The temporary rank was conferred to allow him to command the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia (he was the first from his class to become even a temporary general officer). In February 1942, two months after the American entry into World War II, Bradley was made a temporary major general (a rank made permanent in September 1944) and took command of the 82nd Infantry Division (soon to be redesignated as the 82nd Airborne Division) before succeeding Major General James Garesche Ord as commander of the 28th Infantry Division in June.