Bradley As Military Commander

[CombinedArms]

OK,I'm going to challenge the odds and start a thread on Omar Bradley, the less colorful (but no less influential)counterpart of Monty, Patton and Rommel, since Bradley has been much discussed in the sidelines of our Monty and Rommel debates. To get the ball rolling, instead of stating my own views, I'm going to pose a series of questions. Feel free to answer only those queries that interest you and to raise other questions.

1. How does Bradley rate as a military commander? Was he great? Good? Mediocre? Downright bad?

2. Who was a better general, Bradley or Patton? Would Patton have been a better choice to command Bradley's Army Group in France and Germany? Who did a better job of commanding his Army Group, Bradley or Monty?

3. What was Bradley's best quality as a commander? What was his worst quality?

4. What was Bradley's best moment (or moments) as a leader? What was his worst moment (or moments)?

5. Ernie Pyle depicted Bradley as the enlisted soldier's general. Was this an accurate depiction?

6. How important to generalship is having a colorful or marketable image? How much does such a persona affect our assesment of Bradley as opposed to Monty, Rommel and Patton?

[ November 10, 2003, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[SSG D]

Combined Arms,

I have read a several biographies of the US WWII generals. IMHO Marshall was the real genius behind the deal. He built the Army and put together the team. Each member brought their own strengths and weakness. But together they were great.

Without question Bradley did a much better job of running 12th Army Group than Monty did with his 21st. Monty was probably a good example of the Peter Principle at work.

I don't know if Marshall and Ike would have put Patton under Bradley in France even without the slapping incidents. But they did, and Patton was perfect for the right flank of the Allied NW Europe operation.

I think Bradley had a lot of "best moments" during his command of 12th AG. But his "worst moments as a leader" were when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the early phases of the Korean War. Marshall was SEC/DEF then and they both (against their better judgement) let MacArther get in way over his head during the drive to the Yalu.

SSG D

[Ghost Rider]

Bradley's handling of the situation in the Aachen/Huertgen area in the late fall and early winter months of 1944 are not his finest moment. As several have said, the operations in Huertgen especially were wasteful and ill advised.

Still, for the most part, he did a sterling job.

[CombinedArms]

Good point, SSG D, about Marshall as the "real genius behind the deal." Most of the top US commanders in Europe were Marshall proteges and overall they performed quite effectively--in part because they were generally good team players. Also (with the exception of Fredendal of Kasserine fame/infamy, who was also a Marshall protege) they mostly kept their jobs throughout the war, or they moved up.

Churchill kept up a "try 'em out and fire 'em" revolving door going until Monty managed to hold the job. OTOH, Marshall's command team had his confidence and were given time to grow into their jobs and even to survive occasional mistakes. The dicey job in the US Army command structure was divisional commander. If your rookie division didn't perform up to speed in its initial tough tactical assignment (like taking Italian mountains or blasting through the bocage), the div. commander was likely to be sacked forthwith. Bradley (like Ike) was very much a Marshall man--solid, consistent, tenacious, not brilliant, perhaps but sound, dependable, professional, and a good team player. Patton, BTW, was not really a Marshall protege--he was more an Ike protege. Marshall's method in general got the most out of the strengths of his generals while not exposing their weaknesses too much.

I would say Bradley's two bad moments were letting the Germans escape the Falaise pocket and the Huertgen mess. I don't really blame him for being surprised in the Ardennes.

I do think, overall, I'd rather have Bradley commanding an Army Group than Monty. In general, I think the two of them share a lot of the same positives, but Bradley had fewer of Monty's negatives. I think Patton had a more brilliant military mind than Bradley, but he may have lacked the maturity and common sense to command an army group.

[Other Means]

i think Bradley was probably the most brilliant military commander of all time. after all, i always come out as him when i do those "which general are you" tests.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I tried that "most brilliant general" type questionaire as well. Was General Graziani any good?

Regards

Jim R.

[CombinedArms]

Jim,

I did that test and Graziani was NOT one of the options.

I always come out as Bradley myself, which somehow gives me mixed feelings...

[flamingknives]

Link to test?

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Link to test?

I dunno. It last surfaced on the board a long time ago, IIRC. I did a search for the thread but apparently didn't use the right keywords. Anyone able to help?

Meanwhile, I'll take a crack at answering the questions above. Nothing defintive here--just my opinion.

1. Bradley was a good, but not great, commander.

2. Patton was a better tactician but lacked Bradley's balance and maturity. Probably Bradley was a better choice for Army Group commander. And I think overall I'd rank Bradley ahead of Monty for command of his AG, but Monty also gets points as overall planner of Overlord and for performance in North Africa. Bradley didn't become Monty's peer till late in the war.

3. Bradley's best quality may have been tenacity--his worst quality may have been a lack of imagination.

4. Bradley's best moments include the Cobra breakout and the Ruhr encirclement. He also deserves some credit for the ultimate victory in the Ardennes, though the army commanders (Hodges, Patton and Simpson) seem to me to have been more crucial to the management fo the battle. Worst moment was Hurtgen, then failing to complete the Falaise encirclement, then being surprised in the Ardennes.

5. I don't think Bradley really was the enlisted man's general (or else how explain the Hurtgen?), but he successfully cultivated that image--not as flamboyant an image as Patton's but a genuine image nonetheless and even reflected in his autobiog's title, "A Soldier's Story".

6. Image? My view is that having a colorful or marketable image is of very little importance to generalship as such. What matters to generalship is winning battles, campaigns and wars. Grant, for example, managed to succeed at this while having no image to speak of. But image is extremely important to how generals are remembered and which ones are remembered most vividly. Bradley did manage to have some sort of image--less than Patton but more than Courtney Hodges, for example.

[russellmz]

http://www.military.com/ResourceContent/?file=lpm_fd.htm

i am a google search grog

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Bradley's best moments include the Cobra breakout and the Ruhr encirclement. He also deserves some credit for the ultimate victory in the Ardennes...

Atkinson seems to believe that he was the best of the American generals in Tunisia, and close to being the best Allied general.

Michael

[CombinedArms]

Michael's reference to Bradley in Tunisia makes me realize that I don't really know much about Bradley's performance on the tactical level in Tunisia or--for that matter--much at all about Bradley's tactical or operational style. While I can tell you a lot about the specific characteristics of Rommel, Patton, or Monty in command of troops, when I examine my attic of a brain I realize that there's not much up there about Bradley. For example, I can tell you that Patton closely studied the roadnet, that he had his staff prepare contingency plans for a range of likely occurrances (which is why he had a plan in place for moving his army north after the Ardennes attack--he'd anticipated that contingency.) I can tell you that he spent a lot of time at the front, felt it important to see and be seen by frontline troops; that his verbal style was profane but he wrote poetry in a romantic style on the side. I can tell you that he sometimes personally directed traffic when it got snarled and that his posture toward his superiors was alternately deferential and insubordinant, depending on what he thought he could get away with.

I can't tell you the same sorts of things about Bradley--when I try to define his tactical style I get a kind of blur. All I can refer to is a few of his major and most controversial decisions. My impression of US commanders on the Army Group level (or Army level, aside from Patton) is that they saw their task as getting a massive force to the line of battle--the operational plans were really formed more by the Corps commanders (e.g. Collins) or the division commanders. Is this a wrong impression? Can anyone fill in the blanks? Are there any good books to read on this subject?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Are there any good books to read on this subject?

Eisenhower's Lieutenants by Russell F. Weigley would be a place to start. I recommend you get the two volume paperback set as it is quite a handful in the original single volume hardbound.

Michael

[ November 14, 2003, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Right, I've just redone the "What general would you have been" questionnaire and now I've landed General Walter Short. Now surely he was O.K., wan't he?

Regards

Jim R.

[Sailor Malan]

I got RE Lee. Is that good? He lost right? (sorry, I don't follow these copy-cat wars, the proper civil war is C17th, and happened here - in fact 2 battles within a very short drive from here, Lansdown and Roundway Down)

As for Bradley, I dispute that you can't blame him for the Ardennes - whose fault was it then, or is it normal to allow 2 armies to appear in fron of you and completely surprise you?

I think Bradley had several 'worst moments', he seemed to specialise in them

[duck, close turret "driver reverse NOW", looks for wadi to hide in]

[CombinedArms]

Well, my argument for not blaming Bradley for the Ardennes (or at least not too severely) may or may not persuade anybody. I'm not sure it even persuades me--but here goes:

1. Bradley wanted to push the offensive vs. Germany and didn't have enough divisions on line yet to be strong everywhere.

2. He had to stand on the defensive somewhere.

3. The Ardennes was the best place to do it because the winter conditions, hilly terrain, many rivers and bridges, and bad, windy roads made it very poor tank country.

4. His intelligence team kept saying the Germans were about played out and couldn't launch a serious offensive anywhere.

In the event, item 4 was wrong--the intelligence community missed the buildup despite lots of pointers that in hindsight seem significant. Bradley bears some responsibility for this, but we can't expect him to be ominscient. On the other hand, he was right about #3. It was a rotten place to try to move an armored force through in winter vs. tenacious opposition. So if he had to leave a zone weak, this was probably the right place to do it. He could be faulted for not having a contingency plan to deal with the German attack (indeed, Patton had worked out a plan of his own.) OTOH, the northern armies in his Army Group (1st & 9th) improvised movement orders that were probably as swift and effective as any preconceived plan might have been.

What I wonder about is whether the whole idea of being on permanent offensive was somewhat ill-conceived. Would it have been better to let the whole Allied force build strength through Dec & Jan and then launch a full scale offensive later. In hindsight that might have been a better idea, since in fact the armies basically just held their positions until March and then broke out swiftly and decisively. But this attitude of constant offensive wasn't Bradley's alone--it was shared by Ike and pervaded the whole US high command.

So, in summary, I remain ambivalent about Bradley's performance in the Ardennes.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

On the other hand, he was right about #3. It was a rotten place to try to move an armored force through in winter vs. tenacious opposition. So if he had to leave a zone weak, this was probably the right place to do it.

Right. If one wanted to stretch a point, one might even claim that it was a stroke of genius (Montgomery would certainly have claimed it) to sucker the Germans into launching an offensive that in the end would gain them nothing and eat up a major proportion of their remaining armor.

What I wonder about is whether the whole idea of being on permanent offensive was somewhat ill-conceived. Would it have been better to let the whole Allied force build strength through Dec & Jan and then launch a full scale offensive later. In hindsight that might have been a better idea, since in fact the armies basically just held their positions until March and then broke out swiftly and decisively. But this attitude of constant offensive wasn't Bradley's alone--it was shared by Ike and pervaded the whole US high command.

One of the hard-earned lessons of WW II was Don't Give Your Enemy Time to Regroup. As it happens, it wasn't the only lesson and I think you are right in this case to fault the Allied (not just American; look at Churchill) leadership for obsessing about it. But truly it must have looked to them in September of 1944 as if the Germans were on the ropes and all it would take is one big heave to push them over. On the other hand, giving them any kind of respite to regain their balance was a dangerous and known luxury. So while it might have been a mistake to try to force the issue in the autumn/winter, it was a comprehensible one.

Michael

[Leeo]

Where have you hidden Her Highness, Our Queen?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Leeo:

Where have you hidden Her Highness, Our Queen?

How badly do you want to know?

Famine

[massimorocca]

Biased as any of his books, and without any simpathy for the author, but The war between Generals of David Irving is very interesting

[Sailor Malan]

Originally posted by Leeo:

Where have you hidden Her Highness, Our Queen?

wrong thread, wrong thread!

[Sailor Malan]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Well, my argument for not blaming Bradley for the Ardennes (or at least not too severely) may or may not persuade anybody. I'm not sure it even persuades me--but here goes:

1. Bradley wanted to push the offensive vs. Germany and didn't have enough divisions on line yet to be strong everywhere.

I.e. he shouldn't have been pushing as hard as he was.

2. He had to stand on the defensive somewhere.

Not at issue, issue is that standing on defensing is not the same as completely and bowlweakenly surprised in every way shape and form!

3. The Ardennes was the best place to do it because the winter conditions, hilly terrain, many rivers and bridges, and bad, windy roads made it very poor tank country.

Don't challenge you there. However,see above. And also, I am sure that there is some evidence that an armoured offensive had been put through the same region earlier in history. 1940? Some guy called Hitler? I am not expecting that Bradley should have detected it just because of that, but you have got to wonder...

4. His intelligence team kept saying the Germans were about played out and couldn't launch a serious offensive anywhere.

Uh ur [sound like two tone buzzer] wrong answer. I suppose you don't hold MacA responsible for Clark Field? Or Kimmel for PH - I'm sure their intelligence people weren't predicting a busy weekend!

In the event, item 4 was wrong--the intelligence community missed the buildup despite lots of pointers that in hindsight seem significant. Bradley bears some responsibility for this, but we can't expect him to be ominscient. On the other hand, he was right about #3. It was a rotten place to try to move an armored force through in winter vs. tenacious opposition. So if he had to leave a zone weak, this was probably the right place to do it. He could be faulted for not having a contingency plan to deal with the German attack (indeed, Patton had worked out a plan of his own.) OTOH, the northern armies in his Army Group (1st & 9th) improvised movement orders that were probably as swift and effective as any preconceived plan might have been.

Can I play you please? And if you would be sure to telegraph your weak area, because it saves all that tedious fighting...I'll just attack there OK

What I wonder about is whether the whole idea of being on permanent offensive was somewhat ill-conceived. Would it have been better to let the whole Allied force build strength through Dec & Jan and then launch a full scale offensive later. In hindsight that might have been a better idea, since in fact the armies basically just held their positions until March and then broke out swiftly and decisively. But this attitude of constant offensive wasn't Bradley's alone--it was shared by Ike and pervaded the whole US high command.

So, in summary, I remain ambivalent about Bradley's performance in the Ardennes.

I, on the other hand, don't! (In case anyone was in doubt. On the other hand, a pound gets you a bent penny I would have made the same mistake, or a similar one. We tend to forget that bad generals just tend to be average people...the good ones are exceptional! :cool:

[Baron von Beergut]

I took the test and got Teddy Roosevelt.

As for Bradley, before the war he was known as a good organizer/trainer, and helped in forming both the 82d and later at Indiantown Gap, the 28th Divisions.

I saw him a few times in a wheel chair in uniform in the Pentagon back in the late 70's when I was in the army stationed at nearby Arlington Hall.

There is a lot of blame to go around for the Ardennes and Huertgen. Heurtgen should never have been fought, and I'd go to the top to put blame there, not just Bradley. It's almost like no one above regt level really knew what a mess that was at the time.

Many battles like the Bulge, get blamed on bad intel.

As a retired intel weenie, I'd say that may be partly true. But many intel higher ups are career minded, so they many times report what they think their higher ups want to hear. Usually the information is there in hindsight but was either ignored or interpreted to fit the accepted perception of things.