Montgomery on Bradley's November offensive

Per Monty:
"I met with Bradley at MAASTRICH yesterday, November 16, 1944. He explained the American strategy in Western Europe. They intend to line up on the Rhine from the Swiss Border to to Dusseldorf... he said he expected to achieve this by January 1, 1945. After a a pause to bring up the Air Force and supplies they will cross the Rhine on a broad front in the direction of MUNICH and BERLIN."

"I stated that if we went on pursuing this policy of 'stretch' we would nowhere be strong enough to bring such pressure to bear on the enemy, that we could smash through to the selected objectives. These tactics give the Germans exactly what they want, i.e. time. The Germans are bound to bring divisions from the Russian front and elsewhere... but all arguments were useless.

At present there are 17 American divisions south of the Ardennes, and 18 north of the Ardennes. I failed to discover from Bradley any system of switching strength across to the area where initial success offered promising prospects."

Per Bradley:
Montgomery wanted to know our estimate as to when we would reach the Rhine. I would hazard a guess that we can reach the Rhine at Cologne by December 15th, and in vicinity of Frankfurt at the same time.

Bradley and Patton

Bradley and Patton were never friends or knew each other before WW II but they got along fine during the war because both hid their real feelings.

As shown by his diaries, Patton thought he was better man and general than Bradley. To his face, however, Patton was the loyal subordinate. The same is true of Bradley. He never criticised Patton during WWII for conduct of the Sicily campaign.

Its only after Patton's death and his publication of his papers/diaries that Bradley went public with his feelings.

As for true feelings. Bradley thought Patton while willing to take risks, great at pursuit, and a "thruster" was a sloppy administrator and adverse to detailed planning. Further, he thought Patton was too interested in public publicity. Patton, OTOH, thought Bradley had no vision or imagination, feel for the enemy, and was unwilling to take risks.

IMO, the men worked best when Patton was boss. Bradley could temper Patton recklessness, and was able to perform the detailed planning necessary to implement his ideas.

Further, Bradley was an example of the peter principle. His natural ceiling in my opinion was Army Commander. He had no ability to put himself in the enemies place or understand what the Germans could do or couldn't do. (Despite ULTRA!) For example:

1) Prior to D-day he thought that the landings would be easy, the tough part would be stopping the enemy counterattack ala Salerno or Anzio. Completely wrong.

2) He completely missed the significance of the Hedgerows on military operations.

3) After the breakout he constantly reined Patton in, and forced him to provide flank guards, completely misreading the ability of the Germans to counterattack. The failure to close the gap at Falsaise is his fault.

4) Having overestimated the Germans during the Normandy breakout, he went the other extreme and considered the war won in late August and early September. Advancing on a broad front, he threw away any chance of reaching the Rhine.

5) He continued to underestimate the Germans throughout Sept-Dec 1994. Launching penny packet attacks all along the front, he incurred thousands of causalities while accomplishing nothing. He was taken surprise during the Battle of the Bulge because he thought the German could never counterattack.

6) After the Bulge, he went back to Overestimating the Germans. Demanding that the ENTIRE West bank of the Rhine be occupied before any further advance. Holding up Patton. Demanding the Ruhr pocket be eliminated before any further advance into Germany, etc.

7) Finally, it should be noted that Bradley was against Patton's short-hook landings in Sicily, even though this was correct strategy and hastened the Germans withdrawal. The only thing wrong with them, if fact, was that weren't done sooner and in bigger strength. But Bradley didn't like to take risks.

Omar Bradley's Career

One of the most important and less well known US Generals of WW II was Omar Bradley. Like Ike he came out of nowhere, rose like a rocket and ended the war in command of 12th Army Group which contained 4 armies and 48 of 89 US army divisions. IOW, he ended up commanding almost half of the US field Army.

His career path was:

1915 - Graduates from West Point with Ike - 44th in his class
1918 - Spends WW I in Montana - briefly trains a battalion for overseas service.
1920 - West Point Instructor - Math
1925 - Graduates from Infantry School - 2nd in his class.
1926 - Liaison National Guard - Hawaii
1928 - Staff College Leavenworth
1929 - Infantry School teaching tactics under George Marshall
1933 - Army War College
1934 - West Point Instructor - tactics
1936 - Promoted Lt. Col
1938 - Moves to DC as G-3 assistant secretary to Chief of Staff Office
Feb 1941 - Commander Infantry School - Promoted to Brig. General (skips Full Col)
Feb 1942 - Commander 82nd Division and later 28th Infantry Divisions - CONUS
Feb 1943 - At Ike's request goes to Tunisia to report conditions and provide solutions.
March 1943 - Ike replaces Fredendall with Patton and promotes Bradley as Deputy Corps Commander.
April 1943 - Commander II Corps - Patton leaves to Plan Sicily Invasion
May 1943 - Bradley leads II Corps to victory in Tunisia.
June 1943 - In a letter to Marshall Ike rates Bradley as his best General - above Patton.
July 1943 - Commands II Corps in Sicily
Sept 1943 - Ike calls Bradley "the best rounded combat commander I have met in this war" Recommends Bradley be given First Army command for Overlord
Oct 1943 - England as Commander First Army. Planning for Overlord.
Aug 1944 - Promoted to Command of 12th Army Group
Sept 1945 - Head of VA
Feb 1948 - Succeeds Ike as Army COS
Aug 1949 - Becomes First Head of JCS - Made "General of the Army" - A rank only held by Ike, MacArthur, Marshall, Pershing, and Arnold.
Aug 1953 - Retires