Omar Nelson Bradley

Rommel also had high blood pressure and other problems, but Rommel was pulled out so that he wouldn't be there for the humiliation of the final surrender and so that he would be available for the defense of France when the time came.

And in May, May 8th of 1943, Tunis fell to General Bradley's forces, and the Axis had now been cleared out of North Africa.

And you've been listening to Stephen Ambrose tell the story of the Kasserine Pass, the early difficulties, and then ultimately the victory that led to our victory in North Africa and on to bigger things and harder things in Northern Europe.

And great job on the production, as always, by Greg Hengler.

One of the good things he did was in 1979, uh, Carter, uh, Carter tapped William Odom, who was a general, a very brilliant guy.

He, Odom was rare because he kind of had the, the logistical brilliance of, uh, of Omar Bradley, but he was also a real warrior.

You know, he was like a, he was like a soldier's general.

He understood combat.

But beyond that, what's fascinating to me is even men who you would think would have known better, like Eisenhower.

Okay, Eisenhower, whatever else can be said about him, the guy was something of a savant in, in terms of logistical, uh, and engineering military matters, and he was a protege of Pershing, Blackjack Pershing, who was an under-understated figure in contemporary histories.

He hasn't made-- Eisenhower said, uh, Eisenhower said, uh, to one of his adjutants, and this was relayed by Omar Bradley, you know, uh, when there was discussion as to, you know, the issue of allowing the Soviets to take Berlin, Eisenhower said something to the effect of, "Well, my God, like, who would want it? You know, they're gonna lose, you know, a hundred thousand men taking it." And Bradley, he was stupefied by that.

He's like, "Well, what do you mean? You know, like, how, [chuckles] you know, how, how can you say that?" You know, uh, and, uh, Eisen- and Eisenhower's retort was something like, "Well, as a military objective, it's meaningless.

Patton accused Patton of being a poor planner.

Bradley pointed out that Patton often neglected logistics so that it reduced the readiness and effectiveness of the forces under his command.

And Patton's own superiors, Eisenhower and Bradley in World War II and General Rockenbach in World War I, repeatedly castigated him for failing to transmit appropriate situation reports to headquarters.

Um, And Patton's leadership style was the antithesis of jointness.

He repeatedly clashed with the Navy, the Air Force, and allied British forces, and he caused significant unnecessary friction in operations in which he was involved.

I won't say his strategy.

I don't know enough about that, and I think you pointed out well that he wasn't that – He was an army commander, but he wasn't higher than that.

So the strategy I think more fell on Bradley at least later in the war.

Another is to man the bases we would need in time of war and to maintain the lines of communication with our men overseas.

General Bradley explained our approach to the defense problem when he said, "Our basic military structure consists of two main elements: the forces in being and the mo-mobilization base.

Because the United States will not make war of its own volition, a fact as apparent to any aggressor as it is to us, our forces in being are maintained at a strength which can prevent disaster in the event we are attacked.

And which can strike a retaliatory blow that will be strong enough to slow down the aggressor while we mobilize.

It would be economically foolhardy and politically inconsistent for us to maintain forces in being sufficient to win a major war.

Our mobilization base must provide the educational training and logistical facilities that will assure us of a quick expansion of the armed forces in order that we can eventually bring the full might of this nation in conjunction with allied nations to bear upon the enemy.

In June 1950, not quite four months after General Bradley had spoken these words, communist forces invaded South Korea, an act of raw, unprovoked aggression.

Under the authority of the Security Council, American armed forces went into action from their nearest bases in Japan more than a hundred miles away.

And I don't understand why the U S Navy deploys commandos to landlocked countries, but, What do I know? But bringing it back, it was interesting because in what can be known as the great debate over the Korean War, you know, a bunch of and in the lead up to the the big schism between MacArthur and Truman, a bunch of.

Joint Chiefs of Staff elements and experts and Army brass, including Omar Bradley, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they were cross-examined by these senators who were basically asking, why is there this binary and apocalyptic victory metric? And the senator from Connecticut, Brian McMahon, he put it to Bradley, well, what constitutes victory? He said, did we lose the War of 1812? Because upon ejecting the British, we didn't sail to London, burn it down, kill 10 million Englishmen, and then overthrow the monarchy and socially engineer, I'm paraphrasing, the United Kingdom into some American client state.

And then Bradley stipulated that...

Well, you know, there's a place for political negotiation that it's got to be paramount, you know, and in his words, quote, I think you must and you must vary from being willing to accept rather small thing.