The First In-Depth Biography of America’s Last Five-Star General He was known as “the G.I. General”— humble, self-effacing, hard-working, reflecting the small-town virtues of the America whose uniform he wore. But those very virtues have led historians to neglect General Omar Bradley—until now. Bestselling author Jim DeFelice, in this, the first-ever in-depth biography of America’s last five-star general, tells Bradley’s full story, and argues that the neglected G.I. General did more than any other to defeat Hitler in World War II. While General George S. Patton has garnered much of the glory, General Dwight David Eisenhower has claimed much of the world’s respect, and British General Bernard Montgomery has kept the Union Jack flying, as DeFelice proves, it was the unassuming Bradley who actually developed the strategy and the tactics that won the war in Europe. Meticulously researched, using previously untapped documents and unpublished diaries and notes, Omar Bradley: General at War reveals: Why Bradley, not Patton, deserves most of the credit for America’s victories in North Africa How Bradley—first Patton’s subordinate, then his superior—was one of Patton’s great defenders, while also recognizing his weaknesses, and tried to cover up the infamous slapping incident How Eisenhower panicked—when Bradley didn’t—during the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge, delaying an American counterattack that could have saved thousands of lives Why Bradley was a radical innovator in the use of combined air, armor, and infantry power How Bradley, contrary to those who like to portray him as a staid counterpart to Patton, was one of the most ardent practitioners of fast-moving offensives Why Bradley expected the Germans might use radiological weapons at Normandy Provocative, thorough, original, Jim DeFelice’s Omar Bradley: General at War deserves a place on the shelf of every reader of World War II history.

When Omar Nelson Bradley began his military career more than a century ago, the army rode horses into combat and had less than 200,000 men. No one had heard of mustard gas. At the height of his career, Bradley (known as “Brad” and “The GI’s General”) led 1.23 million men as commander of 12 Army Group in the Western Front to bring an end to World War II. Omar Nelson Bradley was the youngest and last of nine men to earn five-star rank and the only army officer so honored after World War II. This new biography by Steven L. Ossad gives an account of Bradley’s formative years, his decorated career, and his postwar life. Bradley’s decisions shaped the five Northwest European Campaigns from the D-Day landings to VE Day. As the man who successfully led more Americans in battle than any other in our history, his long-term importance would seem assured. Yet his name is not discussed often in the classrooms of either civilian or military academies, either as a fount of tactical or operational lessons learned, or a source of inspiration for leadership exercised at Corps, Army, Group, Army Chief, or Joint Chiefs of Staff levels. The Bradley image was tailor-made for the quintessential homespun American heroic ideal and was considered by many to be a simple, humble country boy who rose to the pinnacle of power through honesty, hard work, loyalty and virtuous behavior. Even though his classmates in both high school and at West Point made remarks about his looks, and Bradley was always self-conscious about smiling because of an accident involving his teeth, he went on to command 12 Army Group, the largest body of American fighting men under a single general. Bradley’s postwar career as administrator of the original GI Bill and first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Korean War ensures his legacy. These latter contributions, as much as Bradley’s demonstrable World War II leadership, shaped U.S. history and culture in decisive, dramatic, and previously unexamined ways. Drawing on primary sources such as those at West Point, Army War College and Imperial War Museum, this book focuses on key decisions, often through the eyes of eyewitness and diarist, British liaison officer Major Thomas Bigland. The challenges our nation faces sound familiar to his problems: fighting ideologically-driven enemies across the globe, coordinating global strategy with allies, and providing care and benefits for our veterans.

The life and achievements of General Omar Nelson Bradley are legendary. During World War II, the five-star general was a key figure in the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. But his private life has always lain just outside the reach of the media. Bradley has long been portrayed as a soft-spoken gentleman. This media-driven stereotype has pushed him aside in America's collective memory, which more readily recalls flamboyant leaders such as Patton, Eisenhower or George C. Marshall. This book reexamines the prevailing view of Bradley through a reading of unpublished sources and letters, paying special attention to his relationship with his second wife Kitty Buhler and his later years (1951-1981), a period largely ignored by previous research. Bradley's life was far from boring. Behind closed doors were trysts with Hollywood starlets, a penchant for gambling at the horse track and hobnobbing with high-profile stars, writers and political leaders.

Omar Bradley is "a man who grew up trapped in the shadow of despair associated with his blackness. His life unfolds before our eyes as a school boy, teenager, college student, teacher, mayor of Compton, three times, and finally, resident of the penal system in the state of California"--P. [4] of cover.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The intimate true story of three of the greatest American generals of World War II, and how their intense blend of comradery and competition spurred Allied forces to victory. “One of the great stories of the American military.”—Thomas E. Ricks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Omar Bradley shared bonds going back decades. All three were West Pointers who pursued their army careers with a remarkable zeal, even as their paths diverged. Bradley was a standout infantry instructor, while Eisenhower displayed an unusual ability for organization and diplomacy. Patton, who had chased Pancho Villa in Mexico and led troops in the First World War, seemed destined for high command and outranked his two friends for years. But with the arrival of World War II, it was Eisenhower who attained the role of Supreme Commander, with Patton and Bradley as his subordinates. Jonathan W. Jordan’s New York Times bestselling Brothers Rivals Victors explores this friendship that waxed and waned over three decades and two world wars, a union complicated by rank, ambition, jealousy, backbiting and the enormous stresses of command. In a story that unfolds across the deserts of North Africa to the beaches of Sicily, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and beyond, readers are offered revealing new portraits of these iconic generals.

A New York Times bestseller! An epic history of the decline of American military leadership—from the bestselling author of Fiasco and Churchill and Orwell. While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to the generals of the wars that followed, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks sets out to explain why that is. In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks’s hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails.

Detailed profiles of forty-three military commanders of the twentieth century, from Patton to Rommel, Yamamoto, and Zhukov, written by top historians. In The War Lords, Field Marshal Lord Carver has assembled an engrossing series of short, detailed biographies of forty-three of the dominant military commanders on the twentieth-century world stage, written by such prominent historians as Alistair Horne, Norman Stone, Stephen Ambrose, Lord Kinross, and Martin Middlebrook. Included are: Field-Marshal the Earl Alexander, E.H.H. Allenby, Claude Auchinleck, Field-Marshal Sir, Omar N. Bradley, General of the Army, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet the Viscount, Karl Doenitz, Admiral, Hugh C.T. Dowding, Air Chief Marshal, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, Ferdinand Foch, Bernard Freyberg, Lieutenant-General Lord, Heinz Guderian, General, Douglas Haig, William F. Halsey, Fleet Admiral, Ian Hamilton, Arthur Harris, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir, Paul von Hindenburg, John Rushworth Jellicoe, Joseph Joffre, Alphonse Juin, Marshal, Mustafa Kemal, Ivan Koniev, Marshal, Erich Ludendorff, Douglas C. MacArthur, General of the Army, John Monash, Bernard L. Montgomery, of Alamein, Louis Mountbatten, Earl of Burma, Chester W. Nimitz, Fleet Admiral, George S. Patton, General, John J. Pershing, Philippe Petain, Erwin Rommel, Field-Marshal, William Joseph Slim, Field-Marshal the Viscount, Carl A. Spaatz, General, Raymond A. Spruance, Admiral, Joseph W. Stilwell, General, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder, Hugh Trenchard, Erich Von Falkenhayn, Erich Von Manstein, Field Marshal, Gerd Von Rundstedt, Field-Marshal, Archibald Wavell, Field-Marshal Earl, Isoroku Yamamoto, Admiral & Georgii Zhukov, Marshal.

West Point’s Class of 1915 is the academy’s most important in history. The cadets of the United States Military Academy, West Point, are intimately twined with the country’s history. The graduating class of 1915, the class the stars fell on, was particularly noteworthy. Of the 164 graduates that year, 59 (36%) attained the rank of general, the most of any class in. Although Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, both five-star generals, are the most recognizable, other class members contributed significantly to the Allied victory in World War I, World War II and played key roles either in the post-war U.S. military establishment or in business and industry after World War II, especially in the Korean War and the formation of NATO. For more than half a century, these men exerted tremendous influence on the shaping of modern America, which remains substantial to this day. Individually, the stories of these military and political leaders are noteworthy. Collectively, they are astonishing. West Point, 1915 explores the achievements of this remarkable group.

Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, George Catlett Marshall (1880-1959) attended the Virginia Military Institute and was named VMI’s First Captain in his senior year, because of his character and sense of duty more than scholastic achievement. In 1902, while a second lieutenant, Marshall married Elizabeth Carter Coles. During World War I, Marshall demonstrated his superior skill for organization and leadership on the staff of General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in France. Between World Wars I and II, Marshall served as Pershing’s aide in Washington, DC, with troops in China, as an instructor at Fort Benning, Georgia, and at other posts throughout the United States. Marshall married Katherine Boyce Tupper Brown in 1930 after the death of his first wife in 1927. He commanded the Vancouver Barracks in Vancouver, Washington between 1936 and 1938 and was appointed Army Chief of Staff by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 1, 1939. “Pogue and Harrison show admirably how Marshall’s early life prepared him for his later responsibilities — his beginning as a second lieutenant in the Philippines, his service on Pershing’s staff in the First World War, three years in China in the Twenties, his exceptionally influential term at the Infantry Training School at Fort Benning, a period organizing CCC camps..., a time in exile when MacArthur sent him to the Illinois National Guard, thereby, as Marshall thought, ending his career, until Pershing’s insistent pressure brought him back to Washington and Harry Hopkins, impressed by his cool efficiency, urged him on Roosevelt. Education of a General is carefully researched, well composed and judiciously written. The portrait of Marshall is sympathetic but by no means worshipful.” — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Review of Books “A highly readable and thoroughly satisfactory biography that provides as full and definitive an account of the general’s career to 1939 as is likely to appear for a long time... The portrait that emerges from these pages is clearly that of an outstanding officer in both staff and command, with wide experience in a variety of posts and a record for performing the tasks assigned to him superlatively well... an outstanding work of scholarship and a definitive record of George Marshall’s early years.” — Louis Morton, The Journal of Modern History “This [book] will be interesting to the professional historian for its insights into the early career of a great soldier, for much new material on the development of the military profession in the first half of the twentieth century, and also for its methodology... No effort was spared to make the work truly ‘definitive’... a well- written volume that is, and will likely remain, the best thing on Marshall’s formative year.” — Harry L. Coles, The Journal of American History “Simplicity of tactics; training for the unexpected; regarding as more important knowing when to make a decision than what the decision should be — these, and the ability to command by obtaining assent rather than by exacting formal obedience, were qualities characteristic of Marshall’s own disposition. And they were tied up with the... conviction... that American Army officers must know how to command a citizen army... the present volume can help to explain why Marshall was a great war leader.” — Kent Roberts Greenfield, Political Science Quarterly “The volume traces in a superb and detailed manner the progress of the General from childhood to the time he assumed the duties as Chief of Staff, U.S. Army in 1939... This book is a most scholarly account of the trials and tribulations of an exceptional Army officer during the period prior to 1939, and clearly demonstrates how the right man got to the right place at the right time.” — Naval War College Review “A provocative history of the Army during the years of Marshall’s rise... Because this is a book rich in research and information it raises questions as well as answers them. It promises to be one of the few indispensable works on the modern American Army.” — Russell F. Weigley, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “Pogue... presents logically the development of a junior officer... The annotations are bountiful and explicit, the bibliography of great value to historians, the persuasive rebuttal of widely circulated views of a decade ago most welcome. This well-organized and solidly written volume is good in itself and a welcome herald of the post-1939 volumes dealing with periods of great personal, national, and international controversy.” — Mark S. Watson, The American Historical Review “A work very much worth attention... Mr. Pogue’s book... is a fascinating story; it gives a detailed account of the way in which this rather cold and self-contained person became a gifted leader and master of men...” — Bruce Catton, American Heritage “This is a vastly thorough piece of research... a careful picture of the life and problems of an able American regular officer in the first third of the twentieth century.” — C. P. Stacey, International Journal “A book which resembles its subject in simplicity, directness, and thoroughness... This is an excellent example of military-historical writing, and an important contribution to the history of our times.” — H. A. De Weerd, The Virginia Quarterly Review