Evening star., 1944-01-30
Bradley, Doughboys' General

field service and uses tent for COM
mand post. The truck is fitted up like
trailer, with cot and wash basin,
field telephone, calendar, wall map and
a bookrack containing few volumes on
military subjects. The only souvenirs he
gathered during the Mediterranean
campaign were a German Luger and
Sicilian dagger with the Fascist emblem
on the handle.
Scorning pomp and theatricausm, he
flies his three-star flag only when
formality requires it. It was noted in
Sicily that he owned neither a Sam
Brown belt nor dress cap. Instead Of
Swagger stick, he carries an ordinary
wooden cane with steel spike at the
end. At receptions where other officers
are resplendent in dress uniform, he is
likely to turn up in khaki shirt and
trousers.
He is known as "the doughboy's gen.
eral," partly because he chose the infan-
try arm on leaving West Point and has
always commanded foot soldiers, but
chiefly on account of his conviction that
the man who makes or breaks military
who shoots the rifle, tosses the grenade
and plunges the bayonet. In report to
Gen. Marshall on the campaign of the
End Army Corps in Tunisia, he declared
that mo matter how excellent our
equipment or how effective our artillery,
1t is the infantry which must bear the
brunt of battle. 1t must have the will
and ability to close with the enemy and
destroy him."
Economy in Lives.
Chief stress was laid upon "the small
losses suffered in comparison with the
scope and intensity of the operation"
A major Allied victory was won, he as
serted, at price of 1864 American cas-
ualties during the decisive phase of the
campaign, between April % and May g.
l943. OF these 351 were killed, 2,736
were wounded and BIT were missing.
Mothers, wives and sweethearts of SOL
diers in the forthcoming invasion may
be sure that Gen. Bradley's prime con-
Germ, after victory, will be maximum
economy Of American lives and blood.
Now that both are famous, striking
parallels are being drawn between the
careers of Dwight David Eisenhower and
Omar Nelson Bradley. They are small
town, middle-class sons of adjacent
States in the Central West, Kansas and
Missouri. Bradley's father was a coun-
try school teacher and Eisenhowers a
%
Both entered military life by accident
Eisenhower because he was few
months too old to matriculate at the
Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Brad
ley because he had no money for college
and was advised by Sunday school
teacher that he could get an education
at West Point free of charge. They
were not merely classmates, but both
played on the varsity eleven, though not
at the same time.
Neither served abroad during World
War I. Eisenhower was in charge Of
training tank troops, and Bradley was
stationed at various posts in Arizona,
Washington and Iowa. Tive spent Is
years." Bradley observed recently, "try-
ing to explain why wasn't overseas in
the last war. Thank goodness, I'll be
spared that this time" Both men are
products not Of the battlefield but of
the Arny's service schools Each went
to North Africa with the permanent
rank Of lieutenant colonel. Both until
then had commanded troops only on
maneuvers, and took over posts of cap
ital authority without having led so
much as platoon under fire. And both
met with spectacular success.
Bradley was born in 1893 on a Ran
dolph County farm, miles west of
Clark, a hamlet of 900. His father, John
Smith Bradley, was devoted woods
man, proud Of an ancestral Bradley who
journeyed westward with Daniel Boone.
Firearms were familiar to the boy from
infancy, and at 10, with shotgun on
shoulder, he began tramping beside his
father to hunt quail and rabbits. He at
tended country school in Clark and then
Higbee, to which the family removed.
He had finished the second year at the
Higbee High School when his father
died, in 1908.
He had applied for West Point to
former Representative w. w. Rucker,
who named him as an alternate. When
the principal failed to meet require
ments, Omar got the appointment. "He
must have won out on grades" declares
his uncle, Street Commissioner Milt
Bradley Of Moberly. "If any Bradley
ever had political pull, never heard
Of It,"
Bradley entered West Point with in
adequate preparation for its special
curriculum, and found the going tough
for two years. But he plodded on to
finish 44th in a class Of 1874. Eisen-
hover, who was more than two years
older, stood 61st. McNarney's number
was Al. Thus neither Of the three
who today cutrank all the others In
the class made the scholastic elite from
which the War Department customarily
draws its engineer officers. They fell
instead into tho middle group from