Evening star., 1951-04-15
Reading and Writing
How Gen. Omar Bradley Talked the War
For "A Soldiers Story, Soon to Appear
By Mory McGrory

Some 80 tons Of documents In
the Pentagon confront the his
torian attempting to reconstruct
the campaigns in Europe during
the last war. This mountain OF
information was scarcely tapped
by Gen. Omar N. Bradley in his
preparations for "a Soldiers
Story" which will be published on
June 18.
1t was largely a telephone war;
for the beloved "GI's general"
according to his wartime aide. 1t.
Col. Chester B. Hansen. who
collaborated with him on the
STORY" The generals personal
records of the fateful events in
which he played so large a part
fill only one filing cabinet.
The story of "a Soldiers Story
goes back five years to 1916. when
the general. deeply enmired in
policy disputes at the Veterans
Administration, which he then
headed. was prevailed upon by his
friend. Time-Life correspondent
and one time Star reporter,
Charles Wertenbaker, to make a
start on his own account Of the
war.
A 70,00o-Word Skeleton.
Wartime memories at that time
constituted q kind Of escape for
the hard-rressed general, and he
set down in longhand a skeleton
of about 10000 words of outline.
Unbeknownst to the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs Of Staff. Col.
Hansen. a former newspaperman,
who had a vague idea of being the
generals Boswell, had kept a war
time dairy Of about 800, 900 words.
With these two outlines and a
wall map to guide them. the gen.
eral and Col. Hansen through the
spring, summer and fall of 1947
sat down Sunday mornings in the
generals home at Fort Meyer and
talked the war" into a recording
machine. The general has q
phenomenal memory for facts.
figures and troop dispositions.
and he talked his thoughts with
great accuracy-and bluntness
when 1t came to personalities
just as they came to him. In 10
hours of recorded conversation. he
dictated a transcript of more than
a million words.
Col. Hansen broke down his
voluminous record into a card
file by subject. and then went to
work on a first draft.
Periodically. the general, hav-
ing refreshed his memory from
his own research with the help of
operational reports and daily
situation maps, would take a
week off and go over the draft
word by word.
Although the book covers the
period from February IL, 1943,
when the general got his march,
ing orders. to May z. 1945. the
manuscript ran to $4,000 words,
which In the final draft was cut
to about half that length. To
smooth over the gaps left by such
severe editing. Col. Hansen last
December holed himself up in a
New Jersey hotel room for three
weeks.
Field Commanders Viewpoint.
Nowhere, says Col. Hansen,
does the general give himself the
benefit of hindsight wisdom. One
of the few, military men whose
motives are never questioned, he
directed his whole effort toward
explaining how war is waged
from the field commanders view
point.
Many important moves were
decided upon in informal confer
ences where no memoranda were
kept.
Often decisions were made during
evenings of bridge when Gen.
Eisenhower would call on Gen.
Bradley and they would lay aside
the cards and talk operations.
"A Soldiers Story" which went
on the presses last Monday, will
be a Book-o the Month Club se-
lection for July. Characteristic
cally. the general has dedicated 1t
to "those soldiers who must often
| m ho G1enAnn S