… on December 20, during Eisenhower's morning staff conference, Ike telephoned Bradley and emphatically stated, "Where is the line you can hold the best and the cheapest? I don't care how far back it is." Bradley was in no position to supply Eisenhower with answers. What had convinced Smith that a changeover was vital was that 12th Army Group had lost communications with First Army for more than forty-eight hours. Moreover, Bradley had no idea whatsoever if Hodges had the situation under control, which — as has been conclusively shown — he did not during the crucial first days of the battle. The truth was that Bradley himself had nothing under control and was in no position to influence the outcome of the battle from his headquarters in Luxembourg. Smith called it "an open-and-shut case.

wrote Carlo d’Este in his biography of Eisenhower.

Tag words: Eisenhower; Bradley; 12th Army Group; First Army; Hodges; Carlo d’Este; Monty; LO’s; Liaison Officers; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Major General Hasbrouck; Fifth Panzer Army; Battle of the Bulge; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Roer dams; Hotel Britannique; Spa; Kay Summersby; Major Hansen; Ernest Hemingway; Patton; Russell Weigley; General Strong; Ardennes; Middleton; Rundstedt; Hitler; EAGLE TAC; Luxembourg; Sibert; Sixth SS Panzer Army; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; Major-General William Kean; Stimson;

On 19 October 1944,

Spaatz flew on to Luxembourg to visit Bradley. Bradley told him he planned to start his big offensive toward the Rhine on November 10. Spaatz wanted it sooner than that. Hitler's jet fighters were appearing in growing force, and they threatened to drive Spaatz's daylight bomber formations from the skies. "To maintain our present air supremacy over the Hun," warned Spaatz, "will cost the strategic air force about forty thousand crew members . . . . So it's essential for the armies to get to the Rhine as quickly as possible so that we can secure additional airfields for our fighters."

David Irving wrote in his book The War Between the Generals.

Tag words: Spaatz; General Bradley; Hitler; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Luftwaffe; Bf 109s; Fw 190s; Messerschmitt 163; Me163;Messerschmitt 262; Me262; Ar 234; Bedell Smith; Battle of the Bulge; Bastogne; Field Marshall Mongomery; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Los; liaison officers; Hodges; 21st Army Group; Eisenhower; Brigadier Williams; Major General Strong; General Simpson; Patton; General Collins; 7th U.S. Armored Division; 106th U.S. Infantry Division; Horrocks; SHAEF; General Middleton;

The Germans had launched their massive Ardennes offensive on the morning of 16th December. Bradley had brushed it off as a spoiling attack.

… by Sunday afternoon, December 17, Bradley had conceded misjudgment in his previous evening's modest estimate of the enemy effort. "This is Rundstedt's all-out attack," Bradley now announced. "Pardon my French — " he said over the situation map, " — I think the situation justifies it — but where in hell has this son of a bitch gotten all his strength?" – Russell Weigley wrote in his book Eisenhower’s Lieutenants. It was a good question.

Tag words: Ardennes offensive; Battle of the Bulge; General Omar Bradley; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; The Morgenthau Plan; Dexter White; Stalin; Churchill; Sean McMeekin; Stalin’s War; Roosevelt; Goebbels; Hitler; Eisenhower; General Marshall; Volksgrenadier divisions; Luftwaffe;

In his book Retreat from Moscow, David Stahel relates:

If the German troops retained a general measure of faith in their commanders, this is not to say it came without qualifications. The most common complaint was the absence of winter clothing, which by early December 1941 was a criticism that had been dragging on for two months. The extent of the problem justified, in the starkest of terms, a questioning of faith in the German leadership.

….

According to Colonel Wilhelm von Rücker, attached to the planning staff of the quartermaster-general's office, "a few hundred additional trains would have had to be sent" to meet the needs of the troops for the coming winter. Not only was there not the transport capacity for winter equipment, but also other high-priority matériel, such as fuel and ammunition, were already failing to arrive in the required quantities, and the quartermaster-general had to have known this.

By November 13 Wagner had had a complete change of heart and acknowledged there were nowhere near enough trains reaching Army Group Center, meaning the urgently requested winter clothing could only be transported to the front at the expense of other supplies

Now I can understand if you’re saying what has this got to do with Bradley, the GI’s General and the war in North Western Europe. I’m going to have to tell you that the answer is everything. Tell me if the American position with the American troops in Europe in late 1944 sounds similar.

Tag words: Retreat from Moscow; David Stahel; Bradley; GI General; Hank Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; ComZ; frostbite; Major General Robert Littlejohn; Eisenhower; Ardennes offensive; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Otto Skorzeny; Patton; 12th Army Group; trench foot;

“He was really a moron”. Which of Eisenhower’s generals said that, and who was he referring to. Stick around and I’ll tell you.

Tag words: Eisenhower; Rick Atkinson; The Guns at Last Light; Bradley; Carlo d’Este; US 12th Army Group; Lt. Gen. Courtney Hicks Hodges; Bedell Smith; Forrest Poague; American First Army; General George S Patton Jr; Geoffrey Perret; There’s a War to be Won; Hürtgen Forest; Life magazine; Wilderness campaign; Argonne campaign; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; 28th Division; the Bloody Bucketeers; Field Marshal Walter Model; Hitler’s Fireman; Major General Dutch Cota; General Gerow; Shermans; Panthers; Panzer IV; Ernest Hemingway; Hank Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars;

If you’ve ever read the Grimms Brothers fairy stories of Hansel and Gretel or Snow White, then you’ll already have a really good feel for the dark, sinister Hürtgen Forest that Omar Bradley’s First Army entered in September 1944. Journalist, William Walton, of Time/Life magazines told its story in the 1stJanuary 1945 issue of Life magazine, under the headline “A Gloomy German Woods Takes Its Place In U.S. History Beside The Wilderness And The Argonne.

This fight is essential in understanding the character and military skills of Omar N. Bradley, and I’m going to start to tell that story right now.

Tag words: Brothers Grimm; Hürtgen Forest; Omar Bradley; US First Army; Time/Life magazines; The Wilderness; The Argonne; David Irving The War Between the Generals; Hank Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; Rick Atkinson; The Guns at Last Light; Roer River; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants;

In this part your going to meet the man who defied Bradley and Patton in Brittany. A man as described by David Irving as literally having a mouthful of steel.

Tag words: Bradley; Patton; Brittany; Brest; David Irving; Troy Middleton; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; Third Army; French Forces of the Interior; 6th Armored Division; Generalleutnant Hermann B. Ramcke; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; American VIII Corps; Montgomery; 29th Division; HMS Warspite; Lieutenant General William H. Simpson; US Ninth Army; Proverbs 16:18; Hank Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; Rick Atkinson; Liberation Trilogy; The Guns at Last Light;

It was Omar Bradley who, during the campaign by Patton’s Third Army in Brittany who said to Troy Middleton, the commander of the VIII Corp who was fretting over Patton’s orders to take Brest as quickly as possible:

Some people are more concerned with the headlines and the news they'll make than the soundness of their tactics. I don't care if we get Brest tomorrow or ten days later. If we cut the peninsula, we'll get it anyhow. But we can't risk a loose hinge.

This indicated a fundamental difference between the way of war conducted by Bradley and Patton, the commander of the Third Army who had been foisted on an unhappy Bradley.

Montgomery, who had been the first to realise that the ports in Brittany no longer mattered in the war being fought against Germany after the collapse of its army after Cobra, didn’t issue an order to Bradley not to send Patton’s entire Army into Brittany to take the ports, but he did make it clear that he thought a single Corp could do the job, and with doubts that even that would be needed. So how did Bradley handle the whole Brittany thing?

Tag words: Omar Bradley; Patton’s Third Army; Troy Middleton; Brest; Brittany; Montgomery; Operation Cobra; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; German Army; Overlord; Normandy; General John Shirley Wood; Tiger Jack; American Rommel; Quiberon Bay; Chateaubriant; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War;