By Den Ardinger 32° KCCH

The military career of General Omar Bradley covers almost seven decades.  He holds the record for serving the longest period of active duty for anyone in the United States Armed Forces…and he was a Freemason.

Omar Nelson Bradley was born in Randolph County, Missouri, February 12, 1893.  He was the son of schoolteacher John Smith Bradley (1868-1908) and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Hubbard (1875-1931).  Omar always credited his father for his love of books and baseball.

His father died when he was only 15 and shortly afterwards his mother remarried.  He graduated from Moberly High School in 1910 where he was an outstanding student and athlete.  He took the entrance examination for the United States Military Academy at West Point and came in second.  However, the first-place candidate had to drop out, so the appointment fell to Omar in 1911.

While at the Academy, he excelled in baseball where he was both a power hitter and outstanding outfielder.  His class at West Point was later known as the “star class” because 59 of the graduates rose to the rank of general during their careers.

After graduating in 1915 as a Second Lieutenant, he served in the infantry patrolling the Mexican border.  When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he was sent to guard the copper mines in Montana which were of strategic significance.  By the time he was scheduled to go overseas, the war ended. 

He then taught military science before returning to West Point to teach mathematics.  It was while he was an instructor at West Point in 1923 that he became a Mason, being initiated an Entered Apprentice, passed to Fellowcraft, and Raised a Master Mason in West Point Lodge #877 in Highland Falls, New York.  He remained with this Lodge all his life.

He married Mary Quayle and gradually rose through the ranks before World War II.  In the rapid expansion of the Army before the war, he was promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier General (one star) on February 20, 1941, after bypassing the rank of Colonel. In this capacity he commanded the U. S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. One year later he was promoted to the temporary rank of Major General (two stars) and took command of the 82nd Infantry Division (then renamed the 82nd Airborne Division) where he took parachute training. 

His combat career began in French North Africa in 1943.  He was given command of VIII Corps and was General Dwight Eisenhower’s problem solver.  Eisenhower was, by then, Supreme Allied Commander.  Bradley was General George S. Patton’s Deputy.  After capturing over 200,000 German and Italian prisoners in May 1943, Bradley was promoted to Brevet Lieutenant General (three stars) in June.  He then commanded the II Corps during the invasion of Sicily.

In October 1943 Bradley was made Commander in Chief of American Ground forces in England and prepared for the D-Day invasion of France in the spring of 1944.  During Operation Overlord he commanded the American forces going ashore on Omaha and Utah Beaches on June 6th.  In July his forces broke out from the Normandy beachhead and headed toward Germany.

By August 1944, he commanded the 12th Army Group of over 900,000 men.  They consisted of four armies which was the largest group of American soldiers ever under one field commander.  By September the Allies had reached the Siegfried Line.  Not expecting a strong counterattack by the Germans, the Allies were taken off guard in December when the German Army moved west with Bradley’s forces taking the punch of what became the Battle of the Bulge.  The Allies held and pushed the German forces back to where they started.  By March 1945 he was promoted to General (four stars) and the Germans surrendered shortly afterwards.  By VE Day (Victory in Europe) he had 1.3 million men under his command.

After the war ended in 1945, Bradley served for two years as the head of the Veteran’s Administration where he pushed for better care and for educational benefits under the G. I. Bill of Rights.  In 1949, President Truman appointed him the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In 1950 he was promoted to General of the Army and given his fifth star.  He was the last person to achieve this rank.  When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, he was the main policy maker and found the army only a shell of its power five years earlier.

Omar Bradley left military service in 1953 but retained his title as the General of the Army.  He remained active and served in various capacities under different presidents.  His wife, Mary, died of leukemia in 1965 and he remarried to Esther Dora Buhler in 1966.

Bradley died April 8, 1981, in New York City.  He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  He had served the military continuously from August 1, 1911, which gave him 69 years and 8 months of service.  His awards and achievements are many including the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford in 1977 and a postage stamp of him in the Distinguished Soldiers series in 2000.

General Omar Bradley, more than a man, a Mason.