Omar Bradley

Omar Bradley was a United States Army general who became one of the principal American ground commanders in Europe during the Second World War. He commanded the First Army in the Normandy campaign and then the Twelfth Army Group, the largest American field command of the war.

Bradley’s armies fought across France, through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. After the war he became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was promoted to General of the Army, remaining an influential spokesman for conventional military planning in the early Cold War.

In Jeff Shaara’s The Steel Wave, Omar Bradley and Bernard Montgomery prepare the land forces, George S. Patton waits for a command, and Erwin Rommel strengthens the Atlantic Wall while arguing with the German high command over how the beaches should be defended. For broader historical treatment of Omar Bradley, see John Man’s The D-Day Atlas and Saul David’s Tunisgrad.