The Art of Manliness - #463： The Friendship, Rivalry, and Leadership of WWII’s 3 Greatest American Generals

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:18.700 eisenhower patten bradley three great u.s generals that led the allies to victory in

00:00:22.960 europe during world war ii but world war ii wasn't the first time these three men met

00:00:26.940 decades before they ford friendships and rivalries with one another that would influence their path

00:00:31.000 to leadership my guest today has written a biography of the complex relationships between

00:00:34.560 these three men and how they impacted the tide of world war ii his name is jonathan jordan and

00:00:38.540 his book is brothers rivals victors eisenhower patten bradley and the partnership that drove

00:00:42.980 the allied conquest of europe we begin a conversation discussing how these three men met eisenhower and

00:00:47.300 bradley who ike called brad at west point eisenhower and patten who ike called pat at camp meade after

00:00:52.920 world war i and bradley and patten a military base in hawaii jonathan then explains the tension that

00:00:57.780 existed between these three officers as each balanced personal career ambitions with the

00:01:01.360 need to work well with others how each man understood the limitations of his fellow leaders

00:01:04.960 and how their friendships made them a stronger team we enter conversation discussing both the

00:01:09.040 leadership weaknesses and the leadership strengths of each individual general after the show is over

00:01:12.920 check out our show notes at aom.is slash brothers victors rivals where you find links to resources

00:01:17.840 where you delve deeper into this topic jonathan joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:21.860 jon jordan welcome to the show thanks for having me brett i'm a big fan of aom's podcasts well i

00:01:38.740 appreciate that so you got a biography it's a okay it's kind of hard this is a history book but it's

00:01:43.420 also a biography it's called brothers rivals victors eisenhower patten bradley in the partnership

00:01:50.020 that drove the allied conquest in europe when i read this book it's really interesting because it's

00:01:54.340 it's a biography because you do do individual biographies about each of these men but it's

00:01:59.500 also interesting because it's a biography about the relationship between these three guys eisenhower

00:02:05.240 patten and bradley what what led you to write about the relationship these three men had during

00:02:10.560 like i guess before the war and during the war yeah it was a long and intriguing relationship

00:02:15.860 between eisenhower and bradley going back to really the summer of 1911 and then eisenhower and patten

00:02:24.180 at the very end of world war one and i didn't set out to write a triography so to speak i mean i i began

00:02:31.980 reading about these guys because as a kid growing up in the 1970s dad was off flying planes in the air

00:02:38.760 force and uh for better or for worse i spent a lot of time watching television we only had four

00:02:44.260 channels back then and there were a lot of these world war ii movies that were very popular and so

00:02:50.520 i'd see these heroic guys like like patten or nimitz or mcarthur and as i got a little bit older i

00:02:57.080 wondered what what were these guys really like when they weren't heroically standing on the bridge of

00:03:02.520 the uss yorktown you know watching japanese planes get shot down uh when they went back to their

00:03:07.780 offices were they jealous were they scared who did they blow off steam to what happens when they

00:03:14.240 you know take their helmet off and put their feet up on the desk and so i started reading about

00:03:18.920 eisenhower and patten and then then bradley after that and realized that there are some very fine

00:03:24.660 biographies written about each of them but what seemed to be escaping the story was their relationship

00:03:31.240 with each other and while we're not always necessarily defined by our relationships

00:03:37.300 relationships certainly do affect who we are and and how we behave and i found out that this long and

00:03:44.320 uh sort of evolving relationship between these three generals had a uh strong impact on the way world

00:03:50.860 war ii played out in western europe well so let's start talking about the relationships so eisenhower and

00:03:56.300 patten let's talk about that relationship as you said they were friends before world war ii right

00:04:01.420 after world war ii how did that relationship start and what was the attraction between the two guys

00:04:07.280 you know eisenhower and patten were in some ways kind of the odd couple you wouldn't normally expect to

00:04:13.920 see them in the same circles together because their backgrounds were very different patten grew up

00:04:19.440 in a small wealthy family in southern california never had to work outside the home he had

00:04:25.200 one sister who in a sort of twist of history dated general blackjack pershing and almost married him

00:04:32.620 but patten had a deep sense of family history social connections and he also grew up kind of as a

00:04:39.960 an introvert eisenhower on the other hand came from a middle class family from middle america kansas

00:04:46.760 there were seven boys in his family no girls he had a very strong sense of community unlike patten

00:04:53.760 and while he was a tough kid he also learned to rely on allies like his older brothers

00:04:58.900 when dealing with the neighborhood bullies so so their their personalities grew up very differently

00:05:05.180 they both went to west point and then after graduation their careers were very different

00:05:10.220 patten had a meteoric career in the army after west point he became the army's master of the sword he

00:05:16.720 was an excellent fencer he redesigned the cavalry saver saver represented the united states the 1912

00:05:23.140 olympics in stockholm in the modern pentathlon he finished fifth then he joined general blackjack

00:05:29.260 pershing's expedition against pancho via in mexico when he went off to world war one he commanded a

00:05:35.260 tank battalion but on the first day of the muse argonne offensive mauser bullet found its way to him

00:05:41.060 and put him out of action so he missed most of the first world war now eisenhower was a he was a team

00:05:49.420 sport guy he loved baseball especially loved football he was a small-time football coach because

00:05:56.000 during uh during his playing career at west point he had been in some big games against jim thorpe

00:06:02.040 who had played for the carlisle indian school then he this was his passion team sports and especially

00:06:08.620 football but he but he had a knee injury while he was at west point and that put him on the sidelines

00:06:14.420 and essentially forced him to become a cheerleader a manager and a coach and so after graduating from

00:06:22.020 west point eisenhower being kind of a small-time football coach at these little army posts and that

00:06:29.020 developed his training skills he ended up missing world war one because the u.s army didn't want him

00:06:35.900 going off to fight the kaiser that he wanted other men to fight the kaiser and so ike ended up

00:06:43.080 training men with the u.s tank corps in camp meet maryland and after world war one tanks is really

00:06:50.520 what brought the two men together they both developed their initial professional interest

00:06:54.800 based on this new snorting mechanical beast the army called tanks and they developed these theories

00:07:01.640 about what a tank could do in the next war yeah yeah and we kind of reiterate some of the things

00:07:07.260 you talked about these guys their personalities so patten yeah i think a lot of people he was a

00:07:11.800 individual sport guy you kind of reiterate that throughout the book that he didn't really do team

00:07:16.480 sports he was and i thought was interesting too you said he was an introvert but this guy was larger

00:07:20.800 than life he did enjoy holding the limelight whenever he could get it he did um he he used to say i'd rather

00:07:28.540 be looked at than overlooked and to patent in some ways there is to some extent no such thing as bad

00:07:35.900 publicity at least growing up he would bring attention to himself at least in eisenhower's view

00:07:41.780 through crude and obscene language he'd like to as ike once said to explode a few rounds of profanity and

00:07:48.580 polite society and if nobody paid any attention he'd just kind of move on but if somebody noted it or

00:07:55.560 reacted to it he would keep doing more of the same throughout his life general george marshall's wife

00:08:01.380 katherine marshall and then patent's father and ike eisenhower would tell patent over and over you've got

00:08:08.240 to watch what you say you've got to have the gravitas of a senior leader and that that penchant for

00:08:15.080 attracting uh sometimes bad publicity like nails to a magnet was to dog patent throughout his career

00:08:22.880 patent of course could pay for any mistakes he made while the war was going on and while he was

00:08:28.420 generating victories but in the absence of battles to fight and and and win it was a uh it could be a

00:08:36.320 problem for him and it as it is a problem for any modern general yeah and we'll talk more about that as

00:08:41.680 we get into world war ii and we talk about how eisenhower's and patent's relationship developed then so

00:08:46.760 let's talk about uh this this love affair for the tank so both these guys thought the tank was the future

00:08:52.080 of warfare but that budded heads or went against like army doctrine at the time correct yeah after

00:08:59.780 the first world war and again remember uh patent had fought in that some eisenhower did not the the

00:09:07.140 two men looked at tanks as being some new a new device that could basically take the role of the shock

00:09:13.340 cavalry from the medieval times the the armored horse it could drive deep into the enemy's rear echelons

00:09:19.520 it had a lot of shock power and that went against army doctrine at the time which based on the first

00:09:26.620 world war said the tank is only there to support the infantrymen and if the infantrymen can only move

00:09:33.280 at a four or five mile an hour pace then the tank doesn't need to go any faster than that so they were

00:09:39.340 kind of heretics for a while and that uh heresy between patent eisenhower and a few other of the the real

00:09:46.760 tank aficionados was something that brought the two men very close and kind of created a relationship

00:09:53.000 that lasted almost to the end of their lives so as you said these two guys were pretty much

00:09:58.180 completely different eisenhower more about alliances working with others patent wanted to be the star

00:10:04.380 individual an individualist but as you're talking about the book both these guys missed the war

00:10:09.920 world war one did they talk about that and did they did they think that their chance at i mean

00:10:16.860 were they very conscious about wanting to do something great like they wanted they both wanted

00:10:20.520 to be great generals and did they talk about that uh after world one like you know are we going to get

00:10:24.780 our chance yeah they did uh patent and eisenhower when they were stationed together at camp mead

00:10:31.180 used to talk about uh not if there's another war and of course world war one was called the war to end

00:10:37.540 all world our wars but they would talk about when the war came and what would be their role and they

00:10:43.680 used to exchange letters one point later on patent wrote eisenhower and said in the next war i'll be

00:10:50.080 the stonewall jackson and you can be the robert e lee ike you do the big planning and uh you let me go in

00:10:55.920 and shoot up the enemy so they they believed that there would be another war but like many officers

00:11:02.520 they were kind of let down patent actually went into a sort of depression when he came back to

00:11:07.740 the united states because he felt that his great role was to be a great general eisenhower sort of

00:11:15.420 had that feeling though not as intensely as patent experienced it because eisenhower was what you'd call

00:11:21.720 kind of a late bloomer he he became an intellectual on military matters as his relationship with patent

00:11:29.780 went along and then as he uh developed his own mind through through other mentors in his career

00:11:36.620 but uh the two men at first saw other other folks coming back from world war one with chest fulls of

00:11:43.240 medals and promotions and uh there was definitely a sense that uh they had been shortchanged so i thought

00:11:49.460 that was interesting too that patent even before world war ii kind of predicted what the relationship

00:11:55.660 would be like in a future war right because that's how it ended up patent patent was the stonewall

00:12:00.660 jackson and eisenhower was sort of the big picture general lee guy exactly and uh i think i think they

00:12:06.780 both had a sense even early on that eisenhower was a guy whose mind could was broader than patents

00:12:13.340 patent loved battles and he was kind of very very single-minded in that regard as eisenhower developed in

00:12:21.320 the 1920s he went to leavenworth for where the commanded general staff school was went to the army war

00:12:27.600 college and he developed a broad sense of what a war in a democracy requires he learned about industrial

00:12:36.140 mobilization he wrote a paper on how to develop a citizen army based around the national guard and how

00:12:42.660 you would do a mass mobilization if the country needed it when eisenhower was stationed in washington in

00:12:48.800 the late 20s and early 30s he learned something about politics and how the war department operated

00:12:54.640 and he had mentors that patent didn't have and he had a facility for learning from generals from

00:13:02.220 sergeants from industrialists how a big war would be run and how we would run it with allies whereas

00:13:08.860 patent uh consistently came back to the theme of i want to command armies in a battle and george thought of

00:13:15.680 himself as a battlefield captain as opposed to a sort of chairman of the board that eisenhower became

00:13:21.560 so in this sense they were they were brothers like they had an appreciation for their differences

00:13:26.500 but at the same time there's that rival component and it seems like both of them even early on in the

00:13:31.800 relationship it kind of had a contempt for each other as well for their differences during the the

00:13:36.740 20s and 30s when they didn't have to run into each other too much they they both knew each other's

00:13:42.260 limitations but they were also good friends the families had spent time together at camp mead

00:13:48.240 the eisenhower uh toddler was doted on by patton's daughters beatrice patton and and mamie eisenhower

00:13:56.360 knew each other so they were social friends they knew they could count on each other but they were

00:14:00.660 cognizant of each man's limitations and the the the way those limitations brushed up against their their

00:14:08.320 personal friendship grew into sharper focus the further up in the command chain they went

00:14:13.400 so let's talk about eisenhower and bradley so you mentioned they got they got to know each other

00:14:19.300 1911 at west point how did that happen they just go to school together they playing football what was

00:14:24.820 going on there you know you know they both met each other about the same time they put on their cadet

00:14:30.440 uniforms in august of 1911 they were both fairly tall for their age so they were assigned to the same

00:14:37.460 cadet company they became very good friends and it was mostly through their love of sports

00:14:42.380 omar bradley uh liked like ike liked football but his real passion was on the diamond not the gridiron

00:14:51.180 bradley held the record for the longest west point throw for a long time throughout his college career

00:14:57.160 he swung his louisville slugger to a 333 batting average he was actually a little bit better student and

00:15:03.580 cadet than eisenhower he he outranked eisenhower their senior year but their love of team sports

00:15:09.940 really cemented that kind of friendship the other thing that's uh that they had in common after

00:15:15.340 graduation is that bradley like eisenhower totally missed out on the first world war he was stationed

00:15:21.460 with an infantry regiment in montana and iowa basically spent the war guarding a copper mine and

00:15:28.320 about the time his regiment was was ready to ship out to europe the bells rang out in uh in celebration

00:15:35.540 of the armistice so both uh ike and brad thought that their failure to get into world war ii had

00:15:41.800 damaged if not possibly ruined their careers they they thought that for a little while and tell us a

00:15:47.400 bit more about bradley's personality because he is the general that you know he's one of the greats but

00:15:51.120 he unlike patten or eisenhower people sort of i don't know ignore him or glance over him yeah he was

00:15:57.500 the kind of guy who would never call attention to himself bradley grew up in a very poor part of

00:16:02.620 central missouri his father died when brad was 14 and he had to shoot small game in the woods to

00:16:09.620 sell to his neighbors to help make ends meet his mother had to take in borders so they weren't

00:16:15.500 prominent either socially or economically the way uh eisenhower's family was well known in abilene kansas

00:16:22.540 and the pattens were a wealthy family when brad was 17 he had he was involved in a skating accident

00:16:29.660 that basically smashed up his teeth and they didn't have the money to get his teeth repaired and and so

00:16:35.920 he was always self-conscious about his smile and if you ever see pictures of omar bradley uh if he's

00:16:41.940 smiling he usually keeps his lips together so with that kind of background omar bradley never developed

00:16:48.820 the social confidence of a patten who was wealthy and well connected or even an eisenhower who grew up

00:16:55.260 with a strong social net and while that's something that uh you know as a kid you expect maybe will

00:17:01.260 grow out of a little bit and and bradley did grow out of that some it came into sharper focus when he

00:17:08.220 moved up to the very high levels of the army's command structure and had to work with the british many of

00:17:14.080 whom were well educated they spoke french they were very self socially self-confident and because of

00:17:20.600 that bradley was more the kind of guy who was comfortable teaching teaching math teaching uh his

00:17:28.100 his uh junior officers about a plan he had put together he was more of the professorial type who

00:17:34.860 kind of liked to stay out of the limelight and he was a team player a big time team player

00:17:39.980 absolutely uh bradley believed that i mean that that was that was what he loved in uh west point

00:17:46.860 and growing up he was a baseball player he believed there was a time for a certain amount of individual

00:17:51.720 accomplishment but it all had to be within the framework of a team and that really came into

00:17:57.960 sharp focus uh once uh the stakes became high when when the the three men were commanding multiple

00:18:04.420 divisions and there were things going on in a very big you know on a big scale in western europe uh so

00:18:11.840 bradley's teams team orientation served him very well and and it was reflected later on because he he

00:18:18.980 grew up as the kind of general who relied on his staff members to do a lot of the work he wasn't the

00:18:25.060 type to insert himself except in in fairly isolated instances if his staff told him that something was

00:18:32.880 going on or that something needed to be done he generally took their recommendations because he

00:18:37.760 trusted them so let's talk about pat and bradley when did they first meet and start working together

00:18:42.820 was it before the war did they their relationship start their relationship start when world war ii

00:18:48.060 started well brett prior to world war ii the army was fairly small after uh 1920 we demobilized the

00:18:55.680 world war one army so the officer corps even in the days before emails and texts and the internet

00:19:01.880 they were able to keep up with each other reasonably well and pat and bradley first met each other

00:19:07.660 in the mid-1920s when they were both stationed with the hawaii division pat and was organizing a trap

00:19:13.700 shooting team and a major named omar bradley showed up to try out for it now brad was one of the army's

00:19:20.460 crack shots with the springfield rifle he was just he he went through his life being one of their their

00:19:26.300 better uh rifle and shotgun men and bradley uh was a little bit nervous when he first started trying

00:19:33.000 out he missed the first two clays but then after that he hit the next 23 in a row and pat and was

00:19:39.440 watching bradley and just kind of shrugged and said bradley remembered it with sort of a condescending

00:19:44.680 tone okay i think you'll do and that was sort of their introduction and after that brad and pat

00:19:52.660 never really hit it off socially because they just ran in very different cliques but and they had

00:19:59.000 very different professional differences pat and what grew up in the cavalry and that was sort of how

00:20:06.840 he thought of things a horse of course is a big beautiful animal and it's very strong and powerful

00:20:13.100 but it eats a lot of food and it can get shot up on a battlefield if it's left in one place too long

00:20:20.160 and pat and pat's mentality was that an army is a lot like a horse you have to keep it moving you

00:20:26.820 have to drive toward the enemy rear or it's going to consume its supplies and get shot up very quickly

00:20:32.440 so to pat and attack attack attack was his his method of operating bradley professionally came up

00:20:40.920 through the infantry and as an infantryman brad had a foot soldier's appreciation for the vulnerability

00:20:47.700 of the human body under fire so brad took the approach of of careful planning he didn't like

00:20:55.380 to take unnecessary risks he liked to keep his flanks secured and keep good lines of supply

00:21:01.220 and he always wanted to make sure that there was a solid plan before he moved too quickly so the the

00:21:08.440 personal differences and the professional differences between infantryman omar bradley and horse soldier

00:21:15.940 george patten were other dividing lines between the two's personality and this would be you'd see

00:21:22.860 this throughout the the rest throughout world war ii let's talk about that so world war ii starts

00:21:27.100 how did these three men connect there was it just by chance that they all got assigned to europe or was

00:21:33.300 that sort of the way they were you know started their military career was destined that these three men

00:21:38.040 would be working together you know it was the personal connections between the three prior to world war ii

00:21:44.840 that had a huge impact on their working together once the shooting started

00:21:50.480 before world war ii in 1940 to 1941 eisenhower had come back from the philippines he had been working

00:21:58.240 as a staffer for macarthur he was kind of burned out on staff work he really wanted to get into the field

00:22:04.720 and patten had become the the nation's preeminent tank division commander and eisenhower was basically

00:22:12.560 begging patten for a job with his with his tank as a regimental commander in patten's tank division

00:22:19.260 and throughout their their correspondence patten said look i'd like to get you in any capacity as i can

00:22:27.660 ike you're a smart guy i'd love to have you as my chief of staff but if you want to take a chance

00:22:32.980 then maybe the army will put you in as a regimental commander under me and i'll be happy to do it

00:22:38.680 because you'll be valuable but the army had different thoughts and and the army saw eisenhower's

00:22:45.040 ability to plan and general george marshall pulled eisenhower from uh from a post in san antonio texas

00:22:53.060 up to washington and said i need you to help me plan the invasion of north africa well when eisenhower was

00:23:00.020 doing that he was in close proximity to marshall and one of the guys he wanted as uh his horseman

00:23:07.040 in this uh three ring circus of north africa was george patten because eisenhower trusted him

00:23:13.340 when eisenhower brought over uh patten into north africa the allies invaded we were stuck in tunisia

00:23:23.440 for a while and uh kind of the beginning of the movie patten with george c scott starts out with

00:23:29.620 patten coming over to sort of take over things in tunisia and one of the people who was hanging around

00:23:36.440 the american headquarters in tunisia was omar bradley bradley had been sent from the war department

00:23:43.440 to serve as eisenhower's eyes and ears among the tunisian forces and uh eisenhower loved to have

00:23:51.740 bradley back with him because he trusted uh trusted bradley and patten knew bradley and said look instead

00:23:58.680 of having you as ike's spy i want you as my deputy commander and so that's how that personal

00:24:04.640 relationship that went back to the 20s and even the 19 teens came back around full circle with

00:24:12.000 eisenhower moving up to being the supreme commander uh patten as the senior army commander and then

00:24:19.860 bradley working under patten as his understudy essentially we're gonna take a quick break for

00:24:24.080 your word from our sponsors and now back to the show so that i mean it's interesting because

00:24:29.720 you mentioned there in the beginning before world war ii started eisenhower was wanting to work under

00:24:36.680 patten but in eisenhower ended up being patten's boss and so that was kind of interesting like

00:24:41.480 tension throughout the war both all three of these men were ambitious they wanted to leave a mark in

00:24:48.320 their military career and they wanted to you know gain rank so what was that tension like when you know

00:24:54.880 say patten was like okay yeah i come work for me but then ike ended up being patten's boss or bradley

00:25:01.180 ended up being you know working under patten or then bradley you know was patten's boss how did what

00:25:06.460 was that tension like throughout world war ii in eisenhower's case it worked out pretty well because

00:25:13.340 i had a very different role from patten's patten's was to was to capture an area to destroy an army it

00:25:20.880 was he had specific missions to accomplish eisenhower had to sort of work in a supervisory

00:25:26.940 role so they were able to get along pretty well but there was always that army chain of command that

00:25:33.820 was that they couldn't escape from occasionally eisenhower would tell patten look you're you're

00:25:41.000 shooting off at the mouth too much you're ruining your credibility by acting like you're just spouting

00:25:46.860 off when you and i both know you've thought about these things but you say them in a flippant way

00:25:52.200 so you need to you need to work work on that work on your approach have some more gravitas work as

00:25:59.420 work on your image and patten groused about that he thought eisenhower was kind of getting a little

00:26:05.980 bit big for his britches he wrote his wife beatrice that he's patten said i think i could do a better job

00:26:12.880 as supreme commander but i certainly don't want the job so you know that relationship was always

00:26:19.680 going to be a little bit tense but it also had some benefits because later on when patten got into

00:26:26.400 trouble for some things he had done or said eisenhower would be there to protect him because

00:26:31.980 he understood patten's strengths and wanted to keep patten in the fight he would also uh as he as

00:26:38.160 eisenhower told general george marshall when it came to controlling patten and tempering some of

00:26:44.040 his more damaging uh attributes i can be rougher with patten than anybody else could without my

00:26:51.300 having to ask for them to be fired and sent home i can because of our friendship i can uh give him

00:26:57.280 sort of the straight scoop yeah and i mean there was some definite like really you know eisenhower given

00:27:02.520 patten big time straight scoops there's that one moment i think was it after the instant where

00:27:06.960 patten slapped the the guy in the hospital and he was pretty much on the chopping block and

00:27:12.940 eisenhower summoned him to the office and basically said look i'm gonna give you one last chance and

00:27:18.620 patten just started crying gave eisenhower a big hug yeah yeah eisenhower had done that a number of

00:27:25.480 times and he had kind of a standard procedure for what he called jacking up george patten patten had

00:27:31.520 slapped a couple of enlisted men in two different hospitals in sicily whom he thought were malingering

00:27:38.180 the idea of post-traumatic stress wasn't really a concept that patten understood and so that got

00:27:44.440 him in a lot of trouble eisenhower went to bat with patten the newspapers were going to report that

00:27:50.440 and basically sink patten's career and eisenhower sat down with the journalist and said look i'm not

00:27:56.920 going to censor any story you choose to write but i do want you to know that patten is very very

00:28:02.300 valuable to the allied war effort we don't have very many generals like him so you can write the

00:28:08.380 story but i want you to know that it's going to be damaging and eisenhower had such a good way with

00:28:14.200 the press and in the press were very patriotic people they considered themselves americans first and

00:28:20.420 journalists second and they said eisenhower if you tell us that it's going to hurt the war effort for us

00:28:25.940 to print this story about patten slapping people around then we'll not only bury the story we'll

00:28:32.000 deny it existed and so eisenhower saved patten's scalp that time then uh about six months later patten

00:28:40.300 got into into trouble again he had made some comments about after the war the americans and the english would

00:28:47.280 rule the world he apparently said and the russians but the reporter who was listening to him didn't pick up

00:28:55.200 that part of the uh the comment and uh created a big uproar in the american newspapers and again

00:29:02.480 eisenhower had to had to basically put george up on the scaffold put his head down on the block and

00:29:09.180 then then give him a reprieve of execution and he could do that because he recognized patten's value

00:29:15.700 to the team so you know throughout the war these guys remained friends whenever they would get together

00:29:21.820 they'd have these you know they'd just stay up late into the night and early morning drinking and just

00:29:27.020 talking about the war and just other things but as you mentioned earlier the relationship started to

00:29:33.600 change and those differences those acknowledgements of the limitations each men had became more focused

00:29:39.880 so how did that relationship changed was there a moment when you know eisenhower and patten's friendship

00:29:47.100 ended and it was just basically a professional relationship yeah there were a couple of flash

00:29:52.260 points in their relationship and it morphed almost not not just because of of the positions they held but

00:29:59.820 also the jobs they were forced to do in western europe in 1944 and 1945 eisenhower was job was to look

00:30:09.240 out for the the entire allied force and that include the british the canadians a lot of people other than

00:30:15.340 just the americans and uh his friend omar bradley as much of a team player as bradley was

00:30:21.500 bradley always had a little bit of professional jealousy or at least some professional tension

00:30:28.080 with not so much eisenhower but with bradley's natural rival british general bernard montgomery who

00:30:36.340 was at the same level basically as as omar bradley and so when eisenhower would do something that

00:30:43.240 the two men felt favored the british they would get together they'd grouse about ike how he was he

00:30:49.020 was uh he basically gone native with the british and that rubbed in in omar bradley's craw for a bit

00:30:56.440 and it really threw out the the campaign through the fall of 1944 and a flash point came up and it was

00:31:04.780 it was really something that was a a harsh blow to their relationship during the time of the battle of

00:31:10.820 the bulge now in december 1944 omer bradley's first u.s army was hit in the center of its line by a

00:31:19.800 surprise attack from the germans the papers called it the battle of the bulge because it it drove back

00:31:25.520 the american lines and it was it was a big blow to bradley's prestige it was it was a bloody affair for

00:31:31.720 the americans and because bradley's headquarters was south of the bulge but his main armies were north

00:31:39.720 of the bulge eisenhower took two of bradley's three armies first and the ninth u.s armies commanded by

00:31:47.420 generals hodges and and general simpson and gave those to bernard montgomery and that infuriated

00:31:54.840 bradley he called up eisenhower and he said ike if you're going to take my armies away from me i can't

00:32:01.740 be responsible for this battle i resign and eisenhower who kind of sensed that his old friend was blowing

00:32:08.800 off steam said brad your resignation doesn't mean anything to me you're going to continue to do

00:32:13.820 your job and he was able to placate bradley a bit he had winston churchill say some good things about

00:32:20.720 bradley in the house of commons and eventually bradley was able to get his armies back but eisenhower did

00:32:27.060 something he knew would infuriate his old friend because he felt that was what victory needed during that

00:32:34.020 time it was a very tough blow to their personal friendship but sometimes the guy at the top has to

00:32:39.960 make those decisions with patten eisenhower kept a pretty good relationship throughout the war but

00:32:47.440 then after the war patten's mouth was getting him into trouble that he didn't have any victories to

00:32:53.280 offset and in october of 1945 after the war it ended patten made some comments about being soft on the

00:33:01.560 nazis and hard on the communists and papers again got in an uproar and eisenhower very uh very sadly

00:33:09.580 had to fire his his friend patten he relieved him from command of the third u.s army and that really

00:33:16.460 ended their relationship as friends and eisenhower hated to be the one holding the axe but he felt that

00:33:23.700 that was what the allies needed in the interest of political harmony how did uh patten and brad's

00:33:29.740 relationship change throughout the war you know brett that was an interesting uh kind of dynamic because

00:33:35.940 bradley started out his fighting career in the second world war as patten's understudy in tunisia

00:33:43.080 then they moved over to the invasion of sicily and patten was the seventh u.s army commander

00:33:48.880 bradley again was working underneath patten patten was only interested in the attack in the tactics

00:33:55.440 and not too interested in things like how could brad's forces get air cover and air support and

00:34:01.940 what about the communication lines and how do we get supplies to to omar bradley's men and bradley

00:34:08.780 found more and more things that he just didn't like about pattens management style and those really got

00:34:15.300 under his under his collar and when bradley came back during a uh during a short leave to the united

00:34:23.200 states he spent a lot of time with general marshall talking about the bad things that patten was doing

00:34:28.960 overseas and it didn't really change what happened with patten but it did make both eisenhower and

00:34:37.720 marshall believe that maybe patten wasn't the guy to lead the invasion of northwest europe during

00:34:43.240 operation overlord the big d-day invasion maybe we ought to use patten in in a striking role as kind of a

00:34:51.220 cut and thrust cavalry type but let's let omar bradley start the uh invasion for the americans

00:34:58.820 but it was interesting too so there was that you know bradley i don't know sort of resented patten for

00:35:05.160 his differences but at the same time both patten and bradley had a disdain for eisenhower's you know

00:35:12.640 what they called his cozying up with the british they didn't think he was american enough so they had

00:35:17.060 that thing in common yeah exactly they they both had kind of a common enemy in omar bradley i'm sorry

00:35:24.980 in uh bernard montgomery monty was a very selfish general he was the type of person that not just

00:35:32.060 americans disliked some of his worst critics were the british air and naval commanders under eisenhower's

00:35:39.940 supreme command and during the sicily invasion patten and montgomery were equals montgomery ran the

00:35:48.560 british eighth army patten ran the american seventh army and so they had this rivalry there they always

00:35:54.380 were worried about the british getting more credit and belittling the americans and they felt the

00:36:00.160 americans had a right to show what they could do then when we get to northwestern europe in the battles

00:36:07.580 for france and germany now bradley and montgomery are on an equal footing and it was bradley who was

00:36:15.380 grousing about montgomery and ike's pro-britishness and while bradley and ike always had their friendship

00:36:21.920 and that never really changed that much until the at least until the the uh battle of the bulge

00:36:28.640 both i both patten and bradley sort of had this common foe that they could grouse about

00:36:34.820 with each other without having to worry whether that was gonna be a you know something that they

00:36:41.200 would differ about later they both had a sort of a common enemy so how do you think these three

00:36:46.700 men's relationships like you know because it was it's really interesting because it was like you know

00:36:50.800 there's bradley and patten teaming up against eisenhower in some instances but then eisenhower

00:36:56.440 they're all working together how do you think that relationship influenced the war i mean it was it

00:37:02.140 if it weren't for these three guys being together do you think things would have ended up differently

00:37:06.460 i know that's kind of hard to guess yeah yeah i mean even in a what-if scenario i think if you look

00:37:13.260 back to what eisenhower thought and wrote after the war about his different generals he saw patten as

00:37:20.960 being one of america's greatest pursuit generals ever kind of like napoleon's marshal murat just a guy

00:37:27.600 who would who would overcome any obstacle and chase the enemy down never give him rest and hound him

00:37:34.360 and so when when looking at what we ought to do to to uh invade hitler's fortress europe eisenhower thought

00:37:42.260 of patten as the kind of guy who we should who we shouldn't put into a static fight we we can't let have

00:37:49.840 him we don't want him as a close-in slugger we want him as somebody who can go tear into the enemy

00:37:55.340 so the question was who would be our close-in slugger and eisenhower believed that omar bradley

00:38:02.460 was the right type for that the the thing that their relationships did was give them a good picture

00:38:09.980 of each other's strengths and weaknesses and so eisenhower would be able to tell general marshall

00:38:16.060 back in washington patten is the right guy for for the role of a deep pursuit and patten did that when

00:38:23.540 he uh charged through the loire valley charged up to the seine river helped enable the capture of

00:38:29.660 paris he was the kind of guy who we want in that role and omar bradley is the one who we want for a

00:38:36.520 slugfest whether it's in the along the siegfried line of of germany whether it's in the hedgerow country

00:38:42.880 of normandy eisenhower said i trust brad to be the right guy with the right balance to be able to

00:38:49.600 get the job done so this is a biography of relationships but this is also you know three

00:38:56.060 separate biographies of three great leaders i like talking about what do you think are the big

00:39:00.860 leadership lessons we can take from each of these guys you know like what they did well and what did

00:39:05.720 they do poorly so let's start with eisenhower yeah with eisenhower brett one of the best leadership

00:39:12.000 lessons is that once you've got a cause that you can believe in that you can put your heart into

00:39:17.080 it's important to subordinate yourself to the greater good eisenhower had plenty of times when

00:39:24.380 he would come back infuriated red in the face swearing up a cloud of cuss words and he could cuss as well

00:39:31.220 as as patten could and over omar brad i'm sorry over uh general montgomery montgomery was just the kind

00:39:39.220 of guy who would infuriate people and eisenhower time and again subordinated his temper he he

00:39:46.940 played nicely with montgomery and and supported him wholeheartedly when he felt that that was what

00:39:52.860 was necessary for victory i think another lesson from eisenhower is that leadership comes in many

00:40:00.080 forms ike always wanted to be the field general he wanted to be a guy kind of like patten who

00:40:05.780 would get out and uh and and could could direct a battle but what he learned over his career is that

00:40:12.900 sometimes what we're good at and sometimes what we want to do are two different things and eisenhower

00:40:19.520 learned that while he may have envisioned a general as a person who points to a spot on a map and says

00:40:26.180 we attack here he learned that there are different forms of leadership and his had to be the type of

00:40:32.220 leader who was a conciliator who could understand the problems that the navy that the air force that the

00:40:39.120 logistical people that the civilian infrastructure had and he could make sure that everybody was happy

00:40:45.060 enough to to play together and could get what they needed to get the job done eisenhower was basically

00:40:51.980 the the type who today we would see as uh like a chairman of a big fortune 50 company and he had a skill

00:40:59.620 set that the other two didn't have and what about patent with patent there are a couple of uh a couple of

00:41:07.300 lessons here that sort of get overlooked in this kind of two-dimensional character we have that uh is

00:41:13.040 is really marked by the way george c scott portrayed him in the the 1970 film the first one is that to be

00:41:20.900 successful you've got to have a lot of depth you've really got to you you've really got to to put your

00:41:27.880 your your thoughts your your mind your reading into what you're doing uh patent we don't really see

00:41:35.200 this much in in either the movie patent or uh you know kind of our popular image of him but he was

00:41:40.440 very much an intellectual he read a lot of history he incorporated historical lessons into what he would

00:41:47.500 do the plans he would make when he would he was the type of guy who when driving down the countryside

00:41:52.640 in a car he would look out at the terrain and think how would i defend that how would i attack that

00:41:57.220 patent had an awful lot of intellectual depth that that underlay the uh the dashing things he did and

00:42:04.820 the things we remember him for the relief of bastone the conquest of messina and sicily and so on

00:42:09.920 but the other lesson from patent is kind of a negative one and that's that you can have a lot

00:42:15.860 of depth but if you don't portray that yourself as as someone with that depth if you don't project that

00:42:22.860 depth then it can get lost in your message and time and time again patent would have problems with

00:42:30.180 what he would say that would get in the way of his message great example of that is when when

00:42:37.500 eisenhower bradley and patent were trying to figure out what to do with with the battle of the bulge how

00:42:43.440 to respond to the germans well uh when he got to patent eisenhower said george what what can you do

00:42:50.200 we'd like to make an attack north from your sector how soon can you attack and patent said

00:42:56.360 i can move in three days with three divisions well everybody in the room knew that you couldn't

00:43:02.720 really do that on the fly you just you there were too many plans that had to be set you had to figure

00:43:08.080 out road networks and who got to use them you had to stockpile supplies everybody knew that patent

00:43:14.040 was just spouting off about how soon he could get to bastone and and save the 101st airborne that was

00:43:20.940 hold up there against the germans but what they didn't realize is that before patent had come to

00:43:27.000 meet with eisenhower he had talked it over with his staff he said let's come up with contingency plans

00:43:32.720 and he did an awful lot of groundwork there that the other people in the room didn't know about the

00:43:38.080 british and eisenhower's other staffers and so when patent sort of popped off a what looked like a

00:43:44.960 flippant remark it undercut the fact that he had done a lot of homework before giving that answer

00:43:50.660 and so projecting that kind of of seriousness is something that uh that that hampered patent's

00:43:57.660 effectiveness as as brilliant as he was as a field commander and what about omar bradley what lessons

00:44:03.180 could we take from him with bradley one of the best lessons is that once you get a team of smart

00:44:08.860 people together you have to trust them to some extent the high point of bradley's career was

00:44:14.520 operation cobra the allies after d-day you know we think of the longest day and and uh saving private

00:44:21.060 ryan we see that heroic struggle to get across the beaches but once we were across the beaches we were

00:44:27.740 stuck in this hedgerow country of normandy and we we couldn't figure out a way to get out the germans

00:44:33.580 were just defending too tenaciously and bradley came up with this idea for a breakout and before he

00:44:41.600 unveiled that uh as a plan he uh he talked it over with his staff he talked it over with people he

00:44:48.420 trusted and once he was sure of it he prepared a very short plan it was only one page long and it

00:44:55.440 had a big diagram and basically said here's what we're going to do and he trusted the people he was

00:45:00.960 working with to understand the plan and to execute and one of omar bradley's strengths throughout his

00:45:07.520 life was his ability to put together a great team and let them do their jobs what do you think his

00:45:12.840 weaknesses were i think bradley's greatest weakness was his inability to assert himself he would

00:45:20.260 oftentimes kind of let events go a little bit further along than he would have liked uh in the

00:45:27.160 case of his armies being moved over to general montgomery during the battle of the bulge he sort of

00:45:33.000 heard rumblings about that and he didn't get out in front he didn't recognize the threat it's it's

00:45:37.780 almost like what in modern parlance we might talk about the ooda loop observe orient decide and act

00:45:44.280 he was a little bit slow to get to that when dealing with a uh a threat from within if eisenhower was

00:45:51.020 going to cut his supplies or move armies to somebody else bradley didn't didn't assert himself as

00:45:57.940 quickly as i think he wished he had in hindsight we didn't talk about eisenhower weaknesses what do you

00:46:02.940 think his leadership foibles were you know eisenhower was a is a tough guy to be too critical of the big

00:46:09.680 criticism leveled against him by montgomery as well as many americans including american historians

00:46:15.400 is that eisenhower never really had much command experience and as a result he didn't have what

00:46:23.040 montgomery called battle grip or the the ability to jump in there and say i want you to do this i want

00:46:30.800 you to do that we're going to all you know stay faithful to these instructions now the british were

00:46:37.360 used to very detailed instructions the american system was to give kind of a broad objective and

00:46:43.140 let your subordinates handle it and i think the the problem that that eisenhower ran into occasionally

00:46:49.780 is that things might go a little bit you know they might go a little bit askew and and he was reluctant

00:46:56.340 to jump back in there the battle of the bulge was a good example of him kind of taking a laissez-faire

00:47:03.080 approach and until it was obvious that he needed to jump in there and he might have jumped in a little

00:47:09.000 bit quicker than he did so where can people go to learn more about the your book and the rest of your

00:47:14.300 work john well uh the the book brothers rivals victors and its follow-up american warlord or you know

00:47:19.960 they're available on audio and printed you know amazon indie books the other places where you get books

00:47:24.780 i've got a facebook page uh jonathan w jordan author page and website jonathan w jordan.com i'd love to

00:47:31.760 hear from you and what's american warlord about american warlords is kind of the follow-up about the

00:47:38.320 the relationship and how an even more fractious group franklin roosevelt secretary of war henry

00:47:44.600 stimpson general george c marshall and the irascible admiral ernest j king all work together they set

00:47:51.540 aside very deep political personal and professional differences and managed to cobble together an

00:47:58.380 alliance with the british that was able to marshal america's resources and defeat fascism not just in

00:48:05.080 europe but also in asia well i'll have to check that one out that sounds fantastic well jonathan

00:48:09.160 jordan thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure hey brett a pleasure from here as well

00:48:13.540 and uh thank you very much my guest here is jonathan jordan he's the author of the book brothers

00:48:17.740 victor's rivals it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:48:21.820 information about his work at jonathanwjordan.com also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:48:27.040 slash brothers victor's rivals where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:48:31.740 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:48:48.100 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:48:51.620 the show you've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a

00:48:54.880 review on itunes or stitcher it helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please

00:48:58.600 consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of

00:49:01.740 it as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you

00:49:05.400 to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#463： The Friendship, Rivalry, and Leadership of WWII’s 3 Greatest American Generals

Episode Stats

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript