Book Note: Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier's Story

This note does not contain major spoilers for the book.

Since I think you can't spoil non-fiction, this doesn't contain spoilers. Most people already know that Bradley attained high rank, for example.

Written beginning very shortly after WWII, and published in 1951, this is Omar Bradley's story of what they did and why. It seems to be highly thought of all around.

It's interesting to read a first-person account from somebody at this level. Then again I always wonder how much he's being polite and how much he's being self-serving and how much he's being honest. He soundsconvincing on a lot of points, including Montgomery and Patton, but who knows? Anybody who reaches four stars has to be a consumate politician in addition to whatever else he is.

The book gives the edge of one story I'd wondered about. In the first of the W.E.B. Griffin Brotherhood of War books, there's a sequence where Felter finds out that Belmon (who is Waterford's son-in-law) is a prisoner of war in a particular camp, and manages to get one of Waterford's subordinate commanders to mount a rescue (primarily as I remember it to keep them from falling into the hands of the Russian army). I've wondered what that's an analog to. According to Bradley, Patton sent out a somewhat similar rescue mission (to get his own son-in-law), but it was lost. So I guess that's Griffin fixing history again (the other obvious case is the rescue mission to the Hanoi Hilton coming off much later in the series).

I suppose I should read Churchill on WWII sometime—he ought to know something about it. And did Eisenhower write anything? I've already read Patton's memoir on it—though apparently longer ago than I thought, before I started keeping this book log.