Omar bradley gen eisenhower girl

The Sunday School Student Who Saved Omaha Beach

In 1911, seventeen-year-old Omar Bradley almost skipped his West Point entrance exam because he hadn’t studied algebra in three years.

Upon reaching North Africa, Omar Bradley was first the eyes and ears of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and would soon become Commanding General of II Corps which he led during the invasion of Sicily. She was perky and she was cute. But he always kept his country and the U.S. Army as his highest main concern. Born in a three-room log cabin and raised by a widowed mother taking in boarders, Bradley finished second but got in when the winner declined.

Three decades later, this unlikely general commanded 1.

Who knows for sure? "We have no secrets from Kay," Eisenhower told Churchill, who was charmed to sit on her right at table and later awarded her the British Empire Medal.

It was Summersby who got Eisenhower hooked on the English habit of 4 o'clock tea. By the time the war ended in May 1945, Bradley was a full general in command of 43 divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest group of any American troops to serve under a single field commander.

He called her "Skib," because she was from Skibbereen in County Cork and "stubborn as an Army mule."

Summersby writes of falling in love with the face in the rearview mirror: "I succumbed immediately to that grin which was to become famous."

SHAEF staffers noticed that her bubbly presence relaxed Eisenhower as the pressures of planning the D-Day invasion mounted.

Bradley oversaw its change into the first American airborne division.

His leadership caught attention in North Africa, where he led II Corps under General Patton. He gave her a Beretta automatic and taught her how to shoot at tin cans.

Eisenhower had his tailor measure her for two uniforms after the troopship she boarded to join him in Algeria was torpedoed and she escaped without any luggage into a lifeboat.

In her autobiography, Summersby tells of one attempt at intimacy that failed when "we both came to our senses .

After graduating from high school, Bradley was working for the Wabash Railroad to earn money to attend college.

The boy looked up to his father as his biggest inspiration.

After John died, Sarah moved with Omar to Moberly, Missouri, where she later remarried. In August 1945, President Harry S. Truman asked Bradley to lead the Veterans Administration (VA), which was organized to provide aid to returning soldiers. Often she presided as hostess at his formal dinners.

Harry Butcher, the general's naval aide, rated her "better than any man at driving that big Packard in a total blackout and through London's pea soupers with those pinpoint headlights."

Lunch at 10 Downing Street

Soon she was more than a chauffeur: sitting in on top-secret meetings, going to 10 Downing Street with the general for lunch with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, dining with President Franklin Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and key advisers such as Averell Harriman, Harry Hopkins, and Bernard Baruch.

She accompanied Eisenhower to combat areas and shared GI rations and "liberated champagne" with Gens.

A talented athlete, Bradley played football and basketball at West Point. Only the lack of enough boats stopped this pullout.

The bloody attack went on, killing at least 1,500 Americans at Omaha Beach alone, with twice that number hurt.

From Newspaper Routes to Commanding 1.3 Million Men

By August 1944, Bradley took command of the 12th Army Group, first controlling the First and Third Armies.