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| Matthew Bunker Ridgway | |
|---|---|
| March 3, 1895 – July 26, 1993 (aged 98) | |
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| Place of birth | Fort Monroe, Virginia |
| Place of death | Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania |
| Place of burial | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1917–1955 |
| Rank | General |
| Commands held | 15th Infantry Regiment (United States) 82nd Airborne Division XVIII Airborne Corps 8th US Army Supreme UN and US commander in Korea Chief of Staff of the US Army |
| Battles/wars | World War I{not overseas} Banana Wars World War II *Operation Overlord *Battle of the Bulge Operation Market Garden Korean War |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Cross (2) Distinguished Service Medal (4) Silver Star (2) Legion of Merit (2) Bronze Star w/ Valor Device Purple Heart Presidential Medal of Freedom |
Matthew Bunker Ridgway (March 3, 1895–July 26, 1993) was a United States Army General. He held several major commands and was most famous for resurrecting the United Nations (U.N.) war effort during the Korean War.
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Early life and career
Born in Fort Monroe, Virginia, graduated from Boston English High School, Boston, MA in 1912 and from West Point, where he served as a manager of the football team. In 1917, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. After returning to West Point as an instructor in Spanish the year after he graduated, Ridgway completed the company officers' course at the United States Army Infantry School in Fort Benning, Georgia, after which he was given command of a company in the 15th Infantry. This was followed by a posting to Nicaragua, where he helped supervise free elections in 1927.
In 1930, he became an advisor to the Governor General of the Philippines. He graduated from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1935 and from the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania in 1937. During the 1930s he served as Assistant Chief of Staff of VI Corps, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Second United States Army, and Assistant Chief of Staff of the Fourth United States Army. General George Marshall was impressed with his performance and he assigned Ridgway to the War Plans Division shortly after the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939. He served in the War Plans Division until January 1942, and was promoted to brigadier general that month.
World War II
In August 1942, Ridgway was promoted to major general and was given command of the 82nd Division, upon Omar N. Bradley's assignment to the 28th Infantry Division. The 82nd, having already established a combat record in WWI, had earlier been chosen to become one of the army's five new airborne divisions. The conversion of an entire infantry division to airborne status was an unprecedented step for the U.S. Army, and required many hours of training, testing, and experimentation.
Unlike his men, Ridgway did not first go through airborne jump school before joining the division. Initially, the 82nd's troopers were not excited at the prospect of command by a 'leg' (non-airborne qualified) general, and he was referred to by many as 'the non-jumper'. However, Ridgway's success in converting the 82nd into a combat-ready airborne division did not go unnoticed; he remained in command and eventually won his Paratrooper wings. In Ridgway helped plan the airborne invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and commanded the 82nd in combat there. During the planning for the invasion of the Italian mainland, the 82nd was tasked with taking Rome by coup-de-main in Operation Giant II. Ridgway strongly objected to this unrealistic plan, which would have dropped the 82nd on the outskirts of Rome in the midst of two German heavy divisions. The operation was cancelled only hours before launch.
In 1944, Ridgway helped plan the airborne operations on Operation Overlord. In the Normandy operations, he jumped with his troops, who fought for 33 days in advancing to St-Sauveur near Cherbourg (St Sauveur le Vicomte, in the middle of the Cotentin Peninsula, was liberated on June 14, 1944). In September 1944, Ridgway was given the command of the XVIII Airborne Corps and led his troops into Germany during Operation Varsity, and was wounded in the shoulder by German grenade fragments on March 24, 1945. In June 1945 he was promoted to lieutenant general. At war's end, Ridgway was on a plane headed for a new assignment in the Pacific theater, under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, with whom he had served while a captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Post World War II
He was a commander at Luzon for some time in 1945, before being given command of the US forces in the Mediterranean Theater, with the title Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean. From 1946 to 1948, he served as the U.S. Army representative on the military staff committee of the United Nations. He was placed in charge of Caribbean Command in 1948, controlling U.S. forces in the Caribbean, and in 1949 was assigned to the position of Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration under then Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins.
Korean War
Ridgway's most important command assignment occurred in 1950, upon the death of Lieutenant General Walton Walker. Upon Walker's death, he received command of the 8th US Army, which had been deployed in South Korea upon the invasion by North Korea in June of that year. At the time Ridgway was serving on the Army staff in the Pentagon as Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Administration, yet he was knowledgeable about conditions in Korea and the Far East, and had a strong and dynamic personality. Both proved invaluable for the task ahead. When Ridgway took command, the Army was still in a tactical retreat, after a strong foray into North Korea had been met with an unexpected and overwhelming Communist Chinese advance. Ridgway's success in turning Eighth Army's morale around, using little more than a magnetic personality and bold leadership, is still a model for the Army for how the power of leadership can dramatically change a situation.
Perhaps another reason he was chosen was because Ridgway was not fazed by the Olympian demeanor of General Douglas MacArthur, then overall commander of UN forces in Korea. MacArthur in turn gave Ridgway a latitude in operations he had not given his predecessor. After Ridgway landed in Tokyo on Christmas Day 1950 to discuss the operational situation with MacArthur, the latter assured his new commander that the actions of Eighth Army were his to conduct as he saw fit. Ridgway was encouraged to retire to successive defensive positions, as was currently under way, and hold Seoul as long as he could, but not if doing so meant that Eighth Army would be isolated in an enclave around the city. In a foreshadowing of his aggressive nature, Ridgway asked specifically that if he found the combat situation "to my liking" whether MacArthur would have any objection to "my attacking"? MacArthur answered, "Eighth Army is yours, Matt. Do what you think best."[1]
Upon taking control of the battered Eighth Army, one of Ridgway's first acts was to restore soldiers' confidence in themselves. To accomplish this he aggressively went about finding other leaders in Eighth Army who were not defeatist or defensive oriented, despite the hard knocks of November and December, and put them in charge. He was quick to reward commanders who shared his sentiments, and just as quick to relieve those officers at any level who did not. For example, during one of his first briefings in Korea at I Corps, Ridgway sat through an extensive discussion of various defensive plans and contingencies. At the end he asked the startled staff about the status of their attack plans; the corps G–3 (operations officer) responded that he had no such plans. Within days I Corps had a new G-3 and the message went out: Ridgway was interested in taking the offensive. In furtherance of this goal, he established a plan to rotate out those division commanders who had been in action for six difficult months, and replace them with fresh leaders who would be more interested in attack and less in defense. He also sent out guidance to commanders at all levels that they were to spend more time at the front lines and less in their command posts in the rear. The men had to see their commanders if they were to have confidence that they had not been forgotten. All these positive leadership steps had a dramatic effect almost from the first. Eighth Army was in Korea to stay.
Still, with the entry of China, the makeup of the Korean War had changed. Political leaders, in an attempt to prevent expansion of the war, would not allow UN forces to bomb the supply bases of the Chinese Army that were in China, nor the bridges across the Yalu river. Thus the American Army had to move from being always aggressive, to fighting protective, delaying actions until the supply lines of China had been extended enough to allow equilibrium. Under Ridgway's leadership, the Chinese offensive was slowed and finally brought to a halt at the battles of Chipyong-ni and Wonju. He then led his troops in a subsequent counter-offensive in the spring of 1951.
When General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of command by President Harry Truman in April, Ridgway was promoted to full General, assuming command of all United Nations forces in Korea. As commanding general in Korea, Ridgway gained the nickname, "Old Iron Tits", for his habit of wearing hand grenades attached to his load-bearing equipment at chest level. {Photographs however show he only wore one grenade on one side of his chest; the so-called "grenade" on the other side was in fact a first-aid packet}.
Military historians generally credit Ridgway's leadership with helping to restore the Eighth Army as an aggressive fighting force, allowing it to combat the overwhelming masses of troops from the People's Republic of China to a standstill and eventually drive them out of South Korea, back across the 38th parallel.citation needed
Ridgway has been criticized for giving his units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.[2]***Broken Link***
There has been much debate about what orders Ridgway issued. Many of those quoted in the "missing" yahoo news article linked were proven to be making up stories that never happened. There are other stories that are needed to make up the whole historical context. Not everyone who tells the stories is an impartial witness. We must avoid "fake, but accurate" .[3][4]
Chief of Staff
In May 1952, Ridgway replaced General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). However, he upset other European military leaders by surrounding himself with American staff, and eventually returned to the U.S., where he replaced General Collins as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. After Eisenhower was elected President, he asked Ridgway for his assessment of US military involvement in Vietnam in conjunction with the French. In response, Ridgway prepared a comprehensive outline of the massive commitment that would be necessary for success, which dissuaded the President from intervening. However, the relationship between the two men, which had been so good during World War II, was sorely tested as a result of Ridgway's assessment because Eisenhower very much supported American intervention in Vietnam. Following that episode, Ridgway retired from the US Army in 1955, succeeded in the Chief of Staff post by his one time 82nd Airborne Division Chief of Staff Maxwell D. Taylor. In the opinion of a number of military historians, Ridgway's stand as Chief of Staff delayed US intervention in Vietnam for around ten years.citation needed
Retirement
Because of his disagreements with the Eisenhower administration over the policy of massive retaliation, Ridgway was forced into early retirement. Yet, he was secure in the belief he had served his nation to the best of his ability. The year after his retirement, he published his autobiography, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway.
Ridgway's success in the military was not matched by success in his personal life. He married three times. For a while, he held the position of Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to his friends and colleagues, Ridgway was never the same after his son died in a camping accident in 1971, becoming increasingly depressed and morose. On 5 May 1985 he was a key player in the controversial Ronald Reagan visit to Kolmeshöhe Cemetery near Bitburg, when former Luftwaffe ace Johannes Steinhoff in an unscheduled act firmly shook his hand in an act of reconciliation between the former foes.
Ridgway died at his home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Fox Chapel at age 98 in March 1993 of cardiac arrest, holding permanent rank of General in the United States Army. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and a street called Ridgway Court was named after him in Pittsburgh. Ridgway Court serves as the entrance to the Soldiers and Sailors National Military Museum and Memorial, located in the city's education and cultural district. Also bearing his name is the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Awards and decorations
General Ridgway was awarded numerous decorations, including the:
- Distinguished Service Cross with oak leaf cluster
- Distinguished Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters
- Silver Star with oak leaf cluster
- Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster
- Bronze Star with "V" device for valor and one oak leaf cluster
- Purple Heart
- Parachutist Badge.[3]
- In 1986, Ridgway was awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom. The citation said: "Heroes come when they are needed. Great men step forward when courage seems in short supply. World War II was such a time, and there was Ridgway."
- In 1991, he received the Congressional Gold Medal by General Colin Powell, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- In 1996, the National Infantry Association awarded him the Order of Saint Maurice (Primicerius) and their annual Doughboy Award.
Also, he appeared on the April 30, 1951 and May 12, 1952, covers of the LIFE Magazine and the March 5, 1951, and July 16, 1951 editions of TIME Magazine.
Notes
External links
- Matthew Ridgway at Find A Grave Retrieved on 2008-07-20
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by General Douglas MacArthur |
Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) Japan 1951–1952 |
Succeeded by General Mark Wayne Clark |
| Preceded by General Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Supreme Allied Commander Europe (NATO) 1952–1953 |
Succeeded by General Alfred Gruenther |
| Preceded by General J. Lawton Collins |
Chief of Staff of the United States Army 1953–1955 |
Succeeded by General Maxwell D. Taylor |
| Preceded by Lieutenant General Walton Walker |
Commanding General of the Eighth United States Army 1950–1951 |
Succeeded by Lieutenant General James Van Fleet |
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