Ridgway, Matthew Bunker, GEN

The General who became Chief of Staff after leading U.S. forces in Normandy and United Nations troops in Korea, died at home in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania.     
 

He also planned and executed the Army's first major Airborne assault, in Sicily in WWII, and was a soldier-diplomat who served on several international commissions. In April 1951 he succeeded General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as commander of United Nations forces in Korea and of allied occupying forces in Japan. In June 1952 he replaced General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. In 1953 he was appointed Army Chief of Staff by President Eisenhower, under whom he had served in WWII. But what should have been the capstone of distinguished military career ended in bitter frustration for him in 1955, when he retired after finding himself in almost constant disagreement with Eisenhower, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At one point, the President bluntly told him that his views were "Parochial" because he did not accept new strategy of using the threat of atomic bombs delivered by airplanes as nation's chief line of defense and de-emphasizing the role of the foot soldier. He objected to the strategy as failing to adequately develop concepts of using airpower, nuclear weapons and ground soldiers in conjunction in distant conflicts. But he continued to fight budget cuts for the Army.
 

"Throughout my 2 years as Chief of Staff," he recalled later, "I felt I was being called upon to tear down, rather than build up, ultimately decisive element in a properly proportioned fighting force on which the world could rest its hope for maintaining the peace or, if the catastrophe of war came, for enforcing its will upon those who broke that peace."
 

Although he was otherwise known as an unflamboyant officer, he had one habit that became his trademark. Just as General George S. Patton was famous for wearing twin pearl-handled revolvers in WWII, he always had a hand grenade attached to one shoulder strap on his battle jacket, and a first aid kit on the other. "Some people thought I wore the grenades as a gesture of showmanship," he said years later. "This was not correct. They were purely utilitarian. Many a time in Europe and Korea, men in tight spots blasted their way out with hand grenades."
 

Matthew Bunker Ridgway was proud of the fact that he an "Army Brat," son of Colonel Thomas Ridgway, an artillery officer, and the former Ruth Starbuck Bunker. He was born March 3, 1895, Ft Monroe, Virginia, where his father was stationed. He said in his memoirs "Soldier," (Harper & Brothers, 1956) that his "earliest memories are of guns and Marching men, of rising to the sound of the reveille gun and lying down to sleep at night while the sweet, sad notes of 'Taps' brought the day officially to an end." He was reared on several Army posts and grad from English High School in Boston in 1912.
 

His first attempt to enter West Point was unsuccessful because he failed geometry on his entrance examination. But he succeeded on second try and in 1913 he entered the academy, where be became undergraduate manager of the football team. He graduated in 1917, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry and, in anticipation of being sent to fight in WWI, was quickly promoted to First Lieutenant and then to temporary Captain. But he did not go overseas; instead, he went to Eagle Pass, Texas, where he commanded an Infantry company.
 

In 1918 he returned to West Point, became an instructor in Spanish and later manager of the athletics program. In 1925 he completed the Company officers course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was given his first overseas assignment, command of a company in the 15th Infantry in Tsientsin, China.
 

Routine Infantry duty in U.S. followed. But in 1927, because of his fluency in Spanish, he was asked by Major General Frank Ross McCoy to become member of a U.S. mission to Nicaragua, charged with supervising free elections in that war-torn republic. He had hoped to be part of the Army's pentathlon team in 1928 summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam, but he recalled later that he had realized that "I could not reject so bright an opportunity to prepare myself for any military-diplomatic role that the future might offer." It was the first of several diplomatic assignments.
 

He sat on a commission that adjudicated differences between Bolivia and Paraguay, and in 1930 became a military adviser to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., then Governor General of Philippines. His success in that assignment led to his appointed to the Army's Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. After completing that 2-year course in 1937, he became one of the elite Army officers marked for quick advancement and top leadership. By then had been promoted to Major and had come under the wing of George C. Marshall, then a Brigadier General, who, as Army Chief of Staff designate, took him to Brazil on a special assignment.
 

In September 1939, when WWII erupted in Europe, was sent to the war plans Division of War Department's General staff in Washington, DC. It was much-desired assignment because it was from war plans Division that senior officers were selected for higher command. By August 1942 he was a Brigadier General and in command of newly activated 82nd Infantry Division. When it became one of the Army's first 2 Airborne divisions he remained in command and won his Paratrooper wings. In North Africa in the spring of 1943, he planned the Army's first major night Airborne operation, part of the invasion of Sicily. The invasion, which began on July 10, 1943, led to a rapid conquest of the western half of the island. By the end of the month all resistance had ceased. That first Airborne attack, involving Paratroopers dropped from airplanes and troops flown into enemy territory on gliders, made American military history, but it was carried out with severe losses. Both enemy and Allied antiaircraft gunners shot down more than a dozen of the 82nd's transport planes. These and other losses resulted from staff failure, mistaken instructions and the newness of such an operation. As a result, he, along with other Airborne commanders like Maxwell D. Taylor and James M. Gavin, had a difficult time persuading higher command of the ultimate effectiveness of landing soldiers and equipment by parachute and gliders.
 

Although he had not jumped into battle with his troops in the Sicilian campaign, he insisted on a combat jump into Normandy before D-Day, June 6, 1944. The citation to the OLC on his DSC said that in the Normandy jump he "exposed himself continuously to fire" and "personally directed the operations in important task of securing the bridgehead over the Merderet River." His recollection of his jump was slightly less reverential. "I was lucky," he said. "There was no wind and I came down straight, into a nice, soft, grassy field. I recognized in the dim moonlight the bulky outline of a cow. I could have kissed her. The presence of a cow meant the field was not mined."
 

A few months after D-Day, he was given command of the new 18th Airborne Corps and directed its operation in the vicinity of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in the Ardennes and along the Rhine River. His troops battled the German "Ruhr Pocket" and finally, on May 2, made a historic link up with Soviet troops on the Baltic. "General Ridgway has firmly established himself in history as a great battle leader," General Marshall said later. "The advance of his Army corps to the Baltic in the last phase of the war in Europe was sensational to those fully informed of the rapidly moving events of that day."
 

The war over, he, early in 1946, went to London as Eisenhower's military adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Assembly. He helped draft a plan for an international United Nations force to curb aggression, a force that he himself was destined to command a few years later in Korea. In the late 1940's, he was commander of U.S. forces in Caribbean, a post more diplomatic that military.
 

By late Dec 1950 was a Lieutenant General, serving as Army Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pentagon, when word came that Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker, commander of the 8th Army in Korea had been killed in a jeep crash. The 8th Army was then in full retreat from Chinese Communist forces, which had opened a massive counteroffensive a month before, and was fleeing back across 38th Parallel, which divided South and North Korea. He was named Walker's successor and was soon on his way to Korea. Was credited with rallying United Nations forces, whose morale had been severely strained by heavy losses and bitterly cold weather. He stayed conspicuously at the front lines, exhorting his troops to concentrate on killing the enemy rather than trying to regain ground. But in a series of hard-fought counteroffensives, he succeeded in driving the Communist forces out of all but the northwestern corner of South Korea, seizing strategic territory north of the 38th Parallel.
 

Then in 1951 came the epic clash between his superior, General Douglas MacArthur, who was overall allied commander in the Far East, and President Harry S. Truman. General MacArthur, embittered by the Chinese Communist forces' victory south of the Yalyu River in North Korea, proposed various steps to defeat the enemy, including "unleashing" the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan against mainland China. President Truman, afraid that such measures might widen the war, ruled out General MacArthur's ideas. Then the General made the disagreement public. Ridgway wrote later, in his 1967 book, "The Korean War," that the confrontation was a "clash of wills, bordering closely on insubordination." On April 11, 1951, Truman removed Genera MacArthur, a national hero, from his command in the Far East, provoking a public uproar, and named Ridgway to succeed him. James A. Van Fleet replaced Ridgway as commander of United Nations forces in Korea, where the war settled into a stalemate while peace talks dragged on for two years at Pananmujon, near the 38th Parallel. Fighting ended on July 27, 1953, when Chinese and North Koreans signed an armistice with United Nations and South Korean forces.

In Tokyo, he generally followed occupation policies established by MacArthur. The occupation essentially ended with the signing of a peace treaty in San Francisco on September 8, 1951. The next year he succeeded Eisenhower as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. In 1953, he received what he was to call "the toughest, most frustrating job of my whole career," his appointment as Army Chief of Staff.
 

Seeing what he regarded as dangerous efforts to downgrade the role of the Army, clashed repeatedly with Charles E. Wilson, Secretary of Defense, and Admiral Arthur Radford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Finally, a few months short of his original retirement date, he left the Army in June 1955.
 

In retirement in Pittsburgh, the old soldier grew increasingly dissatisfied with nation's military policy. He summed up his resentments in 1979, after Pentagon ordered paratroopers to stop wearing the Airborne's distinctive red beret, symbol of paratrooper spirit. After urging that order be reversed, General Ridgway asserted: "I publicly protested the adoption of the volunteer Army, now a demonstrated failure and perhaps a disaster. I publicly deplored the dismantling of Selective Service and the admission of women into our service academies. Every one of those actions is now looming as potentially detrimental to the esprit and effectiveness of our armed forces - a blow at discipline, without which no military unit is worth its keep."
 

In 1986, he 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. WWII was such a time, and there was Ridgway."
 

In 1991, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by General Colin Powell, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   
 

His first marriage, to former Caroline Blount, ended in divorce. A second marriage, to Margaret Wilson, also ended in divorce. In 1947 married Marjory Anthony Long. In addition to his wife, Marjory, who is known as Penny, he is survived by 2 daughters, Constance and Shirley. A graveside service is to be held at Arlington National Cemetery at 1:30 PM Friday, July 30, 1993. He had 2 daughters by his first marriage, Constance and Shirley, with whom he had lost touch. A son from third marriage, Matthew B. Ridgway, Jr., died in train accident in 1971. (NOTE: Matty was graduated from Bucknell in June, 1971, and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserve the same month. Then he left for a canoe camp at Lake Timagami in Ontario, where he was to act as a guide nd counselor for teen-age boys on an eight-week canoe trip. During an early portage they were walking along a railroad track, Matt in the lead, a canoe over his head in Indian fashion, when a train came speeding down the track. The boys scrambled up an embankment to safety, but the train struck an end of Matty’s canoe, knocked it around, and broke his neck. The stunned parents flew to Canada. After a time they boarded a private plane that took them over the Lake of the Woods. With them they had Chaplain Gordon Mercer of the Canadian Armed Forces. As they neared the northern end of the lake the flare chute was opened, and, kneeling on the lurching floor of the plane, they shared a two-minute prayer. Then they committed the ashes of their son to the beautiful Canadian lake and forest country he had loved so dearly.

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Matthew Bunker Ridgway (0-5264), Major General, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Commanding General, 82d Airborne Division, in action against enemy forces in July 1943.
 

Major General Ridgway's intrepid actions, personal bravery and zealous devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 82d Airborne Division, and the United States Army. 

Headquarters, Seventh U.S. Army, General Orders No. 24 (September 11, 1943)

Major General Ridgway jumped by parachute at approximately 0200 prior to the dawn of "D" Day and landed in France, to spearhead the parachute landing assault of his Airborne Division.
 

Throughout "D" Day, he visited every point in the then surrounded area in order to evaluate the opposition and to encourage his men. He penetrated to the front of every active sector without thought of the personal danger involved. He exposed himself continuously to small arms, mortar and artillery fire; as, by his presence and through words of encouragement, he greatly assisted and personally directed the operations of one of his battalions in the important task of securing the bridgehead, which required a frontal assault against strongly entrenched enemy positions. His personal bravery and his heroism were deciding factors in the success of his unit in France.
 

Major General Ridgway's gallant leadership, personal bravery and zealous devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 82d Airborne Division, and the United States Army.
 

Headquarters, First U.S. Army, General Orders No. 35 (July 19, 1944)         

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. 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."
 

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.
 

Ridgway has been criticized for giving his units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.
 

Chief of Staff

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.