Matthew Ridgway: the general who saved Korea

His battles ran from the night parachute drop that opened the Battle of Normandy in June 1944, through the Battle of the Bulge and the clearing of the Ruhr Pocket in 1945, to the winter campaign of 1951 in the Korean War, when his Eighth Army retook Seoul and pushed back to the 38th parallel.²

Early life and career

Ridgway was born at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in March 1895, the son of an Army artillery officer, and graduated from West Point in 1917. Between the wars he served with the 15th Infantry in China, went to Nicaragua with the American mission that supervised its elections, and was an adviser to the governor general of the Philippines.³

What did Ridgway do in World War II?

He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division from 1942, leading it in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and jumping with it into Normandy on D-Day. From August 1944 he led the XVIII Airborne Corps through the Battle of the Bulge, the airborne crossing of the Rhine and the final drive to the Baltic.⁴

He took command of the 82nd in 1942 and led its conversion into an airborne division. To build the spirit of his new paratroopers he invited Alvin York, the division's best-known soldier of World War I, to speak to them.⁵

Part of the division made a night parachute drop in the invasion of Sicily in 1943, which American Heritage's profile calls the first large night drop in history. Later that year the 82nd reinforced the Salerno beachhead and Ridgway entered Naples with General Mark Clark.⁶

Did Ridgway parachute into Normandy on D-Day?

Yes. On the night of 5 to 6 June 1944 Ridgway, then a major general, jumped with the 82nd Airborne Division in its assault behind Utah Beach. The division's task was to seize the causeways leading inland, so that the troops landing on the beach could push off it.⁷

In August 1944 he handed the 82nd to James Gavin and took command of the XVIII Airborne Corps. Released from theater reserve on 18 December, the corps fought on the northern side of the Battle of the Bulge. In March 1945 an American and a British airborne division under his command dropped across the Rhine near Wesel in Operation Varsity.⁸

In the last days of the war the corps made its own assault crossing of the Elbe on 30 April and drove to the Baltic on the flank of the British Second Army, cutting off the Danish peninsula. The Army credits that drive with keeping Soviet forces out of Denmark.⁹

How did Ridgway turn the Eighth Army around?

He took command on 26 December 1950 and, given a free hand by MacArthur, first withdrew to defensible lines south of the Han River, giving up Seoul in January. On 25 January 1951 he opened a slow, coordinated counteroffensive, and by mid-April the Eighth Army stood on or north of the 38th parallel.¹⁰

The command came to him through an accident. Lieutenant General Walton Walker was killed in a jeep accident north of Seoul on 23 December 1950. Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins telephoned Ridgway in Washington late on the evening of 22 December, local time, and Ridgway reached Tokyo just before midnight on Christmas Day.¹¹

The Chinese offensive opened on New Year's Eve, and in early January the Eighth Army fell back across the Han, leaving Seoul to the enemy. The counteroffensive that began on 25 January moved forward in deliberate stages, designed to prevent enemy breakthroughs rather than to race for distant objectives. The Eighth Army retook Seoul and recrossed the 38th parallel.¹²

George C. Marshall, in his foreword to Ridgway's memoir, called him "a great battle leader," a phrase the Army repeats in its own tribute. Truman's citation for his Distinguished Service Medal, dated 20 May 1952, credited his "magnificent personal leadership" with a counteroffensive "which crushed the Communist advance and drove the enemy north of the 38th parallel."¹³

Did Ridgway replace MacArthur?

Yes. On 11 April 1951 President Truman relieved Douglas MacArthur and named Ridgway his successor. Ridgway heard the news at the front in Korea, flew to Tokyo and became commander in chief of US forces in the Far East, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan and head of the United Nations Command.¹⁴

From Tokyo he directed UN strategy and the armistice negotiations in Korea and, in the words of Truman's citation, supervised "the final stages of the rebirth of the Japanese people as an independent nation."¹⁵

What did Ridgway do after Korea?

In 1952 he succeeded Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, NATO's senior military post. In 1953 Eisenhower, by then president, asked NATO to release him to become Chief of Staff of the US Army, a post Ridgway held from August 1953 until he retired on 30 June 1955.¹⁶

Why did Ridgway oppose war in Indochina?

In 1954, as the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu faced defeat, influential voices urged American intervention, some with air and naval power alone. Ridgway argued that such a war would end up needing a large ground army, at a cost as great as Korea's or greater, and he advised against intervening.¹⁷

His position survives in the record. In a memorandum of 2 April 1954 to the other service chiefs he wrote that when asked on 31 March whether to recommend offering US naval and air units to help defend Dien Bien Phu, his answer had been "No." He also sent an Army team of engineers, signal, medical and combat specialists to survey Indochina, and its findings showed what a large-scale operation there would demand.¹⁸

When did Matthew Ridgway die?

Ridgway died on 26 July 1993 at the age of 98, nearly four decades after retiring from the Army, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The cemetery lists him among its prominent military figures, recalling his command of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Eighth Army.¹⁹

In retirement he published his memoir Soldier (1956), written with Harold H. Martin, and The Korean War (1967). In 1986 President Reagan named him a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom "for his contributions to the security and national interest of the United States." For the wider war he helped save, see our guide to the battles of Korea.²⁰