Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, War Hero

FOX CHAPEL, Pa. - Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, who commanded the Army's first major airborne campaign, led the 82nd Airborne on D-Day and later succeeded Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War, died today. He was 98.

Gen. Ridgway had lived in Fox Chapel, a suburb of Pittsburgh, since 1955, when he retired as Army chief of staff to become chairman of the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. He retired from the institute in 1960.

He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps during World War II, and the 8th Army and the United Nations Command in Korea. He also served as U.S. commander-in-chief for the Far East, supreme commander for the Allied Powers in Japan and supreme allied commander in Europe.

"I guess I was in combat more than any American general in the armed forces in (World War II)," Gen. Ridgway said in a 1984 interview.

Described as a lean, hard-bitten soldier, Gen. Ridgway had a flair for showmanship. During World War II, he carried a Springfield service rifle strapped to his Jeep - and used it to fire at a German tank that unexpectedly appeared behind his vehicle. The tank, for some reason, wheeled around and left as Gen. Ridgway shouted, "I got him!"

In Korea, he kept a live grenade taped to the shoulder of his uniform.

Matthew Bunker Ridgway was born at Fort Monroe, Va., on March 3, 1895, a son of an Army colonel. He graduated in 1917 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he played soccer and managed the football team.

Gen. Ridgway was assigned to Europe during World War I, but he did not see action. Between the wars, he taught at West Point and served in various assignments in China, Nicaragua and the Philippines.

During World War II, Gen. Ridgway was ordered to convert the 82nd Infantry Division into an airborne unit.

The division's assault on Sicily in July 1943 was the Army's first major airborne operation. Gen. Ridgway led the division through Italy and later into France on D-Day.

He took command of the 18th Airborne Corps in August 1944 for campaigns into Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. His units saw action in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

After World War II, Gen. Ridgway commanded U.S. forces in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean until MacArthur chose him to lead the 8th Army in Korea in 1950.

The 8th Army was then demoralized and in retreat. But Gen. Ridgway told South Korean President Syngman Rhee, "I aim to stay." The 8th Army went on the offensive during Gen. Ridgway's 107-day command.

Gen. Ridgway, then a lieutenant general, took over the Allied effort in Korea in the spring of 1951 after President Truman fired MacArthur in a famous dispute over strategy.

Truman soon promoted him to four-star rank. Gen. Ridgway continued the counteroffensive that eventually drove North Korean and Chinese troops out of South Korea and led to a truce on July 27, 1953.

In 1952, Gen. Ridgway relieved Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander for Allied Forces in Europe. He was Army chief of staff from 1953 until 1955, when he retired from the military at the age of 60.

For five years, he served as chairman of the Mellon Institute, part of Carnegie-Mellon University, which does scientific research under contract to industry.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he served on a number of corporate boards of directors and on several Pentagon strategic study committees.

As a private citizen, Gen. Ridgway criticized the handling of the Vietnam war. In his 1960s book "The Korean War," Gen. Ridgway expressed concern that the Vietnam war might drain the country's resources and leave it "unduly weakened when we need to meet new challenges in other more vital areas of the world."

In 1986, Gen. Ridgway was one of seven people to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Gen. Ridgway is survived by his third wife, Mary. Two earlier marriages ended in divorce. He had two daughters by his first marriage, Constance and Shirley. A son from the third marriage, Matthew B. Ridgway Jr., was killed in a train accident in 1971.