George S. Patton

Lieutenant General George S. Patton

George Smith Patton, Jr. (11 November 1885 – 21 December 1945) was an early supporter of the importance of armored warfare and a leading U.S. Army general (four-star general of the cavalry branch) during World War II, in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France, and Germany.

Life

Dwight D. Eisenhower and others, including Patton, inspect an improvised crematory pyre at the Ohrdruf concentration camp, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, one of the Western Holocaust camps. Wikipedia displays the photo in articles such as "Nazi concentration camps" and "Holocaust denial", possibly as supposed evidence against Holocaust revisionism. Regarding this, see the article on the Western Holocaust camps.

Born November 11, 1885, in San Gabriel, California, as a young boy, Patton set his sights on becoming a war hero. During his childhood, he heard countless stories of his ancestors’ victories in the American Revolution and the American Civil War. Striving to follow in their footsteps, he enrolled in Virginia Military Institute in 1904. A year later, he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating on June 11, 1909. In 1910, he married Beatrice Ayer, a childhood friend. In 1912, Patton competed in the Pentathlon at the Stockholm Olympics. He did well in the fencing portion and placed fifth overall. In 1913, he was ordered to the post of Master of the Sword at the Mounted Service School in Kansas, where he taught swordsmanship while also attending as a student. Despite his grace with a sword, Patton had a reputation for being an accident prone young man. Some even speculate that his explosive temper and incessant cursing were the result of a skull injury in his 20s.

Patton had his first real taste of battle in 1915, when leading cavalry patrols against Pancho Villa at Fort Bliss along the Mexican border. In 1916, he was selected to aide John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in Mexico. In Mexico, Patton impressed Pershing by personally shooting Mexican leader Julio Cardenas during the Battle of Columbus. Pershing promoted Patton to captain and invited him to lead Pershing’s Headquarters Troop once they left Mexico. In 1917, during WWI, Patton was the first officer assigned to the new American Expeditionary Force tank corps. Tanks had proven effective in France at the Battle of Cambrai. Patton studied this battle and established himself as one of the leading experts in tank warfare. He organized the American tank school in Bourg, France, and trained American tankers to pilot the French Renault tanks. Patton’s first battle was at St. Mihiel, in September 1918. He was later wounded in the battle of Meuse-Argonne and later earned the Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership of the tank brigade and establishing the tank school.

It was during WWII that Patton hit the high point of his military career. In 1943, he used daring assault and defense tactics to lead the 7th U.S. army to victory at the invasion of Sicily. On D-Day in 1944, when the allies invaded Normandy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted Patton command of the 3rd U.S. Army. Under Patton’s leadership, the 3rd Army swept across France, capturing town after town. "Keep on advancing… whether we go over, under, or through the enemy," Patton told his troops. Nicknamed "Old Blood and Guts" due to his ruthless drive and apparent lust for battle, he wrote home to his wife, "When I’m not attacking, I get bilious."

Controversies

Biscari massacre

The participants in the Biscari massacre stated that Patton had given an order that they interpreted as that certain POWs could be killed. After the massacre, Patton at first argued that the massacre should be covered-up. An investigation ultimately cleared Patton of any wrongdoing.

Chenogne massacre

Regarding the Chenogne massacre, Patton in his diary stated that "...also murdered 50 odd German med [sic]. I hope we can conceal this".

Dachau massacre

Patton has been stated to personally have destroyed documents related to the Dachau massacre and to have prevented a court-martial. See Western Holocaust camps: Allied atrocities at the Western Holocaust camps.

Death and argued assassination

Patton died in December 1945 (at the start of the International Military Tribunal), allegedly after having suffered injuries in an accidental car crash. A 2008 book presented detailed evidence for that Patton had been killed in order to silence him. One example of this evidence is a confession by the argued assassin. The argued motivations include that Patton was about expose secrets of the war that would have ruined careers, including that of the future president Dwight Eisenhower.

Quotes

• "After spending some months fighting in the Mediterranean Theater, Patton "told his staff that he could not understand how the Arabs could share their hovels with animals. Arriving in Sicily, he added that he could not understand how the animals could live with Sicilians in their yards." By the end of the war Patton was expressing serious doubts about the results of the conflict. In a letter to his wife, he confessed: "Berlin gave me the blues. We have destroyed what could have been a good race and we [are] about to replace them with Mongolian savages." And in another letter, Patton admitted: "The stuff in the papers about fraternization is all wet... All that sort of writing is done by Jews to get revenge. Actually, the Germans are the only decent people left in Europe... I prefer the Germans. So do our cousins [the British]." After touring refugee camps he came to see Jews as "lower than animals.""

• „The noise against me is only the means by which the Jews and Communists are attempting and with good success to implement a further dismemberment of Germany. I think that if I resigned as I threatened to do yesterday, it would simply discredit me to no purpose ... This august lady [Fifteenth Army] ... has the job of reviewing the strategy and tactics of the war to see how the former conformed to the unit plans and how the tactics changed. Were it not for the fact that it will be, so far as I am concerned, a kick up stairs, I would like it much better than being a sort of executioner to the best race in Europe. Later when people wake up to what is going on here, I can admit why I took the job. Am I weak and a coward? Am I putting my posthumous reputation above my present honor? God how I wish I knew ... P.S. No one gives a damn how well Bavaria is run. All they are interested in now is how well it is ruined.“ – Original from Patton's letter to his wife Beatrice dated September 29, 1945, in "The Patton Papers" (1996) by Martin Blumenson, Volume 2, p. 786

See also

• List of American military officers opposed to Jewish supremacism

External links

• A chronology of key events in the life and career of General George S. Patton

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia Britannica: George Patton
• Encyclopedia.com: George Smith Patton Jr

Argued assassination

• General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
• American Pravda: Was General Patton Assassinated?
• General George S. Patton assassinated in order to silence criticisms of the Allied war leaders

Other

• Book Reviews: The War Between The Generals, Overlord: D-Day And The Battle For Normandy
• Israeli evaluation of the armies (WWI and WWII), in German