George S. Patton

• 1. Introduction

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  A reporter once heard George S. Patton say that winning in combat took "blood and brains." The reporter began calling him "blood and guts," and the nickname followed Patton for the rest of his life. Soldiers under his command sometimes twisted it into a quip of their own: "our blood, his guts." Even so, the men in his ranks widely admired him.

  George Smith Patton Jr. lived from 1885 to 1945 and served as a general in the United States Army. He fought in both world wars. Colorful, hard-driving and successful, he was also a man whose public statements regularly overshadowed his achievements.

  This documentary asks how a cavalry officer trained with swords came to be a central figure in American armored warfare. It also asks why the same commander who inspired his troops kept landing in trouble with his superiors.

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• 2. Inherited Battles

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  On the 11th of November 1885, George Smith Patton Jr. was born in San Gabriel, a suburb of Los Angeles. His mother, Ruth Wilson, was the daughter of Benjamin Davis Wilson, the second mayor of Los Angeles. The wealthy family lived at Lake Vineyard, an estate of 128 acres in what is now San Marino, California. Patton had a younger sister, Anne, nicknamed Nita.

  Confederate colonel George S. Patton Sr., his paternal grandfather, commanded the 22nd Virginia Infantry and was killed at the Third Battle of Winchester. A great-uncle, Waller T. Patton, died leading the 7th Virginia Infantry in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Another ancestor, the Scottish brigadier general Hugh Mercer, was killed at the Battle of Princeton. Patton took this lineage to heart. He believed he had fought in earlier battles and wars before his own time, and he claimed mystical ties with his ancestors. Family belief also held that the Pattons descended from sixteen barons who had signed Magna Carta.

  At the age of eleven, Patton was enrolled in Stephen Cutter Clarks Classical School for Boys in Pasadena, after years of being tutored at home. He had struggled as a child to learn to read and write. He still grew into an avid reader. His favorite subjects were the exploits of Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte. John Singleton Mosby, a Confederate cavalry commander and family friend, often stopped by the house. Patton was also a devoted horseback rider, and he never seriously considered any career but the military.

  At seventeen he sought an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was accepted to Princeton, but he chose the Virginia Military Institute, where his father and grandfather had studied. From 1903 to 1904 he struggled with reading and writing there. He excelled at military drill and at uniform and appearance inspections. Senator Thomas R. Bard then nominated him for West Point.

  Academics nearly sank him at the academy. He failed mathematics and had to repeat his first year. He still excelled at drill, serving as cadet sergeant major in his junior year and cadet adjutant in his senior year. An injured arm repeatedly pulled him off the football team, so he tried the sword team and track and field instead. On the 11th of June 1909, he graduated number 46 out of 103 cadets and became a second lieutenant of cavalry.

  On the 26th of May 1910, in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, he married Beatrice Banning Ayer, the daughter of Boston industrialist Frederick Ayer. They had three children: Beatrice Smith, Ruth Ellen and George Patton IV. One West Point choice had not yet paid off. Patton had specialized in the modern pentathlon, and that event would carry him to Stockholm in 1912.

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• 3. Sword and Pistol

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  Forty-two pentathletes lined up at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, and every one of them was an officer. Patton was the only American. The Army chose him for the first modern pentathlon because of his skill in running and fencing.

  He placed twenty-first on the pistol range, seventh in swimming, fourth in fencing, sixth in the equestrian event and third in the footrace. That added up to fifth place overall, right behind four Swedes. He was the top finisher from outside Sweden.

  The pistol round caused the controversy. Patton fired a .38 caliber Army-issue pistol while most rivals chose .22 caliber weapons. He claimed his early shots made holes so large that a later bullet passed straight through them. The judges ruled that one bullet missed the target entirely, and the ruling stood. If Patton was right, he would likely have won an Olympic medal in the event. Modern competitions often use a moving backdrop to track multiple shots through the same hole.

  His only comment on the matter praised the other officers. In his words, "Each man did his best and took what fortune sent them like a true soldier."

  After the Games, Patton traveled to Saumur, France. There he learned fencing from Adjutant Charles Cléry, a French "master of arms" and instructor at the cavalry school. Back at Fort Myer, Patton redesigned saber combat for the U.S. cavalry. He favored thrusting attacks over the standard slashing maneuver and designed a new sword to suit them. In 1913 the Army ordered the first 20,000 of the Model 1913 Cavalry Saber, popularly known as the "Patton saber."

  He arrived at the Mounted Service School at Fort Riley, Kansas, in September 1913 as both a student and a fencing instructor. Many of the cavalry officers he taught outranked him. He became the first Army officer designated "Master of the Sword," the school's top instructor in swordsmanship. He graduated in June 1915.

  The Army meant to send him back to the 15th Cavalry, which was bound for the Philippines. Patton feared the posting would dead-end his career. During 11 days of leave in Washington, D.C., he persuaded influential friends to arrange a move to the 8th Cavalry at Fort Bliss, Texas. He expected instability in Mexico to boil over into full-scale civil war.

  Patton had also been selected for the 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but World War I cancelled that Olympiad. His next competition would be on the Mexican border.

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• 4. Motors and Tanks

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  Sierra Blanca, Texas, was where Lieutenant Patton arrived in 1915 for border patrol duty with A Troop of the 8th Cavalry. He took to wearing his Colt M1911 in his belt rather than a holster. The pistol discharged accidentally one night in a saloon. He swapped it for an ivory-handled Colt Single Action Army revolver, which later became an icon of his image.

  In March 1916, Mexican forces loyal to Pancho Villa crossed into New Mexico and raided the border town of Columbus, killing several Americans. The United States answered with the Pancho Villa Expedition into Mexico. Patton was chagrined to learn his unit would stay behind. He appealed to expedition commander John J. Pershing and became his personal aide. Pershing favored strong, decisive action and commanding from the front, and Patton modeled much of his own leadership style on him.

  On the 14th of May 1916, Patton saw his first combat. A force of ten soldiers and two civilian guides, riding in three Dodge touring cars, surprised three of Villa's men on a foraging expedition. Julio Cárdenas and two of his guards were killed. No one could say whether Patton personally killed any of them, but he was known to have wounded all three. It was the first motorized attack in the history of U.S. warfare. The press called him a "bandit killer," and Pershing's good opinion of him grew. On the 23rd of May 1916 he was promoted to first lieutenant.

  Pershing was also Patton's mentor beyond the battlefield. In 1917, Nita Patton became engaged to Pershing, but the engagement ended because the war in France separated them.

  The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and Patton asked to join Pershing's staff. He became a captain on the 15th of May 1917. He was among the 180 men of Pershing's advance party, which left on the 28th of May and reached Liverpool on the 8th of June. As post adjutant at Chaumont he was dissatisfied, even though Pershing wanted to give him an infantry battalion. In a hospital with jaundice, he met Colonel Fox Conner, who urged him to work with tanks instead.

  On the 10th of November 1917, Patton was assigned to establish the AEF Light Tank School. He reported to the French tank training school at Champlieu, where he drove a Renault FT light tank. After the British launched a tank offensive toward Cambrai on the 20th of November, he went to Albert to be briefed by Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, chief of staff of the British Tank Corps.

  On the 23rd of March 1918, the tank school at Bourg received its first ten tanks. Patton was the only American soldier with tank-driving experience, so he personally backed seven of them off the train. He trained crews to support infantry and worked to win over reluctant infantry officers. By August 1918, he was in charge of the U.S. 1st Provisional Tank Brigade.

  At the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, which began on the 12th of September, Patton led his Renault FT tanks from the front for much of their attack. He walked ahead of them into the German-held village of Essey. Outside Essey he had a chance first meeting with Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then thirty-eight and already one of the most decorated officers in the AEF.

  The Meuse-Argonne offensive began on the 26th of September. Patton led a troop of tanks through thick fog, advancing 5 mi into German lines. Around 09:00, near the town of Cheppy, a bullet wounded him as he led six men and a tank against German machine guns. His orderly, Private First Class Joe Angelo, saved him and later received the Distinguished Service Cross. Patton commanded the battle from a shell hole for another hour before being evacuated.

  His own account of that day included a grim line about trying to move his reserve tanks forward. He wrote, "I think I killed one man here. He would not work so I hit him over the head with a shovel." For Cheppy, Patton received the Silver Star, later upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross. He also earned the Army Distinguished Service Medal for leading the tank brigade and tank school.

  The armistice came on the 11th of November 1918, his 33rd birthday. Despite his tough image, Patton was deeply affected by the horror of war and suffered from post-traumatic stress. He left France for New York City on the 2nd of March 1919.

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• 5. Peacetime Armor

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  In Washington, D.C., in 1919, Patton met Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would play an enormous role in his future career. The next year, Patton served on a committee writing a manual on tank operations. He came to believe that tanks should serve as an independent fighting force rather than as infantry support. He backed a tank design by J. Walter Christie, but financial concerns shelved the project. Patton also sent notes and assistance to help Eisenhower graduate from the General Staff College.

  With Christie, Eisenhower and a handful of other officers, Patton pushed for armored warfare. Secretary of War Dwight Davis was receptive. A limited budget and the established Infantry and Cavalry branches meant the U.S. built little armored force until 1940.

  Patton loathed peacetime staff work and filled the time writing technical papers and giving speeches. In January 1922, he led the rescue effort after a blizzard destroyed the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington. In August 1923, he saved several children who fell off a yacht near Salem, Massachusetts, and received the Silver Lifesaving Medal. In June 1932 he became a "Distinguished Graduate" of the Army War College.

  July 1932 put him in a harder position. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur ordered the 3rd Cavalry to Washington, and Patton took command of its 600 troops. On the 28th of July, MacArthur ordered them to advance with tear gas and bayonets on protesting veterans known as the "Bonus Army." Patton had earlier refused to issue the order to use armed force, and he recognized the legitimacy of the veterans' complaints. He called the duty "most distasteful," yet felt that putting down the marchers prevented an insurrection. Among the marchers was Joe Angelo, his former orderly. Patton forcibly ordered him away, fearing a meeting might make the headlines.

  Hawaii brought a feud. Hugh Aloysius Drum, Patton's commander, rebuked him at a polo match for angry profanity. Wealthy civilian players, friends of the equally wealthy Patton, humiliated Drum by standing up for Patton. Patton also followed the aggression of Japan's militant leadership. He wrote a plan to intern the Japanese living in the islands in the event of an attack. In 1937 he wrote a paper titled "Surprise," which predicted a surprise Japanese attack on Hawaii with what historian Carlo D'Este called "chilling accuracy."

  Patton's own life was unsteady then. Depressed by the lack of prospects for new conflict, he drank heavily. He allegedly began a brief affair with Jean Gordon, his 21-year-old niece by marriage, which nearly ended his marriage. In 1937 a horse kicked him and fractured his leg. The injury developed into phlebitis, which nearly killed him and nearly forced him out of active service. A six-month assignment at the Cavalry School at Fort Riley helped him recover.

  He was promoted to colonel on the 24th of July 1938 and commanded the 5th Cavalry at Fort Clark, Texas, a post he relished. In December he returned to Fort Myer as commander of the 3rd Cavalry. There George C. Marshall was so impressed that he considered Patton a prime candidate for promotion to general. When Malin Craig retired in 1939, Drum badly wanted to succeed him. He set aside his feud with Patton and asked him to approach the retired Pershing. Marshall got the job anyway.

  In 1940, Patton served as an umpire in Third Army maneuvers and met Adna R. Chaffee Jr. The two formulated recommendations for an armored force. Chaffee took command of it and created the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions. Patton commanded the 2nd Armored Brigade and trained it. On the 4th of April 1941, he became a major general and commanding general of the 2nd Armored Division.

  Patton made the division a showpiece. In December 1940 he drove 1,000 tanks and vehicles from Columbus, Georgia, to Panama City, Florida, and back. The next month he repeated the exercise with his entire division of 1,300 vehicles. He earned a pilot's license to watch his columns from the air. His exploits put him on the cover of Life magazine.

  In the Tennessee Maneuvers of June 1941, his division executed 48 hours' worth of planned objectives in only nine. During the Louisiana Maneuvers that September, it made a 400 mi end run around the Red Army and "captured" Shreveport. During the Carolina Maneuvers, it captured Lieutenant General Drum, who commanded the opposing army. Umpires let him return to his headquarters so the exercise could continue, but senior leaders took note. Drum was not considered for field command.

  Patton had named his personal schooner When and If. John G. Alden designed it and it was built in 1939. The name came from Patton saying he would sail it "when and if" he returned from war. In early 1942 he took command of I Armored Corps and founded the Desert Training Center in California's Coachella Valley.

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• 6. Africa and Sicily

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  On the 8th of November 1942, Patton's Western Task Force of 33,000 men in 100 ships landed around Casablanca, Morocco. It was part of Operation Torch, planned under Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. Vichy French forces resisted fiercely, but Patton's men quickly gained a beachhead. Casablanca fell on the 11th of November, and Patton negotiated an armistice with French General Charles Noguès.

  The Sultan of Morocco was so impressed that he gave Patton the Order of Ouissam Alaouite. The citation read, "Les Lions dans leurs tanières tremblent en le voyant approcher," meaning the lions in their dens tremble at his approach. Patton converted Casablanca into a military port and hosted the Casablanca Conference in January 1943.

  On the 6th of March 1943, the German Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel defeated the U.S. II Corps at the Battle of Kasserine Pass. Patton replaced Major General Lloyd Fredendall as its commander and became a lieutenant general. He soon had Major General Omar Bradley assigned as his deputy. Patton had 10 days to take the demoralized formation into action. He ordered clean, pressed and complete uniforms, set rigorous schedules and demanded strict protocol. He moved constantly through the command, talking with the men.

  His attack order for a hill position near Gafsa showed his uncompromising style. He ended it by reportedly saying, "I expect to see such casualties among officers, particularly staff officers, as will convince me that a serious effort has been made to capture this objective." On the 17th of March, the 1st Infantry Division took Gafsa. It pushed a German and Italian armored force back twice in the indecisive Battle of El Guettar. On the 5th of April, he removed Major General Orlando Ward from the 1st Armored Division after poor performance at Maknassy. He also clashed with Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham over the lack of close air support.

  Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, put Patton in command of the Seventh United States Army. Before dawn on D-Day, the 10th of July 1943, his force of 90,000 landed on beaches near Licata. The 3rd, 1st and 45th Infantry Divisions secured their beaches despite wind and weather. At Gela, Patton personally led troops against German reinforcements from the Hermann Göring Division.

  General Sir Harold Alexander had ordered Patton to protect the British left flank. When Montgomery's forces became bogged down on the road to Messina, Alexander let Patton take Palermo. Under Major General Lucian Truscott, the 3rd Infantry Division covered 100 mi in 72 hours and reached Palermo on the 21st of July.

  Patton then set his sights on Messina. A lack of landing craft delayed his amphibious assault, and his troops did not land at Santo Stefano until the 8th of August. More landings followed on the 10th and the 16th of August. By 22:00 on the 16th, Messina fell, and Patton was the first Allied commander to reach it. The Seventh Army had suffered 7,500 casualties and had killed or captured 113,000 Axis troops. Still, 40,000 Germans and 70,000 Italians escaped to Italy with 10,000 vehicles.

  Controversy followed him across the island. On the 22nd of July, a column under German air attack was blocked by a cart on a bridge. Patton shot the two mules pulling it. When the Sicilian owner protested, Patton attacked him with a walking stick and had his troops push the carcasses off the bridge.

  The Biscari massacre of prisoners was committed by troops under his command. Patton wrote in his diary that he told Bradley to have the officer certify that the dead men were snipers or had tried to escape. Bradley refused. After the 45th Division's Inspector General found the prisoners had been slaughtered, Patton is reported to have said, "Try the bastards." Two soldiers were tried, and both claimed Patton had ordered them to take no prisoners from enemy fighters still resisting within two hundred yards. Major General Everett Hughes defended Patton. Historian James J. Weingartner argued that Patton's innocence is uncertain. No official action was taken against Patton.

  Two more incidents brought national attention after the campaign ended. On the 3rd of August 1943, Patton slapped and verbally abused Private Charles H. Kuhl at an evacuation hospital in Nicosia. Kuhl had been found to suffer from "battle fatigue." On the 10th of August, Patton slapped Private Paul G. Bennett in similar circumstances. He sent both men back to the front and ordered his commanders to discipline anyone making similar complaints.

  Eisenhower privately reprimanded him and insisted on an apology. Patton apologized to both soldiers, to the doctors who witnessed the incidents and later to all his troops. Eisenhower suppressed the story until journalist Drew Pearson revealed it on his radio program in November. Members of Congress and former generals, including Pershing, criticized Patton harshly. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said Patton must be kept for his "aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory."

  Patton did not command a force in combat for 11 months. In September, Bradley, Patton's junior in rank and experience, was chosen to command the First United States Army for Operation Overlord. That decision predated the public slapping story, but Patton blamed the incidents for it. Eisenhower and Marshall both thought him a skilled combat commander. They judged Bradley less impulsive and less prone to mistakes. On the 26th of January 1944, Patton was formally given command of the U.S. Third Army in England.

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• 7. The Phantom Army

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  The German High Command had more respect for Patton than for any other Allied commander. It considered him central to any plan to invade Europe from England. The Allies exploited that respect in Operation Fortitude, the deception campaign that ran through the first half of 1944.

  Through a British network of double agents, the Allies fed German intelligence false reports of troop sightings. They also reported that Patton had been named commander of the First United States Army Group. The goal was to convince the Germans he was preparing an invasion at Pas de Calais. That army group was a fiction built around Dover from decoys, props and fake radio traffic. Patton was ordered to keep a low profile, while he was in fact training the Third Army. The German 15th Army stayed at Pas de Calais even after the Normandy invasion of the 6th of June 1944, believing Normandy was a diversion. Patton flew to France a month later.

  At noon on the 1st of August 1944, the Third Army became operational on the extreme right of the Allied land forces, under Bradley's Twelfth United States Army Group. It attacked west into Brittany, south, east toward the Seine and north. The northern thrust helped trap several hundred thousand German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket.

  The Third Army sent scouts forward to measure enemy strength and placed self-propelled artillery well forward with the spearhead. Light aircraft such as the Piper L-4 Cub spotted for the guns. Fighter-bombers flew standing patrols over each armored column, with an air controller riding in one of the lead tanks. In two weeks the army traversed 60 mi from Avranches to Argentan. Colonel Oscar Koch briefed Patton daily on Ultra intelligence, and Colonel Walter J. Muller kept the supply echelons flexible enough to follow the breakthrough.

  A reporter at a 1944 press conference asked whether the rapid advance across France should be slowed to reduce American casualties. Patton replied, "Whenever you slow anything down, you waste human lives."

  The fuel ran out on the 31st of August 1944, near the Moselle River just outside Metz. Eisenhower favored a "broad front" approach, and Patton wanted to leap the Moselle, bypass Metz and head for the Rhenish cities of Mainz and Mannheim. On one occasion his units received just 25,390 gallons of fuel, one-eighteenth of what he had requested. Patton told Bradley that with 400,000 gallons he could be in Germany within two days. Accounts disagree about the shortage. Bradley said supplies reached parity by mid-September, and the official U.S. Army history said the critical shortage ended by the 10th of September.

  Metz proved costly. Patton's forces reached the fortress on the 5th of September, and it did not surrender until the 21st of November. That took over 10 weeks, with heavy casualties on both sides. An attempt to seize Fort Driant, just south of Metz, was defeated. German commanders said after the war that he could have bypassed the city and cut off their Seventh Army from Luxembourg. Hermann Balck, the German commander at Metz, said a more direct attack would have been more decisive.

  Historian Carlo D'Este wrote that Lorraine was one of Patton's least successful campaigns. Dr. Christopher R. Gabel of the Combat Studies Institute noted that capturing the province took over three months and cost 50,000 casualties, about one-third of the Third Army's total for the European war. From the 8th of November to the 15th of December, Patton's army advanced no more than 40 mi.

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• 8. Bulge and Beyond

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  Twenty-nine German divisions, totaling 250,000 men, struck a weak point in the Allied lines on the 16th of December 1944. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt commanded the offensive, which became the Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower called Allied commanders to a meeting near Verdun on the 19th of December. Patton, then fighting near Saarbrücken, guessed its purpose and had his staff prepare three contingency orders.

  Eisenhower asked how long Patton would need to disengage six divisions and attack north to relieve the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne. Patton answered, "As soon as you're through with me." He explained that his order for a three-division attack on the 21st of December was ready. Eisenhower was incredulous. "Don't be fatuous, George," he said, warning that Patton would go piecemeal. Eisenhower ordered him to attack on the morning of the 22nd of December with at least three divisions.

  Patton left the room and phoned his command with two words: "Play ball." That code phrase mobilized the 4th Armored Division, the 80th Infantry Division and the 26th Infantry Division. In all he moved six divisions, and more than 133,000 Third Army vehicles drove an average of over 11 mi each. Support echelons followed with 62,000 t of supplies.

  On the 21st of December, Patton told Bradley, "this time the Kraut's stuck his head in the meat grinder, and I've got hold of the handle." He urged an attack toward Koblenz to cut off the bulge at its base. Bradley vetoed it because he was more concerned with relieving Bastogne before it was overrun.

  Patton wanted good weather for close air support, so he asked Third Army chaplain Colonel James Hugh O'Neill to compose a prayer. It asked God to "restrain these immoderate rains" and "Grant us fair weather for Battle." The weather cleared soon after, and Patton awarded O'Neill a Bronze Star Medal on the spot. On the 26th of December, the first units of the 4th Armored Division reached Bastogne and opened a corridor for relief and resupply. Patton wrote that it was "the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed," and added, "This is my biggest battle."

  On the 23rd of February 1945, the 94th Infantry Division crossed the Saar River and established a bridgehead at Serrig. Patton insisted on the crossing against his officers' advice, and historian Charles Whiting has called the strategy unnecessarily aggressive. Third Army ordnance units posed as First Army personnel to get thousands of gallons of gasoline from a First Army dump. Between the 29th of January and the 22nd of March, the Third Army took Trier, Koblenz, Bingen, Worms, Mainz, Kaiserslautern and Ludwigshafen. It killed or wounded 99,000 Germans and captured 140,112, virtually all that remained of the German First and Seventh Armies.

  Patton received orders to bypass Trier, since four divisions were thought necessary to take it. Trier had already fallen. He replied, "Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?" On the 22nd of March, the Third Army began crossing the Rhine on a pontoon bridge, two weeks after the First Army crossed at Remagen. Patton later boasted that he had urinated into the river as he crossed.

  On the 26th of March 1945, he sent Task Force Baum behind German lines to liberate the prisoner of war camp OFLAG XIII-B, near Hammelburg. The force had 314 men and 16 tanks. Patton knew his son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John K. Waters, was an inmate. The raid went 50 mi into enemy territory and failed. Only 35 men made it back, and all 57 vehicles were lost. It further damaged Patton's standing with his superiors.

  During the Allied occupation of Germany, Patton was named military governor of Bavaria. He was relieved for making aggressive statements toward the Soviet Union and for questioning denazification. He also held antisemitic views and made derogatory statements about Jewish people. He then commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months.

  Patton was severely injured in an auto accident in Germany. He died there twelve days later, on the 21st of December 1945. His speeches to the troops, vulgar and attention-getting, were received favorably by his men but much less so by a sharply divided Allied high command. His emphasis on rapid, aggressive offense proved effective. The 1970 Oscar-winning film Patton later helped popularize his image.

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