George S. Patton

George Smith Patton Jr. was born on November 11, 1885, in San Gabriel, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, into a wealthy family; his grandfather and a great-uncle had been killed fighting for the Confederacy.⁠[1][2]

He attended the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, in 1903–1904 and entered the United States Military Academy in 1904, where he repeated his first year; he graduated in June 1909 and was commissioned a second lieutenant of cavalry.⁠[1][2]

After graduating he served with the Fifteenth Cavalry at Fort Sheridan, IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry, and Fort Myer, Virginia; was an instructor at the Cavalry School at Fort Riley, KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry, in 1913–1915; and served with the Eighth Cavalry at Fort Bliss, TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry, in 1915–1916. In 1912 he represented the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry in the modern pentathlon at the Stockholm Olympic Games, finishing fifth of 42 contestants.⁠[1][2]

After Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New MexicoNew MexicoNew Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States. Its capital is Santa Fe and its largest city is Albuquerque. It was admitted to the Union on January 6, 1912, as the 47th state, and had a population of 2,117,522 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, in 1916, he served as aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing on the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916–1917. A raid he led killed three of Villa’s men and was the U.S. Army’s first combat use of automobiles.⁠[1][2]

In 1917 he went to France with Pershing’s American Expeditionary Forces, and in November 1917 he became the first officer assigned to the new U.S. Army Tank Corps. He attended the French tank school, organized the American Tank School at Langres, was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel in 1918 and commanded the 304th Tank Brigade.⁠[2][1]

On September 12, 1918, he personally led the first U.S. tank units into action at Saint-Mihiel; later that month he was badly wounded by a machine-gun bullet near Cheppy during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and he received the Distinguished Service Cross.⁠[2][3]

After the war he reverted to captain. His later posts included command of the First Squadron, Third Cavalry, at Fort Myer (1921–1922), General Staff duty in Boston and HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is a U.S. state consisting of a group of volcanic islands in the central Pacific Ocean; its capital is Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu. Hawaii was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, as the 50th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 1,455,271.Open the full entry (1923–1928), the Office of the Chief of Cavalry (1928–1931) and G-2 of the Hawaiian Department (1935–1937). He graduated from the Army War College in 1932, was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1934 and to colonel in 1938, and remained a vigorous proponent of tank warfare.⁠[1][2]

In 1940 he was promoted to brigadier general and commanded the Second Armored Brigade at Fort Benning, Georgia; in April 1941 he became a temporary major general commanding the Second Armored Division, and he organized the Desert Training Center near Indio, California. In 1942 he commanded the I Armored Corps.⁠[1][2]

On November 8, 1942, he commanded the Western Task Force landings in Morocco, which was secured by November 11. On March 6, 1943, after Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was an American army general and politician who served as supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe during World War II and as the 34th president of the United States, a Republican, from 1953 to 1961.Open the full entry relieved the corps commander, Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall, following the defeat at Kasserine, Patton took command of II Corps, which on March 23 repulsed an attack by the German 10th Panzer Division at El Guettar. That month he was promoted to temporary lieutenant general; he then handed II Corps to Omar N. Bradley and resumed command of the I Armored Corps for the invasion of Sicily.⁠[3][4][2][1]

On July 10, 1943, he led the Seventh Army’s landing on Sicily, capturing Palermo on July 22 and securing Messina on August 17. The National WWII Museum’s article states that during the campaign he slapped two soldiers suffering from what would today be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder; he was then ordered to apologize personally to the two soldiers and to the entire Seventh Army, was relieved of command in the Mediterranean and was sent to the United Kingdom.⁠[3][2]

In the summer of 1944 he was publicly placed in command of the fictitious First U.S. Army Group, a deception meant to suggest an Allied landing at the Pas-de-Calais. He took command of the Third Army on August 1, 1944; that month it broke through German defenses, cleared the Brittany coast, crossed the Meuse and captured cities including Le Mans and Reims, and it won the tank battle of Arracourt in September and took the fortress city of Metz in November. He clashed with Bradley over closing the Falaise encirclement, from which some 20,000 to 40,000 Germans escaped.⁠[3][2][5]

After the German offensive in the Ardennes began on December 16, 1944, the Third Army lay south of the main attack. On December 19 he announced that he could counterattack within 48 hours, and on December 26 lead elements of the 4th Armored Division reached the encircled 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, helped by intelligence officer Col. Oscar Koch’s earlier prediction of the German offensive.⁠[5][3][2]

He took Trier on March 1, 1945, replying to a suggestion that he bypass it: “Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?” He wanted to push on to Berlin, but Eisenhower rejected the idea. On April 12 he toured the Ohrdruf camp, liberated on April 4, with Eisenhower and Bradley. The Third Army went on through Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria, reaching the Elbe River.⁠[2][3][1][5]

BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry’s biography records that by V-E Day the Third Army had taken more than 80,000 square miles of territory and inflicted more than ten times its own roughly 137,000 casualties on the enemy.⁠[2]

After the war he asked George C. MarshallGeorge C. MarshallGeorge C. Marshall (1880–1959) was a five-star U.S. Army general and statesman. He was Army chief of staff during World War II and later served as secretary of state and secretary of defense, and he received the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for proposing and supervising the plan for Europe’s economic recovery, the Marshall Plan.Open the full entry for a command in the Pacific without success and reluctantly became military governor of Bavaria. His public criticism of denazification policy and ill-advised remarks to the press led to his removal from command of the Third Army in October 1945; his last command was the Fifteenth U.S. Army at Bad Nauheim, where he described himself as an “undertaker at my own funeral.”⁠[3][2][1]

On December 9, 1945, in a low-speed collision with another Army vehicle, he struck his head on a glass partition, fracturing and dislocating his third and fourth cervical vertebrae, and was paralyzed from the neck down; he died twelve days later, on December 21, 1945, at the U.S. Army hospital in Heidelberg. As he had requested, he was buried among his Third Army soldiers at the Luxembourg American Cemetery; his remains were later moved to the front of the plots (Plot P, Row 1, Grave 1), and he is the only four-star general buried in an American Battle Monuments Commission cemetery.⁠[5][3]

On May 26, 1910, he married Beatrice Banning Ayer, daughter of the Boston industrialist Frederick Ayer.⁠[2][1]

His memoir War as I Knew It was published posthumously in 1947. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division holds the George S. Patton Papers, about 26,100 items occupying 40 linear feet.⁠[2][1]

His troops called him “Old Blood-and-Guts.” Britannica’s biography regards him as an outstanding practitioner of mobile tank warfare while noting that his brash actions and mercurial temper caused numerous controversies; biographer Martin Blumenson suggested that his frequent head injuries may have contributed to his erratic later behavior. Conspiracy theories about his death have circulated, but Britannica notes that no definitive proof has emerged.⁠[2]

An article by The National WWII Museum calls him one of the most renowned American generals of World War II and judges that his tactical innovations and battlefield leadership “helped lead and inspire the Allies to victory in Europe.” The 1970 film Patton, starring George C. Scott, won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.⁠[3][2]

American Battle Monuments Commission (Luxembourg American Cemetery): Web page: https://www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/general-george-s-patton-jr-buried-luxembourg-american-cemetery (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Library of Congress (George S. Patton Papers): Web page: https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/19/resources/2299 (opens in a new window).⁠[1]