George Smith Patton (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945), born in San Gabriel, California, was an American general in the US Army during World War II.
George Smith Patton was born on November 11, 1885 in California. Son of a wealthy family and grandson of a Confederate general officer during the Civil War, Patton received an education, provided by his parents, based on classic literature, mythology, history as well as Christian morality. . He spoke, in addition to English, French and read the classic Greek and Latin works in the text (notably Thucydides and Julius Caesar). He was a connoisseur of the history of France, Great Britain and the United States. A brilliant military historian and a brilliant tactician.
It was only in 1897 that Patton entered the "classic" school cycle, without knowing how to read or write but with the physique of an athlete.
Like George Marshall, Patton studied at the Virginia Military Institute and then attended West Point Military Academy, graduating in 1909 as a cavalry officer (second lieutenant).
A good athlete, Patton participated, with the agreement of the General Staff, in the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. He finished fifth in the pentathlon. It was also in 1912 that he wrote a memoir in France on the military tactics best suited to the Normandy bocage. Patton was a man from a very wealthy family and he married a wife, daughter of a textile magnate, Beatrice Banning Ayer, whose fortune exceeded his own, which allowed them to live without material worries. George Patton didn't need his pay to live, but he needed the army to express what he was at heart:a Soldier.
First World War
In 1913 he was assigned to Fort Riley and Fort Bliss under the command of the already famous General Pershing who took him under his wing. Under the orders of the latter, Patton took part in 1916 in Mexico, in raids against Pancho Villa. He even fought a pistol duel against one of Villa's chiefs of staff, who lost his life.
The entry into the war of the United States during the First World War in 1917, gave the fiery Lieutenant-Colonel Patton the possibility of returning to Europe. Belonging to the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), he trained and organized the 1st Tank Brigade near Langres (France). During the first operation of the American army on French soil, he received the charge of commanding the counter-offensive of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918, after which he obtained the provisional rank of colonel.
Wounded during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal
Ironically, the impetuous colonel celebrated his 33rd birthday on the very day of the armistice. He was demoted to the rank of major for serious misconduct.
Between the wars
The interwar period allowed Patton to graduate from the Command and General Staff School in 1924 and from the Army War College in 1932. He met Omar Bradley whom he would meet later in Europe. He wrote articles on the tactics of armored forces tanks, suggesting new methods for using these weapons. This long period also allows him to publish on the game of bridge after having often played with Eisenhower. Most of the federal bridge-contract finals played in France at the beginning of the third millennium follow his Patton movement.
In 1938, Patton was ordered to join General George Marshall to join his staff. In July 1940, Patton took command of a brigade of the Second Armored Division at Fort Benning and even went so far as to pay with his own money for spare parts for his tanks. Less than a year later, he was appointed to the rank of brigadier general and assumed responsibility for the division.
World War II
In 1941, when the United States declared war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor, "the old man, blood and guts" (nickname given by his men) obtained the rank of major general.
North Africa
In 1942, the allies prepared Operation Torch, which provided for a landing in French North Africa (Morocco and Algeria).
Patton, appointed to take command of the ground troops destined to land in Morocco, was highly criticized by the British. They criticized him for his lack of rigor. They struggled to understand a general who wore two colts with ivory butts on his belt... Fortunately, Einsenhower, general-in-chief of the Allied forces in Europe, supported his turbulent subordinate. An officer who nevertheless took care of the families of his men because Patton, having organized an intelligence network on the families of his soldiers with the help of his wife, kept his soldiers informed of what was happening in their families.
On November 8, 1942, the landing took place. After some fighting, French Morocco was occupied and Patton then took on a diplomatic and military role.
For his part, Rommel, driven out of Egypt and Libya by the British Eighth Army, had installed his Afrika Korps in Tunisia. He kept receiving reinforcements there, including a battalion of Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger and the 10th Panzer-Division. The “Desert Fox” taught the inexperienced Second Corps troops a lesson at the Battle of Kasserine. Eisenhower then appoints Patton to restore the situation and boost the morale of the soldiers. The desired effect was not long in coming as Patton, in cooperation with British and French troops commanded by General Montgomery, counter-attacked at Gafsa. He obtained the surrender of the Germans a few weeks later. The latter lost 250,000 men during this campaign.
Sicily
After the Tunisian campaign, the allies were masters of North Africa. The reconquest of Sicily would have allowed total control of the Mediterranean. Patton took command of the VIIth US Army in charge of landing south of Sicily in the company of General Montgomery's VIIIth British Army:Operation Husky was launched. A real race of speed began between the two allied armies. Palermo and then Messina fell into Patton's hands on August 17, under the nose and beard of Montgomery's Tommies.
His career nearly ended in August 1943 when he slapped and swore at two sick soldiers while visiting a military hospital. Patton believed that the soldiers were cowards who had taken refuge in the rear because they had no visible injuries (they were in fact suffering from psychological disorders due to the fighting). This affair caused a certain emotion in the United States and Patton had to make a public apology. In addition, he was relieved of his command of the VII Army before the continuation of the offensive in Italy. He then underwent quarantine in Malta and then in Great Britain and spent a full year away from the battlefields.
Normandy
In the run-up to the Normandy invasion, Patton gave interviews as commander of the (fictional) American First Army Group, whose intention was to land in France through the Pas de Calais. This was part of the Allied disinformation campaign:Operation Fortitude. The Germans considered Patton the best Allied general, therefore this army commanded by him reinforced their belief in a landing in Pas-de-Calais by Patton's army.
After the Norman invasion, Patton was placed in command of the US 3rd Army, which was on the right wing of the Allied forces, under the command of Omar Bradley, one of his right-hand men in North Africa. He led this army during Operation Cobra, the aim of which was to break through the German front in the Cotentin. Patton took part in this breakthrough, taking Avranches and penetrating into Brittany before then moving from south to east, taking several hundred thousand German soldiers in the rear in the Falaise pocket[1]. Patton employed the German blitz's own tactic, covering nearly 1,000 km in just two weeks. With hindsight, historians believe that Patton was one of the first strategists to consider the Blitzkrieg in the 1930s. However, it was in Normandy, between Avranches and Argentan, that the American general applied it best.
Patton's[2] offensive came to a halt on September 1, 1944 on the Meuse outside Metz, as his army simply ran out of gas. Time to resupply, the Germans had time to fortify their positions in Metz. In October and November, the 3rd Army led heavy fighting in the Vosges.
The Ardennes Offensive
On December 16, 1944, the German army threw 29 divisions (about 600,000 men) in a counter-attack through the Ardennes, in an attempt to cut off the Allied armies, take the port of Antwerp and advance towards the Meuse. Patton led his 3rd Army from Alsace towards Bastogne, to deliver the 101st Airborne Division[3], surrounded by the Germans.
By February the Germans were again in full retreat and Patton moved into the Saar Basin. He was planning to take Prague and Czechoslovakia, when General Eisenhower ordered him to stop all movement of American forces, much to Patton's fury.
Post-war
In October 1945, General Patton assumed control of the 15th Army, a paper army, in occupied Germany. This new command is actually a sanction following his criticism of denazification and his desire to declare war on the Soviet Union, which he presented as the future adversary of the United States. Einsenhower, who covers his statements more or less regularly, strips him of the command of the 3rd Army and his post of military governor of Bavaria.
He died in Heidelberg from injuries sustained in a car accident on December 21, 1945.
He is buried in the American cemetery in Hamm, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, among the men of his 3rd army.
Filmography
His journey during the Second World War was the subject of a film, Patton, by Franklin J. Schaffner in 1970, with George C. Scott in the title role, whose quality of interpretation earned him the one of the 7 Oscars that the film won. Scott refused the Oscar, as he refused the competition between actors.
Tributes
A series of tanks have been named in his honor, the M46, M47, M48 and M60 Patton.
Quotes
* Patton said after the war:We had the wrong opponents! [ref. needed]
* "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make sure that the bastard opposite does it for his"