Patton, George S.

Patton, George S. (1885–1945), U.S. Army general.A charismatic and flamboyant aristocrat, Patton excelled in training and leading soldiers into battle, obtaining the utmost from them, and employing them with audacity and speed against the enemy.

Descended from an old Virginia family and a pioneer Californian, Patton was born in San Gabriel, California. Afflicted with dyslexia as a child, he struggled to read and write and overcome his own feelings of worthlessness. After a year at the Virginia Military Academy, he graduated from West Point as a cavalry lieutenant in 1909. In 1910, he married Beatrice Ayer, daughter of a wealthy Boston family.

Patton was highly athletic as well as an outstanding fencer and horseman. In the Mexican Punitive Expedition in 1916, Patton served as an aide to John J. Pershing, upon whom he modeled himself. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Patton accompanied Pershing to France, took command of the U.S. Army's light tank brigade, and led it at St. Mihiel and the Meuse‐Argonne offensive, where he was wounded.

During World War II, Patton headed the I Armored Corps in the successful invasion of North Africa in November 1942. After the American defeat at Kasserine Pass, Patton was given command of the II Corps in Tunisia in March 1943. He quickly restored morale and won the Battle of E1 Guettar.

Patton's Seventh U.S. Army and Sir Bernard Law Montgomery's Eighth British Army undertook the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. Despite a subsidiary mission, Patton dashed to Palermo, then seized Messina ahead of Montgomery. Competition between the two generals then and later was largely inspired by the media, which contrasted Montgomery's caution with Patton's aggressiveness, backed by his ivory‐handled pistols and scowling face.

In Sicily, Patton physically abused two sick soldiers he mistakenly believed were malingering. For his loss of personal control, he was reprimanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who subsequently elevated Omar N. Bradley, Patton's immediate subordinate, to be Patton's immediate superior in command of the 12th U.S. Army Group for the invasion of Normandy.

Patton was used in England to deceive Adolf Hitler about the place of the cross‐Channel invasion. After the American breakthrough at St. Lô, Patton's Third U.S. Army became operational on the Continent on 1 August 1944, and drove rapidly eastward and then north seeking to encircle most of the German troops in Normandy. Stopped from closing the Falaise pocket, Patton's forces swept across the Seine River and northeastern France.

Reacting to the German counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, Patton pivoted the Third Army 90 degrees to the north, an extraordinary maneuver, and relieved the surrounded American forces at Bastogne. In March 1945, Patton crossed the Rhine and headed across southern Germany. When the war ended, his advance units were in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, and he was a full, four‐star general.

An outspoken critic of the Soviets and of postwar U.S. policies toward Germany, Patton failed as head of the occupation of Bavaria and was reassigned to command the Fifteenth U.S. Army. On 9 December 1945, near Mannheim, he was fatally injured in an automobile accident. He was the most aggressive senior American military commander in World War II and respected by the Germans as the best.
[See also France, Liberation of; Germany, Battle for; World War I: Military and Diplomatic Course; World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

Martin Blumenson , The Patton Papers, 2 vols., 1972, 1974.
Martin Blumenson , Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1985.
Carlo D'Este , Patton: A Genius for War, 1995.

Martin Blumenson