“My father was attached to Patch’s Army”
My 93 yr old father also served in Patch’s Army, in a AA battery assigned to the Corp HQ. Actually dad also served under Patton until Alexander Patch took command of the 7th. Patch was a very good general. Little known because he didn’t cultivate the press, and the 7th Army’s campaign didn’t involve Normandy.
Dad has told me that the men he served with preferred Patch. Patton could be petty, for example ordering medical personnel to wear steel pots when they were far from the front. All that this accomplished was to make their job of attending to the wounded more difficult.
A family friend of ours had been a young German POW. At the end of the war Patton selected him out of a POW camp to clean his riding boots and perform similar chores. He was actually treated quite well by Patton, other than the time that Patton found some dirt remaining in the wedge of a boot heel and threw the boot at him. “Dirty!” Patton yelled.
Years later dad served with one of Patton’s sons, a Colonel, in Vietnam. He says the son was one of the finest officers he served with in his career in the Army.
When dad was near Munich he befriended a young Russian who was held as a POW by the Germans. Oh, how he hated them. He spoke fluent German and was used by my father and some others a an interpreter. They called him “little Joe” and even took up a GI uniform to fit him. He wore the uniform when they were on patrol.
My father considered adopting him and bringing him to Texas when he returned. He talked to the CO about it but did not, he was concerned that the war so hardened him that he might be a problem. His CO was receptive to the idea.
When I was a young man he told that I almost had another brother and then about “Little Joe”. He has often wondered what became of him.
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Patton detractors had best avoid the subject in Dad’s presence.