There was a pro-Soviet POS in the congress who undermined Patton and of course the US in general. He should have been slapped, then shot.
If he’d been left in charge of the landings at Salerno, Italy would have been a lot easier as well.
He is a very interesting guy. He has history up here in New England, they have a statue of him near the Hatch Shell in Boston that I like.
Patton and Trump seem alike in some ways.
I dont know this guy or who Pattons drivers were. I do suspect that if we had done a survey after the war that there would have been about 3700 people (<-butt number) claiming to have been his driver.
The Yuma Firing Range Museum is a GREAT place to learn about this man.
This is odd because the 3rd Army was in Bavaria, heading for the Czech border. Nowhere near Berlin.
Patton was despite his flamboyant media personage, a guy who was noted to ALWAYS do his homework, and always be well prepared. He was also a guy who could get the most out of his subordinates. That said, he could also be rash and he had a few shameful episodes like diverting a significant force that could have been better used elsewhere to liberating a POW camp in which his son in law happened to be a POW. He was no strategist and was not suited for more than Corps Command.....but he was a damn good Corps Commander.
ping
According to biographer Carlo D’Este, there were TWO slapping incidents, both in hospitals. D’Este did not record what one vet told me, who was in one of the hospitals, that the patients there applauded. D’Este also submits that Patton himself was likely suffering from battle fatigue, having driving himself to incredible lengths to take Messina.
He also said that the German military knew Patton could kick their butts.
I saw this interview. I found it quite interesting.
Here’s a another good one to go along with it.
Victor Davis Hanson | George S. Patton: American Ajax
https://youtu.be/EJsC-buIkSE
“Jeff Sanza states he was there when Ike radioed him to STOP and not go further to Berlin.”
Ike didn’t have to tell Patton to stop. Patton ran out of gasoline. And ammunition. Patton had moved so quickly he outran the ability of the supply lines to keep up with him.
The logistics plan included a pipeline for bringing gasoline forward. The engineers couldn’t build it fast enough to keep up with Patton’s front. They were using the Red Ball Express to do what they could but eventually the supply trucks were using more gasoline than they were bringing to the front.
Got frustated by the BS this guy pumped out. Spent time talking about how Patton’s “Pearl handled pistols” were actually plastic.
The guns were ones Patton had owned for a long time. Ivory grips, and the guns still exist and are on display. Ivory, not plastic, and the grips were on them long before WW2 started.
“Although popularly remembered as the “two-gun” General, Patton actually seldom wore both of his “carrying guns” together. And, he owned several personal pistols aside from the two usually photographed on him in WWII. Further, his guns were usually ivory handled, NEVER pearl, as they were sometimes mistaken. The handguns most associated with him, and which are now in the Patton Collection of the West Point Museum, are a .45 Long Colt Single Action revolver, 1873 Army Model, and a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver.
Of the two of them, aides and relatives have said that the .45 Colt was the one Patton stressed for everyday carry, while the .357 was to be the “killing gun,” in his words, if the battlefield situation ever demanded it. The .45 was his oldest companion, having been purchased in 1916. There are two notches filed in the left-side ivory grip of the highly engraved .45. They came to be through a 1916 gunfight which took place in Mexico.”
https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/george-s-patton-guns-that-made-him-great/247778
The guy was full of dog poop.