I wondered that myself the other day. Take a look at henkster's answer to me in post 28.
I think that Pattton gave a speech about prisoners being in the way of a rapid advance and some soldiers may have taken that as a license to do away with them, but even that's a stretch IMHO. The advance troops fight paticulatly bitterly, and there aren't too many who come out alive.
The guy who shot the wounded Iraqi who he thought reaching for a weapon, the one that was caught on tape, was considered by some as a war criminal, too, just to gather perspective.
Things did happen in Sicily, for sure. I think Ike had to tell reporters to swallow a story about Patton punching a shell-shocked kid (this occured after the glove or hand-slapping incident). An officer hitting a enlisted man is grounds for dismissal, but Patton was too valuable to Ike.
Any info you have about Patton in Sicily that you could send my way would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
longjack
The worst thing I recall about Sicily was the terrible disaster of the Airborne troops, hundreds of whom drowned when they were told to jump too soon and landed in the sea. I'm still looking for any references to the Patton thing, but so far nothing has been found about it in my books.
That didn't happen. They were simply arrested and quickly sent to the rear for the support personnel to deal with. My father was a medic who followed Patton in the 8th ID through North Africa, Sicily and Germany. Dad is not around anymore. He never talked much about about his 8 years, probably because he saw too much. All I can get are bits and pieces from his brothers, my uncles.
I'm sure some surrendering enemy got killed by angered US soldiers. That's not SOP. It's morally and operationally more efficient to disarm them and kick them to the rear for support to take care of them. War for them is over.