[spanalot]

Many Intel sources have long held that Stalin tried to assassinate Patton more than once.

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1996/409612.shtml

[festus]

I thought Elvis did it.

[Publius]

"Brass Target".

[Chi-townChief]

Interesting - there was also an old rumor out there that the German insurgency got to him.

[spanalot]

ping

[BenLurkin]

Don't think there was necessarily a plot but . . .

. . . it is an interesting "what if" to consider the post war world had Patton not died in 1945.

[ExpatGator]

Regardless of the manner of his demise, he was an amazing man, the consumate War General and an American Hero of the first order. My favorite photo of him is the one of him pissing in the Rhine. I am glad he was not infected by the political bug, as he was better for it.

Hand salute, ready two!

[vetvetdoug]

I thought it was a plot. Patton's driver was a former Arab taxi driver and if one has ever ridden in a car with an Arabic driver one would understand the danger.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

I did it with my Time Machine. I wanted George C. Scott to be able to portray Patton as he was when he was still in his prime. I killed JFK, too, but the Cigarette Smoking Man kept taking the credit.

[Ikemeister]

Hey, I spent almost 11 years in Heidelberg, and you couldn't get me to go near the 130th Station Hospital, no matter how sick I was. Patton would have survived with decent medical care, but he was a soldier through and through.

[BallyBill]

Patton is dead? I thought he was reincarnated. I'll bet he's sitting in a HumVee outside Baghdad right now.

[Southack]

My personal friend's father was Patton's Italian translator, Moore (responsible for the ring kiss of the Pope).

And while General Patton would have "whupped up" on the Soviets if given a chance, he most wanted to be transfered over to the Pacific Front to speed up the fall of Hirohito.

Also, keep in mind that the Germans feared and hated the Soviets far more than Patton and the U.S...the Nazi insurgency was more concerned with keeping the U.S. in the game as a Soviet counter-balance.

...And the Soviets knew that Patton wanted to be transferred to the Pacific to take on the very armed forces that had humiliated the Russians 40 years earlier (the 1905 invasion that was beaten by the kamikazis).

So the Italians loved him (and switched sides in the war greatly because of him), the Soviets knew that he wanted to be transferred, and the Germans wanted him alive to counter-balance the Soviets.

In short, his death was not due to Man, but Fate.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Seat belts would have helped that bash...

[KosmicKitty]

Not that I hav anything really important to add..

But I have the General's great-grandson in one of my classes this semester. He looks like his great-grandpa

I guess that makes 3 degrees of separation for all the freepers who read this thread :-)

[KillTime]

Can't let a Patton post go by without his Poem:

THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY
by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

[ozzymandus]

I saw the movie, and I thought Sophia Loren did it.

[Ciexyz]

Most interesting.

[SunkenCiv]

Interesting. Patton lived, paralyzed, for some time after the accident (or whatever).

[musicman]

IIRC, I saw a History Channel show about Patton, and one of the important things I remember about it, was that after the fall of Berlin, Patton was VERY insistant in trying to get Ike to continue all the way to Moscow.

Patton's arguement was backed up with these points:

#1 Our military would NEVER be in a better position AND strength, and be more ready and able.

#2 All the logistical aspects and needed equipment were IN PLACE, along with enough battle hardened troops, and air power to support it.

#3 Our factories were still at full producing capacity to make the equipment needed for such a task.

#4 Patton was looking into the future, and pointed out that we were, EVENTUALLY, probably going to have to fight them sooner or later, and there was NO BETTER TIME than that.


Well, he was relieved of his duty not too soon after, and then had his "accident".

IMHO, think of how different the world would be if Patton had gotten his way. He was a hero back home, and to some even more than Marshall or Ike, which would have made it worse for them, if he had tried to get the US public into his arguement for taking on Stalin, ESPECIALLY the way things turned out in Europe BECAUSE the US didn't destroy Stalin after Patton's impassioned plea.

I have seen t-shirts, and bumper stickers with the saying:

"Patton WAS right!!"

[zot]

Ping to Post 36 -- General Patton's Poem

[Thunder90]

I bet that Putin won't say anything....