The Mysterious Death of George Patton

Fox News ^ | 4/27/06 | Oliver North

[mcshot]

I remember reading that Patton was injured by a Czech "debris gun" as his injuries were inconsistent with the accident.
I also remember parts of a biographical book on Patton from grade school (almost 50 years ago) that offered that Patton felt he was a warrior from times past. Interesting stuff.

[GreyFriar]

Good to find out about the poem and when the show is going to be on. Now to find a way to get a copy of it. To see how they used the report by the Army neurologist who was flown from the US to Heidelberg to treat Patton. He flew on the same airplane that carried Mrs. Patton to Heidelberg.

[battlegearboat]

Thanks Andy, I have it ordered at Amazon.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Well in the pact with Hitler it was Hitler who attacked Stalin not the other way around. There is a big difference between nations attacking each other militarily and using diplomacy and clandestine operations. Both the USA and the USSR used the latter methods against each other.

But the real point is this fantasy of an attack on the USSR is only that. It was a political impossibility given the American people's mindset in 1945. Had we a system like the USSR or Nazi Germany where the People's opinion did not matter such a thing could have been done.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I loved reading Dr. Seuss to my kids when they were young.
Terrific humorist.

[tcostell]

the horn is often referred to as "the Egyptian brake pedal".

[justshutupandtakeit]

You are mistaken if you believe the US would have supported another three or four years of war against an ally. Already the UK was so war weary that it kicked Churchill out of office and voted in a nebbish, Atlee.

[Little Ray]

It would have been bad... very bad.

[Wombat101]

"Eisenhower relieved Patton not because he was a loose cannon, but because of his public remarks, thought injurious to the Four Power alliance (which the Soviets abrogated anyway)."

He most certainly was a loose cannon in a military structure dominated by a diplomat (Eisenhower) and the infantry-first mindset (Bradley, Marshall). the fact that Patton was (mostly) right with regards to his brand of warfare (charge hard, huge casualties in the short term mitigate huge casualties in the long term). The publicity he generated only increased the dislike for Patton amongst the old-school infantry commanders appointed above him.

However, after Sicily, Patton was dully muzzled and except for two flourishes in France (Falaise and the rescue at the Bulge), his campaigns are uninspired and show every sign of Patton having been made to "toe-the-line" as dictated by Bradley and Eisenhower. The days of massed armored attacks in Europe were over; the Germans didn't have the armor and the deeper Patton got into France, the less opportunity he had to fight on suitable terrain.

"Gen Patton was a near-perfect, aggressive battlefield commander."

A lot of Patton's success was due to his "aggressive" division commanders, most notably Generals Wood and Abrahms and Weyland, not to any tactical genius on Patton's part. As for near-perfect, that's one that we could debate all day long.

He was a great soldier and a man who was available right when the United States need him (from the time of Kasserine right up until Americans crossed the Rhine), but the rest of the time was a prima-donna, a pain in the ass, and a very dangerous man who often overestimated his own abilities and consistently underestimated his opponents. His saving grace was that his aggression (and copious American tactical airpower) more often than not turned a bad situation into a somewhat acceptible one.

As for Patton being given free rein against the Russians: he would have lost. Badly.

Now, was he assassinated? Your guess is as good as mine. One important factor to weigh in the "Accident or Assassination" argument is that Patton was seriously weighing a future in politics (despite his insistance to the contrary) and pretty much owned his Congressional district in California (where the Pattons had been poltical patrons for near on a century).

[Little Ray]

Nowadays we're too PC to let our soldiers pray in public. Might offend some atheist, or some member of The Religion of Pieces.
But, once upon a time:

The Patton Prayer
Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.

---

I would just LOVE to see the Muslims go apes#!t over something like this - then have the military kill 'em off while they're rioting.

[Wombat101]

"I always wondered how Patton and MacArthur would get along in the same theater. I heard they had a chance meeting in WWI but that was about it."

They would have killed each other; MacArthur was the consummate strategist and Patton was the consummate knife-fighter.

if you thought the friction between MacArthur and Nimitz was bad, just imagine how much worse it would have been if you added Patton to the mix.

[Always Independent]

I didn't imply that the russians turned on hitler. I'm quite aware of that part of history. I was implying that the russians turned on the US and its allies when stalin decided he wanted to carve up europe.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I know what you were implying but it is not an accurate understanding of the situation at the end of WWII. Stalin had DRIVEN Hitler out of Eastern Europe (traditionally part of the Russian sphere of influence) and had MILLIONS of soldiers there. There was NOTHING we could have done to change that. Stalin never attacked US forces so he didn't really "turn" on us any more than we "turned" on him once it became clear that we had different strategic intentions and needs.

It is sheer nonsense to claim that the geopolitical realities in Eastern Europe could have been changed by anything other than a massive military attack. An attack of which we were not capable at the time. Nor was anyone "sold out" by FDR.

In addition, after the fall of Hitler we had hopes Stalin would help against Japan which was still unconquered.

[Wombat101]

I wrote this on another thread about two weeks ago, when a similar debate on Patton and the Russians cropped up. I hope this helps you realize just how badly Patton would have been beaten.

(I have taken the liberty of copying the whole thing, so it might lose something in the context of this debate):

---

It was evident by the time of the invasion of Okinawa (April 1, 1945) that the American public was beginning to tire of war. Truman (eho became president shortlay after the invasion) was already beginning to hear the first rumblings of the "Stop the War NOW" crowd. It was one of the major factors in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan.

The US Military force that invaded Western Europe in June of 1944 was an unbalanced force, with too few infantry units and whole lot of specialized units that had dubious value on the battlefield. In fact, it was Patton who cannibalized these non-infantry units in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine because he lacked infantry. The infantry problem had become so severe by late 1944 that those previously considered 4F were now considered eligible for service. One of them (Eddie Slovik) was executed on Eisenhower's orders for desertion during the fighting in the Hurtgenwald (precursor to the Bulge). Three entire infantry divisions had their total casualty numbers exceed 100% (meaning even the replacements got chewed up at a prodigious rate) during action in the Hurtgenwald (winter 1944).

By 1945, 16 million American men were in uniform (in all services), and there simply were no more soldiers to be had.

As for the Allies, the British were exhausted by six years of war, and most certainly would have collapsed had it not been for the Empire, in particular, Indian troops. India was promised independence by the British just as soon as the war was over, and asking Indians to fight Russians for political reasons which meant nothing to them, was absurd. The Japanese were still knocking on India's door in Burma and that's where Indian troops were needed: at home. The British could provide no help.

The French Army was entirely equipped by the Americans, and likewise, was in no shape to fight. In addition, the political situation caused by Churchill's, FDR's, and Eisenhower's (justifiable) snubbing of DeGaulle from 1942 onwards, made French alliance a shaky proposition.

We won't even get into the problems inherant with the Chinese as allies. The best the Chinese could manage to do in 8 years of war was to tie up 2 million-plus Japanese troops just by standing in front of them, while allowing their country to be overrun (and their population slaughtered), and fighting amongst themselves. Chiang would not have been a good ally, either.

Rearming the Germans would have been political suicide in the United States. We had just sacrificed hundreds of thousands to defeat the Nazis, it would not do to rearm them, even if the Russians were the threat Patton (and many others) believed them to be. Good will towards Russia and "Uncle Joe" was rampant in this country, as well. We could not turn on an ally and use the former enemy to help us.

That's the first problem; there were no men to continue the fight, and no ally capable of supplying them.

The second problem is logistics.

Patton's Army in 1944/45 was operating at the end of a 4,000 or so mile long logistic train that ran all the way from the United Sates to Germany proper. The allies had serious problems in getting ammunition and supplies from the French coast to the interior of France and German border, the problem would have been astronomically more pronounced by extending that supply line to Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Assuming Patton had the resources (men) to fight, keeping them in beans, boots and bullets would have been a nightmare. Even as late as 1991, the US Army had not solved the problem of getting supplies to the front (even with airlift, heavy sealift and helicopters) in Iraq, which is one reason why the ground war was so short: the front-line armored units were beginning to run out of fuel after those initial 100 hours. To quote, ironically, a Russian General (Rossikovsky) "Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics".

Patton, even assuming a fully-manned army, would have had serious trouble keeping them well-equipped and supplied. The Russians, on the other hand, had full access to the oil fields of Ploesti, the Caucasus and with a weakened Britain, could easily have advanced on the Middle East (much like Hitler attempted). The Russians also had interior lines of supply: Patton's suplies have to cross the Atlantic and half of Europe, the Soviets are, in effect, right next door to their own sources of supply.

Next problem: Relative quality of equipment. The Sherman tank was undoubtedly the WORST tank any nation sent into battle (with the exception of the Japanese) in the Second World War. It's only saving grace was numbers: it could be surged produced on demand. It's only improvment was British: the incorporation of the 17-pounder gun (90 mm, I believe). The Sherman, which suffered such horrendous losses against even the earlier-model German Panzers, would have suffered even worse by the numerically- and technically- superior T-34's and Stalin tanks against which it would come up against.

The American specialty, in regards to fighting the Germans, was artillery. American artillery litterally saved tens of thousands of American lives on the battlefield because it was available in sufficient numbers, had a sophisticated fire-control regime, and was of generally better quality than it's enemy counterparts (except for the German 88, of course). For every gun the Americans could put in the field, the Russians could put five (the opening assault on Berlin by the Russians featured upwards of 20,000 artillery pieces, of all types).

There was a situation in early 1945 where the supply of ammunition for American artillery had virtually dried up because of commander's ability to use it abundantly and because a short-sighted, cost-cutting Congress (with the end of the war near), cancelled the contracts that supplied American Artillery with it's shells.

It is intersting to note that almost 50% (I beleive it's greater than 40%, but leaning towards 50)of all battle casualties in WWII were caused by artillery. In this regard, Patton was outgunned, and undersupplied.

With regards to Air Forces, while the US did have the P-47, P-51, and P-38 (best fighters of the war), the B-17, 24 and 29, and a tactical and strategic air force second to none, the Russians did surge 12,000 (if I recall) aircraft into Western Europe upon beginning the Vistula-Oder campaign that finally cracked the German defenses. Qualty-wise, the Americans have the edge, but quantity often has a quality all of it's own, and many of those Russian aircraft were comparable in performance to their German counterparts.

Next in line is geography. Assuming Patton could overcome his manpower shortages, material inferiority, poor tanks, more or less even air forces and the logistial nightmare, he would still have to contend with geography. Patton would eventually, if given free reign, have to enter the Soviet Union and faced the same problems the Germans did: there would never be enough men to present a coherent front against the Russians. There is the Pripet Marshes (known to the Germans as the Wermacht Hole) more or less sitting in the middle of the Soviet Union, and impassible to armored or mechanized forces, in effect, splitting your front in the face of the enemy. We won't even get into the weather, the numbers of rivers that need to be crossed after passing the Ukranian steppes, the vast landmass of the Soviet Union, etc. Patton could never keep his army in the field with all the holes that would have naturally opened in his front lines.

This, more than anything else, explains why the Germans lost in Russia -- they could never truly hold what they took. General Winter and Stalingrad only accelerated the process.

Finally, if your argument becomes "yeah, but we had the atomic bomb", I remind you that it took four years and $2 billion to build TWO weapons (really three, one was consumed in testing), and the scientists who worked on it were not even certain it WOULD WORK WHEN FIELDED. That is not to say that because the ones used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved the concept that every bomb churned out afterwards would work, or work as effectively.

Also, Japan, unlike Russia, is an island nation, lacking in resources, which can be strangled by controlling the surrounding seas. The Japanese were defeated (in a real sense)by American naval domination of the Pacific and destruction of it's merchant marine, not the atomic bomb. The Japanese had been seeking peaceful resolution of the war long before the bombs were dropped. The US Navy once estimated that Japan could be finally forced to surrender by virtue of a continued American naval blockade, but that such a blockade would have to stay in place way into 1946.

Certainly not doable in the face of kamikaze attacks and a public wanting the troops to come home.

Russia could not be weakened by blockade, it could not be starved into submission, it did not lack resources. The only way Russia could be defeated was on the ground, and Patton (or any other commander you could think of) would have been very hard-pressed (and doomed to failure) to even try. Atomic bombs would not work in Russia (wide-open spaces, huge population, abundance of natively-held resources) the same way they did in Japan (starving nation, isolated from supply or reinforcement, crowded into four relatively small islands).

Patton would have failed UTTERLY and COMPLETELY.

---

(Here, the other end of this exchange tried to compare Patton to Alexander the Great)

The comparison between Alexander and Patton is unfair: Darius was not a westerner, steeped in the traditions of western culture and politics, mass production, and annhilation warfare. Patton's potential enemies WERE, every bit as much as he was (and quite frankly, perhaps BETTER than he was). Darius' loss to Alexander was not so much a military victory as much as a matter of superior Greek civilization meeting a more primitve, slave-based society. Alexander's army was there VOLUNTARILY, for reasons they believed in, while Darius' army was certainly not.

And I'm sad to say it, but while George S. Patton himself was a colorful and wonderful character, he was sorely lacking as a commander come 1945. After the slapping incidents in Sicily, and being kept from command for over a year, Patton toed the Eisenhower/Bradley line that infantry, not masses of armor charging the enemy, was going to win the war,and that politics and public relations were just as important as his tanks. His last campaigns in Europe are certainly uninspired, and he shows all the signs of having been muzzled by Ike and Brad.

Patton would have lost so severely that his name would be a curse in our day and age.

[Wombat101]

"Really? Kamikaze's fought the Russians to a draw in 1905? 1905? When airplanes were backyard toys they had the payload to sink anything bigger than the U.S.S. Minnow?
The "kamikazi" is translated to divine wind in Japanese. It refers to a typhoon that sank a mongrel hoards fleet that came to take Japan. About 900 years earlier."

The term kamikaze does in fact translate to the "divine wind" and is most often associated with aircraft being purposely crashed into ships and such in an effort to kill the enemy. It was also applied to those who drove specially-equipped mini submarines (Kaiten), motor boats full of explosives, ricket-powered half-airplane/half-bombs, or men who strapped landmines to their chest and hurled themselves at enemy tanks. Let's not also forget the infamous "banzai" charges.

However, suicide as a military tactic was part of the Samurai tradition for centuries prior to 1905 or even 1945. In fact, Japanese soldiers had at least ten sperate terms for committing suicide in the attempt to take an enemy with them.

In this regard, the word "kamikaze" in relation to 1905 is an expedient. There might have been no "kamikaze" as we (in 2006) would understand the term, but the principle of sacrficing the individual for the greater good of the army (or to atone for failure on the battlefield) was a well-established fact of Japanese culture.

And yes, there were "kamikazes" in 1905, only without airplanes.

As for the Russians "being fought to a standtill" in 1905, nothing of the sort occurred. The Russians were defeated by a smaller, more modern, more tactically an dpolitically astute Japan. There was no stalemate at all -- it was a Japanese victory, not two armies hopelessly deadlocked --- that finished the Russo-Japanese War.

[Always Independent]

Never stated to be favor of patton's idea of attacking the russians. But I do think he called the situation right. The country had enough of war and still needed to finish the job in the pacific. But you have to admit that the russians went far beyond their sphere of influence. I would call that turning on your allies. We went in there to free europe from hitler and ideally speaking, all of the eu contries should have been free after his defeat. They all didn't get that.

And the Russians were a great help in the pacific. (SARC)After we finished the japanese off. And they still are holding on to some of Japanes territory.

[JZelle]

I thought he had a heart attack after they tried to close his military academy?

[justshutupandtakeit]

A little review of European history would show that Russia had extensive involvement in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years before Stalin. It was because of Russian involvement in Serbia that WWI started. Poland was wiped off the map by it. Almost every Balkan state was under the control of the Russians. In earlier days the ideology driving this involvement was Pan-Slavism not Communism but it had the same intent.

Stalin was a murderous pig but there was nothing unusual from a geopolitical point of view which would have indicated he (or any other leader) would have pulled back his forces and allow anything but puppet regimes be installed in the countries the Red Army occupied. Not after the enormous sacrifices the USSR had made in defeating Hitler. Ours paled in comparison.

When they finally intervened against Japan the Korean penisular was divided and we know how that resulted.

[GB]

Actually, it was a blood clot if I'm not mistaken.

[GB]

Good analysis in this post. Sometimes I don't know how Ike survived with his sanity having to deal with George Patton and B.L. Montgomery, prima donnas supreme but both, in their own way, great generals, in the same war.