The Mysterious Death of George Patton

"You make my point for me. Truman was afaid of an escalation to Nuclear war.. McArthur was NOT."

Let me get your position clear - Truman, the only person in the history of the world who ordered the use of nuclear weapons was "afraid" of Nuclear war, but McArthur was not?!?!

Patton’s Last Battle – Valiant in Death as in Life

02-02-06

It was to be a routine hunting trip like hundreds he had gone on before, but General George S. Patton Jr. had his final date with destiny as he set out for that trip on December 9, 1945.

After a stop to look at German ruins, Patton and his driver were on the outskirts of Manheim when a two-and-a-half-ton truck turned in front of their car. Patton was thrown violently forward, then back, breaking his neck and wounding his scalp.

Conscious, but paralyzed and having trouble breathing, Patton asked whether his fellow travelers were okay. After being transferred to the 130th U.S. Army Station Hospital in Heidelberg, Patton quipped, “Jesus Christ, what a way to start a leave.”

Beatrice came to join him in his final days and was described by Patton’s doctor as having a personality that “radiates like a rare gem.” Her devotion to her beloved husband was noticed by all and her courage and grace were a source of comfort for family, friends and well wishers.

While the prognosis was poor, doctors used every means possible to keep Patton alive. At one point, sharp hooks were affixed to his cheekbones. The device was counterbalanced by a ten-pound weight designed to pull his head and backbone and relieve pressure on the spine. He endured injections and transfusions, a major disappointment for a man who had hoped to die in battle.

Patton often said, “The proper end for a professional solder is a quick death inflicted by the last bullet of the last battle.”

It was in the quiet after the battle, the battle won, the German armies vanquished, that Patton was called to death. He died in his sleep on December 21, having never regained use of his limbs. The official cause of death was pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure.

On that same day, before receiving the news of his death, both of his daughters had premonitions of his death. Ruth Ellen awoke from a dream to find the figure of her father in full uniform sitting in front of the bay window. He looked at her and smiled a smile of love and reassurance and was gone.

When she called Little Bea the next morning, Bea had a story of her own to tell. She had been awakened by a phone call in the middle of the night. When Bea picked up the phone she heard her father’s voice saying: “Little Bea, are you all right?” Then the line was cut off. He had passed, but not without saying goodbye.

His belongings were shipped to Green Meadows, among them books, a stag horn, a sword, a portable typewriter and his faithful companion Willie. His doctor, Colonel R. Glen Spurling, remarked that Patton died as he had lived – bravely.

He noted that Patton never complained during his illness, treated everyone with consideration and took orders without question. The outpouring of affection from across the world upon his death was tremendous.

*This article first appeared in "The Patton Saber" - The official newsletter of The Patton Museum Foundation. Visit their Web site.

I do not believe for ONE instance that Patton "asked for two bombs". He loathed such weapons and would never have used one except in the most desparate conditions. An invasion of the USSR would certainly have produced desparate conditions quite soon there is no doubt of that.

In any case the insane use of two bombs would not have particularly bothered the Soviet Bear only enraged him and all our allies. Of course, who would have been our ally after a treacherous attack on our major ally?

Apparently a nation's word means nothing to you.

Do you believe ALL BS that reaches print?

At least keep your LIES consistent. There were NO thousands of US military prisoner in the USSR at the end of WWII. We are not speaking of decades later but even that is extremely unlikely and exaggerated. But, I forget, you like exaggerations such as being able to deftly slice our way to a total defeat of the USSR out of the Blue.

Virtually NO Americans would have supported such an insane scheme even if it were to have worked.

Americans never think to well of treacherously stabbing one's ally in the back after a brutal fight against a common enemy.

While Machiavellians and practictioners of power politics regularly go for such mad actions Americans never have. They have always been burdened by excessive decency.

Surely no one is surprised at the knowledge that crackpot theorists tend to fall for most crackpot theories. Anyone goofy enough to think that there was even a TINY chance that the US would attack five or six million Soviet soldiers in Europe and untold millions more in the USSR itself is clearly not playing with a full deck.

Are you speaking of the "pathetic" Soviet army which destroyed the finest army in the world and drove it back to the Bunker?

justshutupandtakeit you don't listen very well.

I said Patton was right, and we could have won.

After I show you how we could have won, then you shift to, and You keep harping on, it wouldn't have been right & the public wouldn't support it. I don't care.

"In any case the insane use of two bombs would not have particularly bothered the Soviet Bear only enraged him "

It would seem that your raising the level of the Russians to some mythical, omnipotent, godlike status.

I think their reaction to the nuking of Stalingrad and Moscow would have been the same as the Japs reaction to two nuke - dead, extremely dead.

"There were NO thousands of US military prisoner in the USSR at the end of WWII."

On what basis do you claim this? The Russians committed and covered up a Genocide in 1932 - of more than all the soldiers killed in WWI.

I most certainly do believe that Stalin committed the same atrocities to our people.

After all, look what he did to 15000 Polish POW's at Katyn.

http://www.ldh-toulon.net/IMG/fosse_katyn_1943.jpg

As a counterpoint to your position, there appears to be ample reason why Stalin was very afraid of Patton (and John Wayne) and if he arranged a hit on John Wayne, then certainly he would have also targeted Patton. Here is something I found that indicates Patton's strategy wopuld have worked:

1) Atomic weapons and the B-29 delivery system. Stalin possessed very few aircraft that could have successfully intercepted an inbound B-29 strike, especially one supported by our long-range fighters. The Soviet aircraft were mostly designed to destroy the German medium bombers, and for tactical work in support of their troops.

2) Without lend-lease, the Red army would have withered away for lack of supplies. Even the meager rations of the average soldier would have been reduced by more than half when the allied aid was cut off.

3) Superior equipment- The Soviet T-34 was the best mass produced medium tank of the war. Having said that, the Allies would have access to captured German equipment, factories, personnel, and technology, and were in much better shape to begin production of advanced equipment such as the Panther, Panther II, Go229, Me262, Sturmgewher 44, Type XXI and XXIII U-boats, and the V-1 & V-2 programs.

4) Manpower- The Chinese were still imperial at the time, and with US/UK support, the premise was that Mao failed in his bid for power since the aid from the USSR was curtailed, therefore putting the Chinese troops into the equation. Stalin would have been put into a two-front war, with all his manufacturing facilities within bombing range, whereas the Germans were never able to get bombers into the Urals.

5) Stalin Himself-- The man was a Communist version of Hitler, and goes down in history as the most prolific mass-murder of all times. His populace, including his General, feared him, and his oppression of the people showed when the first villages that the Germans overran welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, and happily took up arms against Communist party officials.

This simulation is purported to have been done in the 80's and tho hindsight is 100%, so was PAtton's foresight.

"Are you speaking of the "pathetic" Soviet army which destroyed the finest army in the world "

Boy, are you sure you support the ideals of Free Republic?

Here is a reference that supports the widespread fact that Patton was most feared by the Germans - not some Russian.
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A month after the Overlord invasion the stalemate at the beaches was virtually unbroken. Then Bradley launched “Operation Cobra,” a tamed version of one of Patton’s plans. This created a hole in the Germans' encrusted fortifications and allowed the Third Army, which had just become operational, to break out through it.

Third Army came into the scene suddenly and spectacularly as it broke out of Normandy and raced across France. In Brittany, Patton’s VIII corps drove all opposition before them. They swiftly captured the important ports of St. Brieuc, Quimper, Morlaix, and Nantes.

The Germans didn’t know who was in command of the Third Army, but they did know that in seven days the Third Army had stolen 10,000 square miles from their “victorious Reich;” a faster advance than any army in history. They must have suspected that it was Patton, because the Germans always held Patton in higher respect than the Americans. After all, the Third Army’s stunning advance was far faster than the German blitzkrieg.

The Germans now tried to stop the allies’ advance. Against his generals’ advice, Hitler ordered 11 of his best divisions to attack the allies. Patton then went in one huge sweep behind all of the German armies, encircling them between two cities, known as Falaise and Argentan. Patton’s Third Army was at Falaise, and Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was north of Argentan.

In one of the most stupid decisions of the war, Patton was ordered to halt at Falaise and wait for Montgomery to close the gap between the two cities. It took Montgomery 2 weeks to close the gap, during which most of the German divisions escaped. Had Patton been allowed to close the gap, the war would have ended in August 1944. There would have never been an “East Germany” and a Communist dominated Eastern Europe. Thousands of Jewish lives would also have been saved

These guys seem to ignore the facts: They discount the Genocidal policies of the Russians against POW's and they seem to put the Russian Army on a higher level than ours.

Here's another book review - a US General demonstrates how Patton could have won the war a year earlier and stopped the Russians from enslaving eastern Europe.

No wonder Stalin would have wanted Patton dead.
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Gasoline To Patton: A Different War

Albin F. Irzyk

Elderberry Press

1393 Old Homestead Drive, 2nd floor, Oakland, OR 97462-9506

193276206X $29.95 elderberrypress.com

Written by Brigadier General Albin F. Irzyk (Ret.), who fought in World War II in Europe as a Tank Battalion Commander in the 4th Armored Division, Gasoline To Patton: A Different War is a hard-hitting criticism of a military decision made by General Eisenhower in late 1944. As both a historian and a participant, Irzyk voices his belief that if Eisenhower had chosen differently, the war in Europe would have been over before the end of 1944, with no "Market Garden", no "Battle of the Bulge", and the Russian advance stopped outside of East Germany. Suggesting that politics and the need to appease the English by catering to their allegedly incompetent general outweighed the need for effective strategy in Eisenhower's mind, and claiming that General Patton himself would have chosen to resign from the Army and tell the damning truth had he lived, Irzyk "comes clean" with his point-by-point breakdown of what happened, what went wrong, and what could have been. A truly involving and at times disturbing account, part military memoir, part historical speculation, sparsely illustrated with black-and-white photographs.

Here's another account of PAtton's tactical prowess.

Lots of talk here on how great the Germans or Russians were but Patton appears to hold the record.

Lt. General George S. Patton Jr., has never been properly recognized for his contribution to military strategy, although he executed the fastest advance ever in history, far faster than Guderian’s famous blitzkrieg into Poland.

In this article I will show some incredible examples of Patton’s victories, as well as examine why and how Patton’s strategy works. To do this, let’s look at an example of Patton’s military strategy in action:

It was March, 1945, and Patton’s XX Corps’ was rapidly advancing towards the Rhine, threatening General Balck’s entire forces. General Balck, commander of German Army Group G, needed to delay Patton’s crossing of the Rhine. So he formed a defensive line consisting of 10 divisions in the Hunsruck Mountains to protect his north flank. But Patton now used his most effective method against a solidly-held German area. He split his army’s advance in two. In addition to the XX Corps’ advance in the north which Balck was worried about, he also ordered the 4th Armored to cross the Moselle in the south and dash through the enemy’s rear. The XII Corps’ Infantry followed closely behind the armored division, wiping up any resistance. The XII Corps in the south, far in the enemy’s rear, circled around and linked up in the north with the XX Corps, which had plunged through the West Wall and was rapidly advancing towards the Rhine. Because Patton had split the Third Army in two and encircled the Hunsruck Mountains, the Americans captured ten entire German divisions there. This was Patton’s masterpiece; it shows the true genius of his strategy.

Continuing his campaign in the Palatinate, Patton’s 4th Armored cut off the Germans’ bridges across the Rhine. Mainz and Mannheim quickly fell to the onslaught of Patton’s slashing armor. Patton’s armored divisions were attacking the German Army Group on three sides. Trapped in France, surrounded and cut off from their Rhine bridgeheads, the Germans began surrendering in the tens of thousands.

The Third Army’s campaign in the Palatinate was rolling onwards, more brilliant by the hour. “We are the eighth wonder of the world,” Patton wrote to his wife, “…I hope things keep smooth. It seems to be too good to be true.” On March 21st 1945, the Palatinate Campaign officially came to an end with Third Army having annihilated every German contingent in the Moselle triangle. “I really believe this operation is one of the outstanding operations in the history of war,” Patton wrote in his diary. German Major General Schimpf of the 3rd Paratroop Division would call Patton’s campaign in the Palatinate “phenomenal.”

Patton’s strategy, to encircle and cut-off the enemy, rather than annihilating him in a direct assault, was the key to his success. He used his armored divisions and the air force for these behind-the-lines encirclements because they were fast enough to surprise the enemy. He then had the infantry follow behind the armored divisions, wiping up. Patton’s strategy was perfect blitzkrieg. Unfortunately, some military historians claim that Patton was merely “chasing a retreating enemy” and that his army fell apart under real resistance, or that he was capturing and defeating inferior, under-supplied German troops.

There are several problems with these arguments. The purpose of Patton’s strategy, and the purpose of blitzkrieg, is to avoid direct frontal attacks and to bypass resistance. The idea is to cut the enemy off from his supplies and force him to surrender. This strategy saves thousands of lives, but it requires the armies to move very quickly, giving rise to the accusation that they are “chasing” the enemy. The other accusation, that the Germans were under-supplied and not as well equipped as the Americans, is silly. The first blitzkrieg, executed by Guderian in Poland, consisted of German tanks and planes against Polish cavalry. The inequality of these forces in no way diminished Guderian’s victory.

There were occasions where the Third Army actually had far less supplies than the Germans, yet still managed to win the battle. One of these occurred at dawn on September 8th, 1944. Because the Third Army was now on the defense, an SS Panzer Brigade attacked them. The SS brigade at first had a minor success. They fired at General McLain’s headquarters, broke in and captured classified files, then withdrew to join the main force. This would have been the first German victory of the campaign; but then Third Army asserted itself, counterattacked, and almost completely annihilated the German contingent. The Germans lost 30 tanks, 60 half-tracks, and 900 men.

Patton was just as brilliant at defense as he was during the attack and pursuit. When Eisenhower ordered the Third Army onto the defense in September, 1944, Patton told his two corps commanders that they were to make “limited attacks” so that the Germans would not know that the Third had been ordered onto the defense. He prohibited the stringing of barbed wire and would not allow his men to mine the army’s frontier. This would only be a temporary halt, and he did not want them to do anything which would make future advances difficult. So here is how Patton defended the Third Army’s border: he ordered his men to make small outposts which could be easily assisted by the Third’s powerful tanks in case of a German attack. Artillery was placed wherever German tanks were likely to strike. Then Patton alerted the men in Weyland’s air force to be ready at a moment’s notice to fly in and strafe enemy soldiers. If the Germans attacked, commanders were to call in the tanks and infantry at once. This is the essence of blitzkrieg: constant mobility at a moment’s notice; and contrary to the revisionist theory, here Patton was exercising it under defense.

One of Patton’s most ingenious and little known plans was for his Rhine crossing. Several months before he crossed the Rhine, while he was still planning in England, he selected a spot along the Rhine River where he would cross with his Army. He chose this area “because the terrain on my side dominated that on the other side, as the former was far enough away from the Frankfurt hills to prevent direct fire on the bridges, and because, above everything else, there was a barge harbor there from which we could launch the boats unseen.” Less than ten men died in Patton’s military crossing of the Rhine! That is unprecedented in the history of war. That Patton could plan this from simply looking at a terrain map in London is incredible, and shows Patton’s genius not just in swift exploitation, but also in planning.

Patton’s crossing of the Rhine was typical of his operations; the 5th Infantry Division had simply ferried across the Rhine in rafts and small engineer assault boats early in the morning. The operation was launched with nothing special in the way of supplies or equipment. He was very proud of this and had his messenger tell Bradley that, “Without benefit of aerial bombing, ground smoke, artillery preparation, and airborne assistance, the Third Army at 2200 hours, Thursday evening, March 22, crossed the Rhine River.” The man who had the aerial bombing, ground smoke, artillery, airborne divisions, Field Marshal Montgomery, had been beaten across the Rhine by the genius of Lt. Gen. Patton’s strategy.

“We did not wait,” Patton wrote, “and caught most of the 15th Panzer division in bed.” Patton’s strategy had triumphed again. Patton’s strategy was constant advance: he needed to be unrelenting if he was to surprise the enemy. The Germans respected Patton’s strategy and admired its genius, calling him our “most modern” commander. Rommel wrote that, “We had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare.” Von Rundstedt simply called Patton our “best.”

The Americans, however, have been unwilling to give Patton credit for his remarkable achievements. I think it’s time we reevaluate what makes a great strategy. If we value winning a war quickly with a minimum of casualties, we should look to the commander who captured ten Germans to one American; we should look to the inventor of American blitzkrieg, General Patton.

No we could not have won. Patton and you are wrong about that. And what kind of victory would have been produced by A bombing an ally unprovoked? A Fascist victory not an American.

So you know nothing of the history of the Russians I see.

Or of the incredible destruction the USSR took during the War. A bombs would have done only a little more damage than what the Germans already had.

Nuking Stalingrad. What a laugh. Trying to see how high the rubble would bounce?

Stalin did not hold Americans as POWs after the war.

Stop with the LIES already.

Yeah, the Germans feared Patton some much they had 3.9 million troops with their backs to him fighting Zukov.

You dispute the contention that the German army was the best in the world?

Your delusions are growing and are not supported by those alleged "facts" when a more important fact must be faced. We would have had NO allies, NO domestic support for such insanity and 5.5 million Soviet soldiers between Germany and the USSR.

Patton had out-lived his usefullness.

I don't deny the existence of Marxism or Socialism in the post-War government of the Middle East, nor their attachments to the Soviet teat. To do so would be as ridiculous as the initial assertion that Patton would have beaten the Russians in 1945.

The importation of Marxism and Socialism into the Middle East has nothing to do with an admiration for the merits of either system. It was, in part, an attempt to copy the West in an effort to match it. This is exactly what Japan did c. 1870-1945 (acquire colonies, produce strong armed forces, set up a semi-democratic government, but without the ability to question and audit the accepted authority.). However, it always fails because while you can easily imitate the FORMS of Western culture, you cannot always imitate the substance.

You'll notice that those systems were imported to the Middle East by men typically educated in the West (including Russia).They are not native ideals of the Islamic Middle East (unlike American democracy and capitalism which sprung from our English heritage).

Western culture does not spring from industry, a form of government or a strong military. It is the result of three millenia of a particular mindset, a peculiar way of thinking which created those things in the first place.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about;

In the toolbox of the 9/11 hijackers, we will find the following things; jumbo airliners, international air travel, electronic funds transfer, ATM Machines, credit cards, cell phones, flight schools, e-mail, laptop computers, passports and other forms of documentation and the means to forge them, as well), and finally, boxcutters.

Each is the end-result of a process of conceptual thinking, trial and error, scientific experimentation and capitalism. Eash was developed in an incubator where people were freely allowed to ask questions such as "Why?" and "why not?", and make the efforts and set the conditions necessary to answer those questions for themselves.

What did the Middle East provide?

Nineteen kamikazes.

Now, the questions have to be asked; are Arabs, and Muslims in general, stupid? No more less intelliegent or brilliant than your typical Westerner. Are Arabs incapable of doing the things that lead to the creation of jumbo jets and passports and ATM machnes? Of course they are, in a strictly intellectual sense.

So, why don't they?

Firstly because their faith tells them, first and foremost, that the Will of Allah is all there is. If man had been intended to fly, Allah would have given him wings. If man had been intended to divine the Will of God by creating the systems of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry, etc that makes an airliner, God would have revealed it to Mohammed. To suggest that man CAN know these things is inimical to Islam; God cannot be questioned and his inner mysteries cannot be discerned by man.

One of the unique features of Western culture is the belief (inherent in Judaism and Christianity) is that one day the Savior will come (or come again), and that it is the duty of all men to strive to make this world as perfect as we can before that event occurs. We believe that we CAN do these things because God wants us to. It is a notion that has been at the base of modern scientific progress ever since the concept was invented. In Islam,there is no tomorrow. There is no future because the greatest thing that can ever happen, already has; Mohammed has ascebded to heaven, there will be no more prophets. al lthat is left to a Muslim is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Koran (which all stress the conversion of the entire planet). Everything,from who and how to marry, to how to run a government, to which hand you wipe your backside with, is contained in the Koran, and it is only through obeyence of the Koran that the Muslim will carry out his ultimate mission; the fulfillment of proephecy.

The Koran rules all and cannot be challeneged.

This attitude (This is the way God made the world, you cannot change it) flies in the face of the evidence to the contrary; the Western World. To challenge the belief that the world is just as God decided to leave it, is to commit blasphemy (as it was in pre-Reformation Europe). However, the Western wolrd advanced PRECISELY because it challenged that notion.

Of course, Muslim societies have acquired the fruits of the Western scientific, economic and political revolutions. Muslims do fly airliners. They do drive autombiles, and watch television. But do they produce them for themselves or do they import them from elsewhere? No, because it's easier to buy them with oil money than it is to create the conditions that would creat Detroit in Riyadh, or a Syrian Boeing.

The next feature of Western culture is the ability to tell authority (secular or religious)to take a hike whenever it ceases to be a force for good within society. in the desert culture of "might makes right" and the Islamic culture of "the Koran is power", this is fairly impossible.
In order to oust the "Leader" you must muster as much force as you can (which is usually not much at all because of poverty and the inability to co-ordinate dissent), unlike the West where such things are typically done through ELECETIONS. In the Middle East and elsewhere) they are usually accomplished by coup-d'tat, by one who manages to collect a monopoly of force and keep it (i.e. Sadat, Saddam Hussein, Khadaffy, the Mullahs, Nasser, the Saudi Royals, etc).

Until there is a way to free the minds of the people of the Middle East from the poison of the Koran, and slavish devotion to it, and to implement a way where political power can change hands without violent, bloody revolution every two years, the Middle East will remain locked in a prison of it's own making. And it is this frustration (the West has these things, the Muslims do not) more than anything else drives the hatred, not the propaganda of the KGB. It was so before Constantinople fell and it is still true today.

Oh, and one more thing;

"You are really quite wrong on this one - the culture that brought us algebra is not the west bashing one we have today ..."

I'm afraid you're quite wrong. The same culture that was fought to a standstill at Poitier, the same culture that subjugated the Balkans, the same culture which overran Constantinople, the same cyulture that brought us the concept of the slave army (Jannissaries and Mamluks), is the same culture that crashed airliners into the World Trade Center.

The only difference is that they look more like us now, in a strictly superficial sense, than they did in 748. mentally they are in the same arrested state of development.