Conspiracy? Or sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar (Freud).
Patton hated the Russians far more than he hated Germans, and perhaps dreamed of rearming and unleashing the latter against the USSR. Many in America also wanted us to stand back and just let the Nazis and Communists claw each other to death.
The sedan was not smashed to bits (photo). Restored, it reposes in the Patton Museum. I looked underneath it in 1977 and saw that the frame was bent, but nothing more. Gen. Patton was not only the only fatality, but the only one in the car even injured. A very finely tuned assassination, yes? The German Insurgency would have used some kind of what's now called an IED.
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).
Gen Patton was a near-perfect, aggressive battlefield commander. That doesn't translate well to any other walk of life. Lost accident report? Welcome to the bureaucracy, circa 1945.
Let him rest in peace, in his soldier's grave.
The way I see it, the Good Lord created George Patton for one particular purpose. When that mission was finished, He called him home.
I found this on the wackey web - but I made a point of asking all my WWII vet uncles and such - lots of corroboration that there was more than one car accident and something along the lines that he was recovering in the hospital, was denied visits by family, and then he had a heart attack.
"One day Patton's car was run into by a military truck in what seemed like a very strange accident. The General was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was observed to have serious, but not life-threatening injuries. But some days later he died of a heart attack. "
Patton did not die as a result of any conspiracy ... he was recalled at that moment in time by the good Lord. Patton felt he was reincarnated from a earlier warrior ... put on earth by the Lord, when needed, to fight yet another war. His time on earth and his ascendancy to the rank of general in the U.S. Army at that precise moment was, in his opinion, preordained.
"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).
Where is the Patton Museum?
I just finished reading Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" (wr.1948), and in it he repeatedly speaks highly of Patton as a close friend and great military leader. His actions concerning Patton always seemed to be because of his broad outlook on future consequences. More than once, he insisted to Marshall on having Patton as a vital portion of his major plans.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he had been allowed to push into Russia ........
That Patton was allegedly assassinated by means of a vehicle accident is not borne out by the known facts. He survived the accident in question and there are more conclusive methods to ensure the death of someone than a highly unpredictable road accident however tantalising the thought may be.The alleged assassination of Princess Diana was also attributed to a traffic accident but one does not need to be a CIA agent to realise there are more succint methods at hand to put someone away especially by those specifically trained to do just that.