Friday 24 May 2024

George S. Patton, DSC (1885 - 1945) – American Soldier

George Smith Patton Junior was born on 11th November 1885.  He was educated at the Virginia Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point. George studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more commonly known as the "Patton Saber". He competed in the modern pentathlon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. 

George joined the Army and took par in the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, the United States' first military action using motor vehicles. 

NOTE:

The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army" — was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from 14th March 1916 to 7th February 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.

The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Mexican Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa.  Despite locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command who were responsible for the Columbus raid, U.S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape.

Patton at Bourg in France in 1918
with a Renault FT light tank

First World War 

After the Villa Expedition, George was posted to Front Royal, Virginia, to oversee horse procurement for the army, but Pershing intervened on his behalf and when the United States entered the First World war in April 1917, and Pershing was named commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front, George requested to join his staff. 

George was promoted to the rank of Captain on 15th May 1917 and left for Europe, among the 180 men of Pershing's advance party which departed on 28th May and arrived in Liverpool, UK, on 8th June. As Pershing's personal aide, George oversaw the training of American troops in Paris until September, then moved to Chaumont and was assigned as a post adjutant, commanding the headquarters company overseeing the base. 

While in hospital recovering from jaundice, George met Colonel Fox Conner, who encouraged him to work with tanks instead of infantry.

George fought in WW1 as part of the new United States Tank Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces. He commanded the U.S. tank school in France, then led tanks into combat and was wounded towards the end of the war.

George was wounded by machine-gun fire in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

He was also a poet.  Here is one of his poems:

"Through a Glass, Darkly"

Through the travail of the ages,

Midst the pomp and toil of war,

I have 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 listened 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 in 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 its 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.


Prioli, Carmine A. (1991). “The Poems of General George S. Patton, Jr.”: Lines of Fire. New York: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0889461628.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/11/11/legendary-general-patton-hated-peace-so-much-he-wrote-poem-about-it.html


George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) became a General in the United States Army and commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theatre of  The Second World War and commanded the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.