doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Way OT -- General George S. Patton Jr.

Anyone have any comments on this? Is this just internet B.S. or what?

http://www.rense.com/general75/manwho.htm

Absolute total BS. Infuriating this sort of nonsense gets traction.

I once had a father in law who served with Patton in Europe. He told me years ago that he had always suspected that Patton was murdered. One thing I know: Patton's men respected him a lot...Geo

Put it out of your mind. It's silly. He had enough enemies on both sides, and there were lots of chances to kill him, why would they wait until the end of the war? He was no threat to the United States.

Personally, I don't believe it. Stretching the topic a bit, I'd like to relate a story I was told when I worked as a masonry laborer during college summers.

One of the masons told me he was in a bridge building outfit during WWII, and one day while they were building a bridge (and taking sporadic enemy fire) across some unknown river in France, a jeep with general's stars came barrelling up to the bank of the river. Patton hopped out (wearing the ivory gripped sidearms), and said "Hurry up and get that bridge done boys, I want to go over there and shoot my guns." Then he jumped back in the jeep and away it went.

The man who told me this story said he and the troops LOVED Patton. I got the impression they admired him for exposing himself to fire near the front, just like they were doing. Sorry for going off topic here, but snippets like this show the myth surrounding Patton had a basis in fact.

I had one uncle who would have taken any number of bullets for Patton. Tank commander in WWII, who said that Patton was the best when it came to making sure his boys moved forward. Felt that if you let the Germans dig in the number of killed and wounded went up many times greater than a fast charge, which kept them from defending prepared defenses. This was a man, in a Sherman, going up against Panzers. Took guts, skill and a lot of luck to live through the war.

Patton was no paper pushing REMF. He saw combat in WWI and was on the front lines in WWII many times. Not exposing himself to reckless danger but up with his men, seeing first hand, what was and what was not going on.

It has often been theorized that he was killed by the Soviets whom he hated (and visa versa). I knew three soldiers under him whom absolutely HATED him. They would start shaking when his name came up and these even tempered old fellows went balistic cursing him out. He pushed his men and went forward quickly. They thought it was too quickly, but you weigh that against those who would be lost giving the enemy time to regroup.

He was shooting ahead as usual when mines were destroying tanks on the roads. He ordered a jeep to go ahead to set them off instead and had blacks drive the jeeps. It certainly worked. The Germans considered him our best general.

There is so much myth and BS about Patton out there you might hear just about anything. I knew one of his Aides who was later one of his Battalion commanders. He told us Patton went to extreme measures to show his troops their leader moving forward and without fear of the enemy. For example, no one talks about seeing Patton moving to the rear to get back to his staff and headquarters. That is because he often used light aircraft for return trips just so the men wouldn't see him moving in the wrong direction. Patton fostered this image as part of his leadership style and it obviously worked. I'm with Joe Taylor, the story that Patton was killed by our government is just crap. His popularity with the troops resulted in many war stories which were fabrications of those troops as a form of hero worship. I am sure there were troops that didn't like him for whatever reason as well so their fabrications would be derogatory. Truth is he was the right man for the job at that time and left a legacy which still influences our Army.

When GP wanted to cross the bridge to "shoot his guns", he couldn't have been referring to his CHE .410 skeet gun, could he?

KY John- sounds like we had similar military experiences- REMF and the "Shake and Bake NCO's out of Benning"- rings some familiar bells- My first wife's Dad was a Sgt. in Patton's Third Army and went into Bastogne in Dec 1944. Patton believed that good accurate intel was worth an entire Div.- his G-2 chief Col. Otto Koch determined that the Germans would make a "last ditch effort". I have (presently out on loan) several books on Patton from the Military Book Club- great info-Patton was from a wealthy CA family- owned a vineyard and other real estate-both his Dad and GrandDad were VMI and West Pointers. Like most all Veterans who have seen the horror of combat, my late Father-In-Law never spoke much about his war experiences (He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart-pulled two of his men out from German mortar fire and got shrapnel wounds in his legs-) and this is the first I've seen about a plot to kill the best Field Commander we had in WW11- Both Patton and Irwin Rommel shared this 4 word term for leadership however: "Officers Always Eat Last"!! RWTF