Patton, the man, the movie, and the “they just don’t write ‘em like that anymore” phenomenon

Somehow, a mere 25 years after Patton’s death Hollywood managed to create a big budget masterpiece that unflinchingly and unapologetically tells his story.  Rather than moralize or criticize, the film immerses the viewer in the unique combination of madness, genius, grit, and determination that drove one of America’s greatest generals. 

In one sense, legendary general and military commander, George S. Patton was what we might politely call “bat shit crazy,” a man who believed he’d been reincarnated as a warrior for thousands of years and who fate itself placed at the forefront of the second World War to achieve heroic victories.  Born in California to a wealthy family with a rich military history on November 11, 1885, he was equally obsessed with the past, the military in general, and how his legacy would be viewed in the future.  He spent what might be considered an inordinate amount of time tracing his ancestry, believing he was a first cousin six times removed to George Washington and was further descended from the Plantagenet King Edward I, who ruled in the 13th century.  Family lore also held that the Pattons were related to the original signers of the legendary Magna Carta.  More recently and without a doubt in real life, he was descended from Hugh Mercer, a soldier during the Revolutionary War who was killed at the Battle of Princeton, nor was this the only military death in his ancestry.   His paternal grandfather, also named George Smith Patton, commanded the 22nd Virginia Infantry in the Civil War only to be killed in the Third Battle of Winchester, and his great-uncle Waller T. Patton led the 7th Virginia Infantry regiment during the Battle of Gettysburg, only to be killed during Pickett’s Charge.  Despite this rather disheartening legacy, the younger Patton never seriously considered a career outside the military, believing it was part of his spiritual nature, and different incarnations of his being had fought in battles predating the Romans.  Ultimately, he was admitted to West Point, but experienced no meteoric rise after being forced to repeat freshman year after failing mathematics.  He did, however, excel at military drills and achieve the rank of sergeant major in his junior year and cadet adjutant in his senior.  He was also an excellent athlete, who played football until an arm injury before turning to fencing and track and field, where he was talented enough to compete in the 1912 Olympics and finish in fifth place overall in the pentathlon, twenty-first on the pistol range, seventh in swimming, fourth in fencing, sixth in the equestrian competition, and third in the footrace.  Interestingly, it was claimed he would have placed first at the pistol range, but he was so accurate the bullets passed through holes in the target.  After completing West Point, he served his first post at Fort Sheridan in Illinois with the 15th Cavalry, only to be transferred for Fort Myer in Virginia shortly afterwards, where he took his fencing talent and learnings from the Adjutant Charles Clery, a French Master of Arms to redesign saber combat doctrine.  The result was so successful he was temporarily assigned to the Office of the Army Chief of Staff to produce the 20,000 of the new “Patton Sabres.”  After he returned to France, he became the first Army officer ever designated “Master of the Sword.”

Regardless, he remained self conscious about what he considered a squeaky voice, concerned that it would limit his ability to lead men into battle until he got his first opportunity during the Pancho Villa Expedition.  After Mexican forces raided the border town of Columbus in New Mexico, he petitioned John J. Pershing to lead troops and was placed in charge of the 13th Cavalry, set to assist in the search for the Pancho Villa, who had authorized the raid.  On May 14, 1916, Patton led a force of 10 soldiers and 2 civilian guides in three Dodge cars, surprising three of Villa’s men and leading to the first motorized attack in the history of US warfare, something that would come to represent his unique ability to blend military history and tradition with modern technology, making him a bizarre combination of past and future.  The incident earned him the nickname “bandit killer,” and a promotion to First Lieutenant.  From there, his relationship with Pershing put him at the forefront of American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front in World War I.  Dissatisfied with his posting, which was largely training and administrative, he took an interest in tanks, continuing his desire to exploit the potential of mechanized combat, and by November 1917, was assigned to establish the AEF’s Light Tank School.  Less than a year later, he oversaw the logistics of the first US tanks ever used in combat.  He would soon press into Germany, personally leading his precious tanks onto the field of battle.  Though he was wounded a few miles into German territory, he continued to lead from inside a shell hole before being evacuated and in an early sign of his pugnacious refusal to accept cowardice of any kind, one which would come back to haunt him, he claimed he might’ve killed one of his own men if they didn’t advance, insisting “Some of my reserve tanks were stuck by some trenches. So I went back and made some Americans hiding in the trenches dig a passage. I think I killed one man here. He would not work so I hit him over the head with a shovel.”  Though he returned to duty after recuperating from his wounds, the war was almost over by that point, earning him a Silver Star, soon upgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross.  “The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, 9 July 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Colonel (Armor) George Smith Patton, Jr. (ASN: 0-2605), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Tank Corps, A.E.F., near Cheppy, France, 26 September 1918. Colonel Patton displayed conspicuous courage, coolness, energy, and intelligence in directing the advance of his brigade down the valley of the Aire. Later he rallied a force of disorganized infantry and led it forward, behind the tanks, under heavy machine-gun and artillery fire until he was wounded. Unable to advance further, Colonel Patton continued to direct the operations of his unit until all arrangements for turning over the command were completed.”  His work with tanks in general also earned him the Distinguished Service Medal.  

Following the war, he rose from captain to major to lieutenant colonel while pushing for the use of more motorized forces though his time between wars was not without incidents.  At a posting in Hawaii, he feuded with his commander and was rebuked by the same man, Hugh Aloysius Drum, for profanity-laced tirades during a polo match.  At the same time, he continued to exhibit a keen eye for the changing nature of warfare in the post-Industrial Age, and by 1937 had written a paper, “Surprise” which was said to predict the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with “stunning accuracy.”  After almost being forced out of the military by a freak horse injury, he was a colonel and soon to be a general by the eve of World War II, where his unique combination of martial prowess, command of tactics, and pugnacious attitude would make him a legend – and the subject of an Oscar winning 1970 film which also seems as out of place in the modern era.  The film itself begins after Patton has landed at Morocco in North Africa, when he is put in charge of the US II Corps after it was ignominiously defeated by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel at Kasserine Pass.  Given ten days to bring the corps back into fighting shape, Patton, as depicted in the film, both takes decisive action and exhibits a no-holds barred attitude, banning men who are experiencing PTSD, then known as battle fatigue, from the military hospital.  In addition, he expected his officers to fight as hard and experience the same casualties as his men, such as when he told them before the battle of Gafsa, “I expect to see such casualties among officers, particularly staff officers, as will convince me that a serious effort has been made to capture this objective.”  In between feuding over a lack of air support and other logistical matters, Patton pushed the Germans out of North Africa and began to plan for the invasion of Sicily, where he would once again battle with his superiors and British General Sir Bernard Montgomery.  According to the film at least, Patton’s invasion plan was inspired by the Carthaginians, and though it was originally rejected, he ultimately was given the chance to sweep from Palermo to Messina as he so desperately desired.  To do so, it appeared he defied orders at least once, claiming they were “lost in transmission” until after he captured the city.  Nor was he gentle with the locals, having shot and killed two mules blocking a bridge and then attacking the Sicilian owner with a walking stick.  He was also accused by two of his soldiers of commanding them to execute prisoners of war who resisted within two hundred yards, but his pugnaciousness finally caught up with him in a meaningful way after he slapped at least two subordinates during the Sicily campaign.  First, on August 3, 1943, he attacked  Private Charles H. Kuhl at a field hospital in Nicosia for suffering from PTSD, and then on August 10, he slapped Private Paul G. Bennett for the same reasons, before ordering both men back to the front.

Patton was reprimanded, forced to apologize to everyone involved including the entire corps under his command, and then was relieved of that command, shuttled into ceremonial oblivion.  Precisely when the war in Europe proper against the Nazis was beginning, he was sidelined for eleven critical months, but during this time, America sought to exploit German fear of Patton’s prowess after routing them in Africa and Sicily to hide the in-planning Normandy invasion by pretending Patton would be personally leading a force to Calais instead of the actual landing zone.  This expansive spy craft included the construction of a fictitious army, decoys, props, even fake radio chatter while Patton himself was ordered to play along and keep a low profile.  Though he was furious and believed his destiny was being thwarted, as he says in the film “The last great opportunity of a lifetime – an entire world at war, and I’m left out of it? God will not permit this to happen! I will be allowed to fulfill my destiny! His will be done,” the ruse was so effective that even after ships started landing at Normandy on D-Day the Germans kept forces to protect Calais, fearing his arrival.  Afterwards, Patton finally found his opportunity for military glory on the continent and was given command of the Third Army to race towards Germany, faster than any other commander.  In this regard, all of his personal experience came to bear, both the old and the new. If Patton understood one thing about war beyond the discipline and fighting spirit required, it was that modern armies needed to move fast to be effective.  Early in the film, he said, “Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that ‘we are holding our position.’  We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose and we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!”  As such, he covered sixty miles of enemy territory under heavy fighting in just two weeks and soon reached the border of Germany, where he was stalled by a lack of supplies.  In far northeastern France, he fought viciously at the fortress of Metz, between September 5 and November 21, requiring over ten weeks to take the city.  Though he was successful, it was deemed to be a waste of manpower and lives as the city could’ve been bypassed.  While conducting a study on the campaign more than forty years later, Dr. Christopher R. Gabel of the Combat Studies Institute concluded, “Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war.”

By December 1944, the Germans regrouped for a desperate counter attack that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge, the last decisive encounter of the European theater.  American forces at Bastogne were trapped and Supreme Allied Commander (and future President) Dwight D. Eisenhower held a meeting to figure out some means to relieve them.  When no one else was up to the challenge, Patton claimed he could get there in 48 hours – in the middle of the storm.  “Don’t be fatuous, George,” an incredulous Eisenhower replied.  “If you try to go that early you won’t have all three divisions ready and you’ll go piecemeal.”  Patton informed him that he already had his staff drawing up plans and after Ike gave him the go ahead, he phoned them with two words:  Play ball.  Despite the obstacles and the intense demands on his men, Patton would not be denied, believing “this time the Kraut’s stuck his head in the meat grinder, and I’ve got hold of the handle” and that even God was on his side after he beseeched a chaplain to pray for good weather.  “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. Amen.”  After reaching Bastogne in time to relieve US forces, driving his men harder than ever against all odds, Patton described it as “the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed, and it is in my opinion the outstanding achievement of the war. This is my biggest battle.”  He was, however, sidelined again immediately after though his achievements in Europe came to speak for themselves. Between the Elba and the Rhine, the Third Army captured some 32,763 square miles of territory, killed 20,100 Germans, wounded 47,700 more and captured 563,140.  In total, they fought in Europe for 281 days straight, crossed 24 major rivers, and captured over 81,00 square miles including 12,000 cities and towns while claiming to have killed, wounded, or captured 1,811,388 German soldiers, though some estimates put that figure closer to 1.5 million.  As the European theater drew to a close, Patton found himself once again without a purpose after being denied a command in the Pacific.  When that war officially ended, he remarked “Yet another war has come to an end, and with it my usefulness to the world” and his behavior was said to become so erratic that some claimed “it seems virtually inevitable … that Patton experienced some type of brain damage from too many head injuries.”  Regardless, peace was not for him and perhaps it was inevitable that he would plunge into another controversy, this time over employing former Nazis and displaying anti-semitism while functioning as Governor of Bavaria, and then being permanently relieved of command on November 26, 1945.  He would be dead less than a month later after a jeep accident on a hunting trip, and the world would never know his like again.

Sadly, the same can be said about the movie.  Somehow, a mere 25 years after Patton’s death Hollywood managed to create a big budget masterpiece that unflinchingly and unapologetically tells his story.  Rather than moralize or criticize, the film spends close to three hours immersing the viewer in the unique combination of madness, genius, grit, and determination that drove one of America’s greatest generals, allowing the audience to decide for themselves what to make of this complex, at times maddening-in-his-own-right figure.  Perhaps even more incredibly, the film makes no attempt to separate his various pathologies – an insane love for war and combat, his unshaking belief that he was descended from legendary warriors, his understanding of history, his penchant for sometimes poorly written poetry (he was something of a writer), and his desire to fulfill his destiny – from what he actually achieved.  Like everyone else, Patton is presented as a bundle of contradictions which cannot easily be separated.  If he didn’t have these strange beliefs or obsessions, would he have been as great a legendary commander?  It’s impossible for anyone to say when we have only the man, his achievements, and the film that immortalized them.