On the right is a picture of the Falaise Gap. The arrow represents Third Army and on the inside of the "bag" created by Third Army's encirclement were 11 divisions of the German army.
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After the fall of France, Marshall began mobilizing the country’s forces. Marshall decided on testing the quality of his generals by organizing the war games. He made Patton a temporary brigadier general and put him in charge of the 2nd Armored Division. Patton trained the division in the deserts of Arizona.
In WWII, older generals were looked down upon. Many felt that they were the reason for the stalemate of WWI. So, Patton, at 57, was at a disadvantage. Because of his good performance in the war games, however, Patton was allowed to command.
Patton participated in the American landings in Morroco and Tunis. These were mostly for practice against the Germans. Patton got his first taste of Rommel – and also of Eisenhower's command. Patton already felt that Eisenhower was giving up American sovereignty for amity with the allies. This was the time of Montgomery’s “great” (and last!) victory at El Alamein.
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After N. Africa, Patton moved on to Sicily. This was where Patton and his army became world-renowned. Patton was given a back role – to protect Montgomery’s Eighth Army while Montgomery went on to take the island. But after 2 weeks Montgomery was still only miles from where he had landed. Patton, anxious to be allowed to prove himself, asked General Alexander (British commander of the Allied forces) for permission to attack. Alexander granted Patton’s request.
Patton’s Seventh Army took Palermo and Messina before Montgomery. In fact, despite the 2 week handicap imposed on them at the beginning of the operation, the Seventh Army took 2/3rds of Sicily. This was the beginning of the great American conquests achieved by Patton.
However, it was also in Sicily that Patton slapped two cowards who were absent without leave. Eisenhower decided to “punish” Patton with 9 months of inactivity. It was really the allies that were punished, though, by missing Patton’s fine leadership and stunning triumphs.
Patton was brought to England to train his new army, the Third. The Third Army was a green army with no previous experience in combat. Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery were planning the allied invasion of France. This operation, code-named Overlord, would culminate with the landing in Normandy on June 6 - D Day. Patton’s Third Army would not be invading on D Day, and Patton was not allowed to help plan the operation.
While in England, Patton attended a social function where he was asked to speak. Patton gave a short speech, and he concluded that “It is the manifest destiny of England and America to rule the world.” The newspapers blew up. He had failed to mention the Russians! It is hard to imagine, but Eisenhower was seriously thinking of relieving Patton – his best commander – over that. Though he didn’t, he gave Patton a warning. One more mistake, and he would be relieved.
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.
A month after the 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.
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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.
Not allowed to take Argentan and end the war, Patton launched the Third Army towards Paris. The Third Army was now over 350 miles long and 120 miles wide. She straddled France while she waged war in four directions at once attacking everywhere. In the north in Brittany, the Third Army was attacking Brest and several other fortress cities. Along the Loire, from Nantes to Orleans, it was holding 200 miles of open flank for all the northern Allied Armies. And on its 120-mile Seine front, the Third was enveloping Paris, holding a bridgehead and interdicting the river north of the capital, conducting an aggressive war of movement and carving out bridgeheads south of the city.
Yet all these audacious, spectacular and unmatched achievements were accomplished by an army only three weeks in action and with only 12 divisions, four armored and eight infantry. This bold, intrepid army would, under a less dynamic commander, have been considered “green,” because three weeks is very little experience for combat soldiers. Yet these three weeks had witnessed the liberation of almost all of France, a crippled and demoralized German army, and the Allied armies placed in the best possible position for conquering Germany. Where in the history of war has so great an achievement been achieved by men so inexperienced?
But what of the experienced armies? The armies which had been considered so good that they were entered into the fighting before the Third? First Army and the 21st Army Group were still “mopping up” the Falaise area and had just started inching towards the Seine.
Meanwhile the Third Army had fought courageously to capture Paris. But suddenly, just as they were about to take the famous city, the XV Corps was taken from them, and they were ordered not to take Paris. In London in the days before D Day, the high-level Allied planners had decided that the First Army would take Paris on or around Sept. 6 and that a British corps would be “loaned” in order to participate in the triumphal parade. But Third Army had upset this politically correct theory by enveloping Paris without either First Army or the 21st Army Group anywhere nearby. So Eisenhower’s chiefs made a quick adjustment. They snatched the XV Corps from Patton and transferred it to Bradley’s First Army so that it could “liberate” Paris along with a British division on August 25th.
Occurrences like this were not rare for Third Army. It seemed that whenever they were on the eve of yet another unprecedented triumph they were upsetting someone else’s idea of the postwar world. So Patton began slipping away when Bradley or another of Eisenhower’s chiefs was on the phone. They would find out about his unauthorized operations when the Germans did.
September of 1944 was a difficult time for the Third Army. Montgomery had pressured Eisenhower into putting all the Allied production, manpower, and materiel behind his plan. As a consequence, Patton was left without gas to cool his heels at the gates of the fortress city of Metz.
Metz consisted of 14 modern fortresses. These concrete masterpieces were mostly underground. Metz lies astride the Nancy Gap, between the fertile valleys of France and the Rhine, and has been important strategically since the days of Julius Caesar.
Yet, that September, the Germans were routed. They were fleeing in all directions and were incapable of holding anything. Metz, and her vast fortressworks, were undefended. All her 14 ultra-modern fortresses were entirely deserted. Patton's armor had literally run out of gas in Metz's town square.
Imagine Patton, entirely without gas, his army almost completely without food, watching helplessly as the Germans reorganized and filled Metz's forts. Patton’s tanks, at the outskirts of Metz, were helpless. Two thirds of his armor had no gas, while the other third had only enough ammunition for 7 rounds a day.
In October Patton was given a minimal amount of fuel, but unfortunately, it was far too late. The Third Army was now engaged in a very difficult war of attrition. They were trying to force the Germans out of Metz. The fighting for Metz continued into December.
Then, suddenly, the Battle of the Bulge started. The Germans surprised Bradley’s VIII Corps to the north of Patton. Patton had predicted this attack, but people rarely listened to him. Patton was the only man who could remedy the situation and, for a change, was treated as such. All the units south of the Bulge were put under Patton’s direction. Eisenhower asked Patton when he could attack. Patton replied that he could be in the Ardennes, some 150 miles from his current front, with 3 divisions in 3 days. This was unprecedented and many of the other generals, including Montgomery, felt that Patton was being cocky and making promises he couldn't possibly keep.
The Third Army not only arrived in the Ardennes in 3 days, but managed to relieve Mc Auliffe in Bastogne. After the Battle of the Bulge ended, the allied Armies drove onwards to the Rhine. Per usual, Montgomery was the last across, even though he had the largest operation prepared for crossing.
Controversy arises over a mission Patton launched to relieve a POW camp in Hammelburg in March of 1945. This camp held 4,700 prisoners, 1,500 of them Americans. Patton suspected that such a large camp might include among its inmates his son-in-law, who had been captured in N. Africa. This mission was unsuccessful and 268 men were captured. The reason is that Patton under-estimated the difficulty of freeing the prisoners. It was Patton’s only blunder, and he admitted as much, “My one mistake was my failure to send a combat force to take Hammelburg.”
In April the Third Army showed the world – for the first time – the horrors of the extermination camp they had just found. Patton was so appalled at the Nazis brutality that he vomited. He forced the mayor and his wife to walk through the camp – and they both committed suicide the next day. Patton made the inhabitants of the city bury the dead. He allowed American soldiers to walk through the camps so they could see how barbaric the Nazis were. Third Army also liberated one of the worst camps, Buchenwald, a few days later.
It was at this time that Eisenhower made his incredibly foolish decision not to take Berlin. He then sent the Russians a copy of his plan to halt along the Elbe. Churchill – and Patton – were furious. Bradley and Eisenhower also believed that the ardent Nazis would try a last ditch effort against the Allies in the mountains of Austria. Patton’s Third Army was sent to clear this area – and it turned out to be empty.
The Third Army then went on to liberate Austria and Czechoslovakia. Patton saved the famous horse breed of Lippizaners by crossing into the unoccupied “Russian” zone of Austria and taking them. Though there was no opposition anywhere, Patton was ordered not to take Prague. Eisenhower had told the Russians that Prague was in "their" zone and that the Americans would halt on a pre-arranged line west of Berlin.
Patton vigorously disagreed with Truman and Eisenhower’s policy, but he was helpless. Patton told the Secretary of State that, “We have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them, but we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!”
Such statements, which would be proven true in a few short months, were guaranteed to make Patton unpopular with the High Command. Other generals warned Patton, but he didn't care. He became increasingly convinced that it was his duty to inform the American people of what was being done in Europe. His decision was a dangerous one.
After the end of the war, Patton was left to take care of domestic problems in Austria and Bavaria. At that time, Eisenhower’s policy was to bar all nominal members of the Nazi party in any civil capacity. Since 85% of Germans had become registered members of the Nazi party so as to escape extermination, it was clear to Patton that it would be impossible to run a country in this fashion. Patton disagreed with Eisenhower's orders – but as usual he obeyed them.
One day some newspapermen (always Patton’s enemies) arranged to trap him. They spoke, said witnesses, in a very condescending manner and aimed to get him angry. They asked him questions that they already knew the answers to and tried to trap him. They asked him what he thought of the fact that members of the Nazi party couldn’t hold any positions. They already knew Patton’s feelings on the matter, but if they could get him to express them, Patton would be discredited. "After all," one of the newspapermen said, "The Nazi party is a political party isn't it? Like the Democrats and Republicans?" "Yes," said Patton.
For that answer, Patton would lose command of the army he loved and had led so well. All over the papers were the headlines, “Patton is more interested in restoring order in Germany than catching Nazis.” The papers were calling for Patton's relief. The absurdity was that Patton had caught more Nazis than any other Allied commander anywhere. But Eisenhower always wanted to stay in favor with the press. He was already planning on becoming President.
It isn’t hard to guess what Eisenhower did. Patton was relieved of his beloved Third Army and sent to “command” the 15th Army’s occupation and write the history of the war. Incidentally, two weeks after Patton was relieved, Eisenhower changed his order and said that, so order and German confidence in the occupational government would be restored, people who were not indicted of war crimes could hold public office.
Patton decided that he should tell the American people about how Eisenhower and Truman were making far too many concessions to the Russians. On December 7th 1945, Patton had a car accident. It was not a major accident, and Patton was the only one who got hurt. He hit his head against the railing, lost all the skin on his forehead, and separated his spinal column. “That’s a coincidence,” Patton muttered, barely conscious. “What’s a coincidence?” a young lieutenant asked him. “I was going home tomorrow,” Patton replied.
Patton was in extreme pain for the next sixteen days. Though he showed signs of recovery, he died of a blood clot to the brain on December 21, 1945. It was not the way Patton had wanted to die. He always felt that a soldier should die from “the last bullet, of the last day, in the last battle.”
Copyright Barbara E. Boland, December 7, 2000
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