GENERAL PATTON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25674, 24 October 1944, Page 4

GENERAL PATTON

BRILLIANT LEADERSHIP MARRED BY UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS Amid the controversies LieutenantGeneral George Smith Patton, jun., has stirred up around himself in this war, he has proved to be one of Aznerica’s most capable military leaders and one of her outstanding exponents of tank warfare, states the London Observer in an article in its

Profile series. He showed this again by the breathless sweep of his Third Army through Northern France. His warrior abilities and accomplishments are sometimes forgotten in the fuss raised by his more heavily publicised actions and words. The unfortunate soldier-slapping incident in Sicily tended to obscure his brilliant generalship in that campaign and earlier in North Africa and Tunisia. It would have ended his career except for the regard General Eisenhower holds for the emotional Patton. Patton took command of the Third Army on August 1. It was formed in the midst of battle from a segment of the First Army, under LieutenantGeneral Omar Bradley and given to Patton in order to drive out of the Cherbourgh Peninsula. Often riding at the head of his tanks, Patton raced the Third Army through Coutance and Avranches. turning the battle for the peninsula into the battle for France almost overnight. Boisterous and Flamboyant

He is the same boisterous, flamboyant Patton in this campaign, despite the chastisement heaped on him for the hospital incident and his “boner” when he said, in a speech, here last April, that it is *the destiny of Britain, the United States, and Russia to rule the world. He reached, the Normandy beaches 'early in July waving a 1000-dollar bill and offering to bet that he would be in Paris before Genera] Bradley or General Montgomery. He carried his usual two pearl-handled pistols to which he has since added as part of his personal armament a leather-encased French hand-sword. This time Patton carried out the strategy of Bradley, who was one or his corps commanders in Sicily. He executed it with a dash and daring that makes military men gasp. A professional in an army composed essentially of amateur soldiers, Patton has never lost a battle. He led the force which occupied French Morocco in the North African invasion in 1942 with such speed that he captured half a dozen members of the German armistice comnjissioni at breakfast m Casablanca three days after landing. When the American Second Corps faltered at Kasserine Pass, yielding bO miles to Rommel’s panzers,, Eisenhower called in Patton to restore the situation. Patton rallied the army and drove it back brough the pass and on to Maknassy, El Guettar, and Gafsa, and the eventual juncture with Montgomery’s Eighth Army between Gafsa and Gabes. This performance earned him command of the American Seventh Army which invaded Sicily with Montgomery’s desert veterans.

Battle Creed His order of the day to the Seventh Army reflects Patton’s battle _ creed. “Attack rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and /without rest.” His soldiers did just . that. Not many generals could have driven troops as hard as Patton did iri Sicily, but the average American soldier, while perhaps holding no love for this strict disciplinarian, shows him abiding loyalty and an unswerving faith in his leadership. . The Seventh Army swept over the western part of Sicily. The original strategical plan called for Patton to take the west while Montgomery enfolded the east and drove to Messina. When the Germans held Montgomery, at Catania, Eisenhower ordered Patton onwards and he led his army along the north coast of the island into Messina just 38 days after the invasion began. A British brigadier who helped plan the. campaign commented: “Well, we expected Patton might get to Messina first, but we certainly didn’t expect him to surround the Eighth Army.” Patton, now 59. has the energy and .forcefulness of a man 20 years younger. He comes from a military family. His freat-great-grandfather, General Hugh lercer, was a soldier with George Washington. His grandfather died In the Civil War.. His father graduated

from the Virginia Military Institute, although he later practised law. Patton was born at San Gabriel, California, and has been in the United States Army since 1909. A cavalry man first, he was General George Pershing’s aide on the Mexican expedition against Pancho Villa. He was in charge of the headquarters unit on the first American Expeditionary Force ship to Europe in the last War, and was the first officer assigned to an American tank corps. . , Tanks have been his second love since then. In his own words “guts” in his men is what he desires most. “We ~unquestionably have the best tanks in the world,” he said a few years ago. “ But this talk that we’re going to win the war because we have them is bunk. You win wars with guts, not machines, although the latter are necessary, too.” ' Extreme Individualist He set up the tank school at Bourg France, in the last war. He began the war as a lieutenant and was a full colonel at its end, only nine years after his graduation from West Point Military Academy. He was a. track star at West Point and he won the cross-country event in the military decathlon at the 1912 Olympic Games. He is, above all, an extreme individualist. When he was ordered to Hawaii in peace-time he sailed his own boat there instead of going by army transport. In tank manoeuvres in the southern California desert before this war. he likened tank operations to the eating of spaghetti to illustrate why he rode in the forefront of his attack.

“You can’t push a piece of wet spaghetti,” he said. “ Poke a piece of wet spaghetti on a plate and it just tangles up. But take hold of the "front end of the piece and pull it. and nothing comes easier.”

When the hazards of leading a tank battle from the front were pointed out, Patton laconically replied, “I expect to die some day.” He is a commanding figure, always nattily dressed, tall and husky, sandyhaired, with a boyish face, a highpitched voice, and thorough command of picturesque and sulphuric “army language.” But he is not altogether the “bloodthirsty mercenary” he once styled himself, or the-hard-bitten, fireeating martinet that he likes to present to the public. He is a deeply read man and a student of poetry and philosophy.