STRUCK A SOLDIER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 279, 25 November 1943, Page 3

STRUCK A SOLDIER

LIEUT.-GEN. PATTON HAS TO APOLOGISE

Recd. 6.30 p.m. London, Nov. 23. Lieut.-General Patton, Commander of the Seventh U.S. Army, has apologised to all officers and men for striking a soldier during the Sicilian campaign. At the same time Allied headquarters in Algiers permitted correspondents to reveal the facts. General Patton struck a shellshocked soldier in a hospital tent because he thought the soldier was shirking duty. General Patton was in a fit of fury. He expressed sympathy for men really wounded, but made it plain that he did not believe this particular soldier was in that category. He then struck the youth with the back of his hand. The commanding officer of the hospital intervened, but General Patton was still in a hlgn temper, expressed his views again and once more berated the stricken soldier, who offered to return to the front.

The facts showed that the soldier had an excellent record. He had fought through the Tunisian and Sicilian campaigns and had been diagnosed as a medical case a week earlier, but had refused to leave his post. Finally a doctor ordered him to hospital. The incident was reported to General Eisenhower, who wrote to General Patton, denouncing his conduct and ordering him to make amends, or be removed from his command.

General Patton apologised to the stricken soldier, to the hospital commander, and to! all those present at the time. He explained that at a time of stress a general is under great i nervous tension and may do things he (afterwards regrets.” When the incident was first disclosed by the columnist Drew Pearson, it was officially denied that General Eisenhower had reprimanded General Patton. An official statement said: “Lieut.-General Patton is commanding the Seventh Army, has commanded it since it was activated, and is continuing to command. No report has ever reached headquarters of any soldiers refusing to obey an order by General Patton, who has never been reprimanded at any time by General Eisenhower, or anybody else in this theatre.”

A high-ranking official at Allied headquarters, in a statement to-day on the incident, repeated the official denial that General Eisenhower had reprimanded General Patton, but disclosd that General Eisenhower had "mercilessly castigated" Patton after the slapping incident. It was officially explained that a reprimand would mean official military punishment. Recd. 10 p.m. New York, Nov. 22. The United Press Washington correspondent says that General Patton’s attack is expected to weigh heavily when the Senate considers his pending promotion to the permanent rank of Major-General, which President Roosevelt recently recommended. Senator Edwin Johnson, a member of the Military Affairs Committee, declared: —“Americans are terribly shocked. A slap on the wrist won’t suffice, and unless the Army cleans up the Patton situation the Military Affairs Committee will be compelled to make a complete investigation.”