U.S. Army: What made General Patton so successful during the war, but a failure anytime else?

Image: Old Blood and Guts in his Element. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., in command of the United States 7th Army during operation Husky in Sicily, July 9-August 17, 1943. The exact date of the photo is unknown, at least to this writer. Patton was about 57 1/2 years old at this time. This is one of my favorite pictures of Patton.

I’m going to address the question—REALLY! But, first, I think that it might be useful to some people to have a few good sources for high quality, well-researched information about old Blood and Guts. I’ve spent much of my life reading about the man. I currently write military fiction and trace my interest in military history and tactics to seeing the film Patton when it first aired on television (which would have been in 1971 or 72, I suspect). If you really want to get to know the man, I recommend the following books (the Amazon purchase points for each are linked):

Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War

Martin Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend

Martin Blumenson (ed.), The Patton Papers. Volume 1: 1885–1940, Volume II: 1940–1945

Also, a somewhat less scholarly look, but one that provided much of the source material for the George C. Scott movie, and the first book I ever read about the man, Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph.

There are tons and tons of books out there about this fascinating man, but (trust me on this) these are BY FAR the best. There is a lot of poorly-researched crap out there written by armchair generals who have only a cursory knowledge of the military, even less knowledge of military history, and don’t have any more idea than a goose what went on in the brain of a man like George S. Patton, Jr. If you master the contents of these books, you will know more about Patton than anyone else you know, unless you are buddies with Martin Blumenson (not likely—he died in 2005).

Now, to the question itself. First, as do most of the other writers, I take issue with the proposition that Patton was a failure in other aspects of his life. Our picture is colored by the unfortunate administrative coda to a brilliant career on the battlefield. Patton succeeded at almost everything he touched. He was a gifted athlete and competed in the Olympics, placing 5th in the Modern Pentathlon (about which there was some controversy about a call on the shooting score—it is possible he actually placed much higher). He was one of the best polo players in the Army. He took his family from San Francisco to Hawaii on a sailboat, which he commanded, conned, and navigated, hitting the islands right on the button after thousands of miles of ocean, guided only by maps, a compass, a sextant, a chronometer, and books of astronomical tables. He was a brilliant marksman, fox hunter, and a dozen other athletic/physical skills.

Much has been made here of many of his brilliant capabilities. I would like to highlight just a few. In order to do so, let me relate an anecdote. Back when I was Staff Academics Coordinator of the American Legion Louisiana Boys State program, I hit it off with the small cadre of Legionnaires who would pitch in and help us with some of the logistics of the program—cataloging supplies, selling T-shirts, helping out in the infirmary, sitting with citizens who were waiting for their parents to take them home for various reasons, and so forth. One of these gentlemen (and, make no mistake, these veterans were very much ALL gentlemen, not to mention everyday heroes in my book) would tell the tale that for about ten weeks, as a 2nd Lt. in General Patton’s Headquarters in France, he was in charge of the General’s Maps. This was no mean or trivial job, as field commanders always have a lot of maps and Patton collected maps that no other field commander had. For example, he traveled with old Michelin Guide Maps from the inter-war period showing the location of farm to market roads, local trails, and other paths that didn’t show on the army’s topographic maps or on the ones captured from civil authorities. Anyway, it was our intrepid 2nd Lt.’s job to feed Patton the map he needed, before he needed it, without him having to ask for it. He says he got pretty good at it.

Image: Meet the three best allied field commanders in the European Theater in World War II, at least in my opinion. From L-R, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., Lt. Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley, Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery. The men appear to be sharing a joke—knowing the personalities involved, Patton is probably the one who told it. Much has been made of the rivalry between these men who did have an occasionally stormy relationship, but they were all professionals and respected the undoubted professional competence that each brought to the table. Note, that of the three, only Patton appears to be armed. Not only is Patton armed, he is armed with a revolver that he had previously used to kill enemy forces in combat in Mexico.

Patton always knew where all his units were, down to the platoon level. Even if they hadn’t reported in some time, some sixth sense told him how far they had gotten since they had radioed in. He remembered trails, fences, hedgerows, ditches, ponds, and other small but important to troops terrain features that were not on any map but that he had seen in World War I or when touring France between the wars.

Something unexpected would happen and the General would want to see a map that helped him really see the area—he’d rattle off the name and scale of some obscure map that no one would have thought he might need, so he had ordered it with his own money from Michelin or Rand McNally. It was always the right map and it always shed light on the situation. Then, after looking at that map, Patton would want to give orders directly to logistics unit commanders or other people he didn’t talk to very often. But, he’d tell his Signal Corps guys, “Sergeant, get me Major Feldon, over at the 245th Logistics Brigade (I made this unit name up) at Pont de Boeuf. It was all a surprise, but he knew the name, the unit and where it was located, usually off the top of his head.

He knew the names of EVERY MAN in his headquarters, from the MP’s standing at the door through the radio and telephone people, the people who pushed little markers around on the maps, the private who emptied the waste baskets, and the cooks who prepared his food. For a man who had grown up in an environment of wealth and privilege, he was remarkably respectful of all the “little people” around him.

Don’t get me wrong—he was definitely feared. NO ONE wanted to cross him. Even Ike was a bit intimidated by this legendary force of nature. But he was also loved.

I noticed something when I would talk to the old Legion guys about their service. I would usually ask who they served under. There was usually some pride when they would say “Mark Clark” or “MacArthur” or “Nimitz” or “Spruance.” But when someone would react to that question by standing up straight as a ramrod (notwithstanding being 80 years old), holding his head high, pride beaming from his face, I knew what they were going to say: “I served under Georgie Patton and, man did we love that old son of a bitch!”

Image: The people of Avranches, Normandy, France erected this impressive monument in 1954 to commemorate the Third Army’s liberation of the city under the command of General Patton on 30 July 1944. It is known as “Place Patton” or “Patton Square,” and consists of a 14 meter (45.9 feet) tall obelisk, a Sherman tank, and a bronze bust of the General. The monument sits at a major crossroads in the center of town. Imperfectly translated from French, the obelisk reads: “From July 31 to August 10, 1944, accomplishing the breakthrough at Avranches in the roar of its tanks marching towards the victory and the liberation of France, the glorious American Army of General Patton crossed this crossroads.”++

Afterthought: I’ve gotten a few messages asking what I meant by “administrative coda” and how that plays into how history remembers Patton. Here it is in brief—this subject is discussed in more detail (and quite well, I might add) in another Answer to this question. Shortly after the Germans surrendered, Patton was made Military Governor of Bavaria. Unfortunately, the skills and personality traits that made him so dominant on the battlefield were not a good fit for being the governor of a region of a conquered nation. Most significantly, tact and diplomacy were not his strengths. He was prone to use a sledgehammer when a scalpel would be more appropriate. Politically, the American people and leaders wanted to get out of power anyone who could remotely be called a Nazi. Patton knew all the major players were locked up. So, if there were some guys whose expertise kept the electricity turned on, the trams running, the sewers flowing, and was getting the bomb craters in the roads repaired, Patton was inclined to overlook that they were low level party members. He might have gotten away with it, had had not gotten quoted in a newspaper as saying that low level people belonged to the Nazi party pretty much like people were Democrats or Republicans back home. There were other issues as well. Bottom line, George S. Patton was a brilliant, splendid, gifted warrior. He was a crappy bureaucrat.

So, he was transferred from that job to being in command of the unit that was writing the official history of the war in Europe. Whoever had this idea was really on the ball, because—although no peacetime job while his nation was still at war would satisfy Patton—he was an outstanding amateur military historian. His knowledge of the war as it was fought, combined with his historical insights made him a great fit for this job. He did not, however, hold the job long and, in fact quickly lost interest in it. I believe that he was suffering from depression or similar malady resulting from what he perceived as the end of his usefulness in the profession for which he had trained his whole life. Having finally commanded an army in battle and found that doing so was his “first, best destiny,” (Star Trek quote) nothing else seemed to give him any pleasure.

These unhappy months at the end of years of faithful and even brilliant service are so very unfortunate in that they cast long, dark shadows across an otherwise brilliant career. The Patton I will always remember is the man in the pictures seen in this Answer: the one commanding what may have been the most successful Army in the greatest war in the history of the human race.

++For those who don’t trust my creaky French (and you are right to do so!) here is the inscription on the obelisk in the original French: “Du 31 juillet au 10 août 1944 réalisant la percée d’Avranches dans le vacarme de ses blindés en marche vers la victoire et la libération de la France, la glorieuse armée américaine du général Patton a franchi ce carrefour.”