Person:George Patton (13)

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Biographical Summary

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

Born in 1885, Patton attended the Virginia Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more commonly known as the "Patton Saber". He competed in modern pentathlon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.

Patton entered combat during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, the United States' first military action using motor vehicles. He fought in World War I as part of the new United States Tank Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces: he commanded the U.S. tank school in France, then led tanks into combat and was wounded near the end of the war. In the interwar period, Patton became a central figure in the development of the army's armored warfare doctrine, serving in numerous staff positions throughout the country. At the United States' entry into World War II, he commanded the 2nd Armored Division.

Patton led U.S. troops into the Mediterranean theater with an invasion of Casablanca during Operation Torch in 1942, and soon established himself as an effective commander by rapidly rehabilitating the demoralized II Corps. He commanded the U.S. Seventh Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was the first Allied commander to reach Messina. There he was embroiled in controversy after he slapped two shell-shocked soldiers, and was temporarily removed from battlefield command. He was assigned a key role in Operation Fortitude, the Allies' military deception campaign for Operation Overlord.

At the start of the Western Allied invasion of France, Patton was given command of the Third Army, which conducted a highly successful rapid armored drive across France. Under his decisive leadership, the Third Army took the lead in relieving beleaguered American troops at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, after which his forces drove deep into Nazi Germany by the end of the war.

During the Allied occupation of Germany, Patton was named military governor of Bavaria, but was relieved for making aggressive statements towards the Soviet Union and trivializing denazification. He commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months. Severely injured in an auto accident, he died in Germany twelve days later, on December 21, 1945.

Patton's colorful image, hard-driving personality, and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his controversial public statements. His philosophy of leading from the front, and his ability to inspire troops with attention-getting, vulgarity-laden speeches, such as his famous address to the Third Army, was received favorably by his troops, but much less so by a sharply divided Allied high command. His sending the doomed Task Force Baum to liberate his son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John K. Waters, from a prisoner-of-war camp further damaged his standing with his superiors. His emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action proved effective, and he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. An award-winning biographical film released in 1970, Patton, helped popularize his image.

Video News Stories

1986 book review of Patton: the Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945

Article about the death of Patton's mother (1928)

1970 article about Patton family deaths

1964 book review of Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

1957 newspaper article (Pt 1)

1957 newspaper article (Pt 2)

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} George S. Patton, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
2. ↑ GEN George Smith Patton, in Find A Grave: Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, Hamm, Canton de Luxembourg, Luxembourg
   Memorial# 1144, Jan 01, 2001.

   Birth: Nov. 11, 1885, San Gabriel, Los Angeles County, California, USA
   Death: Dec. 21, 1945, Heidelberg, Heidelberger Stadtkreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
   Burial: Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, Hamm, Canton de Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

   United States World War II Army General. He was born at Lake Vineyard Ranch what is now San Marino, California. In 1904, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York following in the military fashion of the Patton family. After graduation, he was assigned to the Cavalry as an aid to General John "Black Jack" Pershing, who at that time was pursuing the Mexican bandit General Pancho Villa. During World War I he saw service in France as part of the United States Army Tank Corps. During World War II he was assignment to Dwight North Africa as head of the II Corp, where he received his third star from General Dwight D. Eisenhower. On to Sicily, the Seventh Army enjoyed an unopposed landing and Patton assumed command of this unit. In January 1944, he was summoned to London and given command of the US Third Army which was still being activated. In July 1944, George Patton arrived in France one month after the D-Day landing. His command still not fully activated, he was forced to wait to engage in combat for the arrival of the bulk of his troops. Once the 3rd Army was fully operational, its exploits throughout Europe became legendary. General Patton's journey into history began in Mannheim, Germany on December 9, 1945, when the sedan in which he was riding ran headlong into an army truck. He was taken to the army hospital outside of Heidelberg, where he died from his injuries on December 21. He lay in state at the Villa Reiner, one of the stately homes in Heidelberg. Funeral services were conducted at Christ Church, afterward his body was placed aboard a special funeral train for the trip to Luxembourg for burial at the Military Cemetery in nearby Hamm, where 3,000 American soldiers lie, many having served under General Patton in the 3rd Army. He was buried on December 24th following a funeral service at the Luxembourg Cathedral. In spite of the pouring rain, thousands lined the streets from the central railroad along the tracks to the cemetery. Representatives of nine countries and the highest ranking officers of the American troops stationed in Europe followed the coffin. Present were delegations from Luxembourg, France, Belgium, England, Italy, The Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. France and Belgium provided the honor guard. While the gun carriage with the coffin was on its way from the railroad station to the cemetery, a French battery fired a seventeen-round volley of salute. After a brief religious service George Patton Jr. was lowered into the grave.

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 United States. Passport applications, 1795-1925. (Washington, D.C. : National Archives).

   National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925; Collection Number: ARC Identifier 583830 / MLR Number A1 534; NARA Series: M1490; Roll #: 164.

4. ↑ United States. 1900 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T623).

   Year: 1900; Census Place: San Gabriel, Los Angeles, California; Roll: 92; Page: 12B; Enumeration District: 0125; FHL microfilm: 1240092

5. ↑ United States. 1910 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T624).
6. ↑ ^{6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10} U.S., Military Registers, 1862-1970
   1943.

   Salem, Oregon: Oregon State Library.
   article entitled, "Death Stalked General Patton's Family,"

7. ↑ The Mysterious Death of Gen. George S. Patton, in American Thinker
   Article by Robert K. Wilcox, 22 Nov 2012.

   Sixty-seven years ago, on a cold December 9th in 1945 Germany, legendary American general George S. Patton was injured in a strange auto "accident" on a road outside Mannheim, near the Rhine River. The opinionated anticommunist died twelve days later. Today, the evidence that he was murdered -- the first in a line of postwar political assassinations including that of President John F. Kennedy -- is mounting.
   
   In 2008 my book about Patton's mysterious death, Target: Patton, was published by Regnery with the core evidence, including:
   ● Patton was the only passenger hurt that cold day in what essentially was described as a "fender-bender." Two others in the car with him were uninjured, as were those in the truck that suddenly turned and caused the crash.
   ● The truck and its occupants were suspiciously waiting for the Patton car on the side of the road, according to a witness. It didn't start up until Patton's Cadillac was sighted. The truck's driver, a soldier and black marketeer who had stolen the army vehicle, did not signal when he suddenly wheeled the two-and-a-half-ton hauler into Patton's path. The truck's driver and his passengers mysteriously disappeared -- as did the sergeant in a jeep who was leading the Patton Cadillac.
   ● Numerous shadowy figures, including a general and other officers, quickly descended on the remote crash site, taking charge. It was a quiet Sunday morning. How were so many so high up alerted so fast? Where are the records of their visit -- and of the accident itself? All reports and investigations have inexplicably disappeared.
   
   Patton, who suffered a broken neck and head wounds, wasn't taken to a nearby Mannheim hospital. Instead, although in need of immediate help, he was driven 20 miles to a hospital in Heidelberg, a half hour away. Gravely injured, he was expected to die. But a tough man, he unexpectedly rallied and was preparing to go home to the U.S. when he had a sudden embolism attack and died literally with his bags packed. Years later, a Soviet officer told a Patton family member that they had poisoned him.
   
   At the time of his accident, Patton was the lone high-level Allied voice arguing to fight the Soviets, who had been American allies. He knew their treachery that would develop into the Cold War and was preparing to go back to the U.S. and campaign against them -- a move the American and Soviet governments feared. The U.S., in meetings with Soviet leader Stalin, had basically signed over Eastern Europe to the Russians in return for Stalin's help in establishing the United Nations, a dream of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died in early 1945, and liberal Democrats who, under new President Harry Truman, were continuing Roosevelt's pro-Soviet policies.

8. ↑ Conspiracy Theories: The Mysterious Death of General Patton, in Fox News War Stories
   Article by Cyd Upson and Michael Weiss, 19 Dec 2008.

   Was General George S. Patton murdered?
   On December 21, 1945, America's iconic four-star General, who had triumphed from the deserts of North Africa to Hitler's doorstep, was pronounced dead at the 130th Field Hospital in Heidelberg, Germany. He was 60-years-old.
   Twelve days earlier, General Patton had set off on a pheasant hunting trip near Mannheim when his Cadillac staff car collided with a two-and-a-half ton U.S. Army truck. Patton was immediately paralyzed from the neck down. His driver, PFC Horace Woodring and his chief of staff, General Hap Gay, walked away with barely a scratch. Was it just a freak automobile accident as the Army concluded or was it, as some conspiracy theorists believe, a calculated assassination attempt by the Russians or the OSS?
   In "War Stories Investigates: The Remarkable Life and Mysterious Death of General Patton," we tried to uncover the truth. Our investigation uncovered very few records from the accident. When we dug through Patton's military personnel file at the National Archives in St. Louis, out of more than 1300 pages of documents, a mere 15 were devoted to the car crash. Strangely, the Army accident report went missing shortly after the accident.
   We traveled to Germany with Oliver North to the scene of the crash and to the hospital room where Patton spent his last days. We also stepped inside Patton's restored 1939 Cadillac, which is on display at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Ft. Knox in Kentucky.
   Several of Patton's grandchildren spoke to us, including grandson James Patton Totten, who said, "My grandmother had hired several private detectives to investigate it and they didn't find anything to substantiate the rumor."
   We met up with Patton's granddaughter Helen Patton Plusczyk in Heidelberg at the Christ Church where her grandfather's funeral was held. She recalled one of the conspiracy theories she'd heard over the years: "The most outrageous one came from a mysterious colonel, who had been a spy for the Russians, the Germans, and Americans during the war, operating radio stations in Normandy. That a nurse, or a medical aide, had been instructed by someone, to — as soon as my grandmother would leave the hospital room — open the windows of Grandpa's room, so that he would contract pneumonia."
   We tracked down Bertha Hohle, the 24-year-old nurse from Minnesota who cared for the general in the hospital: "He said to me once, 'Why can't I feel my hands?' That's really hard to tell somebody that, look at that, you can't use your arms." Bertha did not feel that Patton was murdered. She believed he died from pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure, which were cited as the official causes of death. An autopsy was never performed.
   One person who strongly believes Patton was murdered was military author and journalist Robert Wilcox. Speaking publicly for the first time, Wilcox told "War Stories Investigates" that OSS spymaster William "Wild Bill" Donovan ordered an agent to kill the often outspoken general because he wanted to drag America into another war… with Russia. Wilcox told us: "[Douglas] Bazata is a world class marksman. And he shot, at close range, a special weapon into that car and that's what broke his neck."
   When the accident failed to kill Patton, Wilcox said that a Russian agent snuck into Patton's room to poison him." Military Historian Kevin Hymel disagreed strongly with Wilcox's theories: "Yes, he did have enemies. But did he have enemies that were so afraid of him, that they would kill him? That's a pretty far stretch."
   While General Patton's death may forever be shrouded in mystery, one thing is certain, he was a brilliant military leader. Retired Brigadier General Albin Irzyk, a tank commander who led Patton's 3rd Army to Bastogne, said it best: "He's the purest warrior we've ever had, I think he's by far the greatest field commander we've ever had. He couldn't have been a Marshall, he couldn't have been an Eisenhower, he was Patton. He climbed his mountain. There's nothing left for him to conquer."

9. ↑ Gen. George S. Patton, in Patton, Robert H. The Pattons : A Personal History of an American Family. (New York, New York: Crown Publishers, 1994)
   1994.

   New York Times book review by Andi Rierden at http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/12/nyregion/the-patton-family-an-intimate-portrait.html?pagewanted=all.

10. ↑ ^10.0 10.1 Douglas Bazata, in Fathers' Manifesto & Christian Party
    11 Mar 2017.

    "General Patton had figured out that FDR planned on handing all of Eastern Europe over to the murderous Soviet Communist thugs 60;on a silver platter61;. Patton voiced his opinion that such an action was basically insane, and for that he was relegated to a non-combat position. He would later have an automobile "accident"(?), and when it looked like he was beginning to recover in the military hospital 51; well, he had another "accident" (most likely with some cyanide), and he died. ((If you doubt that Patton was murdered, you need to get a copy of A. Ralph Epperson's book The Unseen Hand 51; please see the last section of this newsletter for information on how to order it. Epperson reports that General Patton was planning on resigning from the military so that he could speak out about the betrayal of the American people [by high-level U.S. officials]. Epperson also states that an undercover Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agent, Douglas Bazata, had received orders to murder Patton from OSS administrator [Knight of Malta] William Joseph 'Wild Bill' Donovan!))"
    
    The Omega File
    
    "440000 - OSS agent Douglas Bazata receives contract on General George Patton's life. Feuerball aircraft constructed at aeronautical factory at Wiener Neustadt. Germans test Bellonzo-Schriever-Meithe designs based on Coanda disk."
    
    "The power elite's ultimate goal is a World Socialist Government, including population control such as killing by abortion. Leading Socialists like H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell have all expressed the view that killing innocent people will be part of this effort. And in case you don't believe anyone in the U.S. government is capable of killing innocent people, reflect upon the fact that OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent Douglas Bazata on September 25, 1979 told 450 invited guests at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, that OSS head William Donovan paid him $10,000 to kill Gen. George Patton. Bazata also gave this information to THE WASHINGTON STAR!"
    
    "Former OSS (Office of Strategic Services; forerunner of the CIA) agent Douglas Bazata told the Washington Star that he was given $10,000 to “put him down”. He claims he did not assassinate Patton, but was told how it was done by a fellow spook credited for the deed. Polygraph tests taken by Bazata gave no evidence of lying."
    
    The murder of Patton is known for a fact, known for the very simple reason that an agent of the well-known OSS (Office Of Strategic Services), an American Military Spy named Douglas Bazata, announced it in front of 450 invited guests, nearly all high-ranking ex-members of the OSS at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC the 25th of September, 1979.
    
    Bazata stated, word-for-word: "For diverse political reasons, many extremely high-ranking persons hated Patton. I know who killed him because I am the one who was hired to do it. Ten thousand dollars. General William J. 'Wild Bill' Donovan himself, director Of O.S.S, entrusted ne with the mission. I set up the 'accident.' Since..."
    
    The tragic fate of General George S. Patton convinced other 'colleagues' and their honorable 'compatriots' of the uselessness of fighting against the 'War Powers' That Be.

11. ↑ On December 9, 1945, US Army General George S. Patton had a car accident in the adjacent city of Mannheim, and died in the Heidelberg US Army hospital on December 21, 1945. The funeral ceremony was held at the Heidelberg-Weststadt Christuskirche (Christ Church), and he was buried in the 3rd Army cemetery in Luxembourg.
12. ↑ George S. Patton Grave