biography
| name: |
Patton, George (Smith), Jr
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1885–1945)
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| biography:
| US soldier, born in San Gabriel, California, USA. A descendant of an old Virginia family, he trained at West Point (1909), and in the 1912 Olympic Games he came fifth in the military pentathlon. He was an aide to General Pershing in the punitive expedition to Mexico in 1916, and then accompanied him to France in 1917. There he learned from the French and British how to employ the new weapon, the tank, and he distinguished himself by leading his tank brigade through battle. Unconventional to the point of flamboyance, he held to his notion that tanks were the weapons system of the future, and by April 1941 he was commander of the Second Armored Division. By January 1942 he was commanding general of I Armored Corps, and he directed the amphibious landings near Casablanca and the ensuing campaign across North Africa (Oct 1942). He commanded the US Seventh Army in the Allied invasion of Sicily (Jul 1943), and excelled militarily there with a bold campaign that beat the British into Palermo, but the notorious incident in which he verbally abused two ailing soldiers, one of whom he also slapped, nearly cost him his career. He was eventually assigned to lead the Third Army, which led the breakout from Normandy (Jul–Sep 1944), and after diverting his forces to relieve the Americans trapped in the Battle of the Bulge, he crossed the Rhine (Mar 1945) and advanced through the heart of Germany into Czechoslovakia. A staunch anti-Communist, after the German surrender he argued for a combined Allied–German campaign against the Soviet Union. When he then argued for keeping former Nazis in administrative and other positions, he was removed from command of the Third Army. Severely injured in an automobile accident (9 Dec 1945), he died 12 days later. Probably the most admired and the most controversial of all American generals in World War 2, he was known for carrying ivory-handled pistols, for racy language, and an intemperate manner, but he was also regarded as one of the most successful American field commanders of any war. The 1971 film, Patton, starring George C Scott in the title role, provoked renewed interest in this complex man. |
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