Military Power

George Smith Patton, Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a leading U.S. Army general in World War II. In his 36-year Army career, he was an advocate of armored warfare and commanded major units of North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. Many have viewed Patton as a pure and ferocious warrior, known by the nickname "Old Blood and Guts", a name given to him after a reporter misquoted his statement that it takes blood and brains to win a war.

George Smith Patton, Jr. was born in San Gabriel, California to George Smith Patton, Sr. (September 30, 1856 – June, 1927) and Ruth Wilson, daughter of Benjamin Wilson, a prominent Pasadena land owner and politician. The Pattons were an affluent family. As a boy, Patton was introduced to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Bible, and the works of William Shakespeare. Patton's father was a friend of John Singleton Mosby, a cavalry hero of the Confederate States of America, serving first under J.E.B. Stuart and then as a guerrilla fighter. The younger Patton grew up hearing Mosby's stories of military glory. From an early age the young Patton sought to become a general and hero in his own right.

Patton came from a long line of soldiers who fought and some who died in many conflicts, including General Hugh Mercer of the American Revolution. A great-uncle, Waller T. Patton, perished of wounds received in Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg. Another relative Hugh Weedon Mercer was a Confederate General.

Patton's paternal grandparents were Brigadier General George Smith Patton (June 26, 1833 – September 19, 1864) and Susan Thornton Glassell. Patton's grandfather in Fredericksburg, graduated from Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Class of 1852, standing 2nd in a class of 24. After graduation George Smith Patton had studied law and practiced in Charleston. When the American Civil War broke out, he served in the 22nd Virginia Infantry of the Confederate States of America.

Dying among the casualties of the Battle of Opequon (the Third Battle of Winchester), Patton's grandfather left behind a namesake son, born in Charleston, West Virginia when that state was still part of Virginia. The second George Smith Patton was only a child during the American Civil War. Graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1877 before taking up a career as an attorney, Patton's father served as the first city level District Attorney of Pasadena, California and the first mayor of San Marino, California.

It is rumored that Patton's mother kept paintings of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in their living room; Patton admired them as she read to him from her rocking chair. Patton is quoted as saying, " Until I was old enough to know better, I thought those were portraits of God the Father, and God the Son."

Patton, along with many other members of his family, often claimed to have seen vivid, lifelike visions of his ancestors. He was a staunch believer in reincarnation, and much anecdotal evidence indicates that he held himself to be the reincarnation of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, a Roman legionnaire, a Napoleonic field marshal, and various other historical military figures.

Patton attended Virginia Military Institute for one year, then transferred to West Point. He flunked out after plebe year with Courtney Hodges (both "found deficient" in mathematics), but reentered to graduate in 1909, being commissioned as a cavalry officer.

Patton was an intelligent child, intensively studying classical literature and military history from a young age, but likely suffered from an undiagnosed case of dyslexia, the consequences of which would haunt him throughout his schooling. He learned to read at a very late age as a child, and never learned basic skills such as proper spelling. Because of these difficulties, it took him five years to graduate from West Point, although he did rise to become Adjutant of the Corps of Cadets.

While at West Point, Patton renewed his acquaintance with childhood friend Beatrice Ayer, the daughter of a wealthy textile baron. The two were married shortly after Patton's graduation.

After graduating from West Point, Patton participated in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, representing the United States in the first-ever Modern Pentathlon. Patton finished fifth in the event. He was leading prior to the shooting competition, in which he decided to use a .38 revolver instead of the .22 caliber the rest of the athletes used. Patton was penalized for missing the target with one of his shots. He claimed that the 'miss' actually passed through the holes put in the target by his previous bullets (the heavier .38 rounds tearing a much larger series of holes in his target than the lighter rounds of his competitors). Based on his exceptional performance in the earlier qualifying rounds, events may have transpired as he claimed. His performance in the event is also notable in that he was the only competitor to defeat the French Épée champion in the fencing portion of the event.

After the Olympics, Lt. Patton was made the Army's youngest-ever Master of the Sword. While Master of the Sword, Patton improved and modernized the Army's Cavalry Saber fencing techniques and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber. It had a large, basket-shaped hilt mounting a straight, double-edged, thrusting blade designed for use by heavy cavalry. Now known as the “Patton” sabre, it was heavily influenced by the 1908 and 1912 Pattern British Army Cavalry Swords.

During the Mexican Expedition of 1916, Patton, while assigned to the 13th Cavalry Regiment in Fort Bliss, Texas, accompanied then-Brigadier General John J. Pershing as his aide during the Mexican Expedition in his pursuit of Pancho Villa. During his service, Patton, accompanied by ten soldiers of the 6th Infantry Regiment, killed "General" Julio Cardenas, commander of Villa's personal bodyguard. For this action, as well as Patton's affinity for the Colt Peacemaker, Pershing titled Patton his "Bandito". Patton's success in this regard gained him a level of notoriety back in the United States.

At the onset of the USA's entry into World War I, General Pershing promoted Patton to the rank of captain. While in France under the Third Republic, Patton requested that he be given a combat command and Pershing assigned him command within the newly formed U.S. Tank Corps. Depending on the source, he either led the U.S. Tank Corps, led the British, or was an observer at the Battle of Cambrai, the first battle where tanks were used as a significant force. As the U.S. Tank Corps did not take part in this battle and it is extremely unlikely that a U.S. officer would have commanded British troops, the role of observer is the most likely. From his successes (and his organization of a training school for American tankers in Langres, France), Patton was promoted twice to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was placed in charge of the U.S. Tank Corps, which was part of the American Expeditionary Force and then the First U.S. Army. He took part in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, September 1918, and was wounded by machine gun fire as he sought assistance for tanks that were mired in the mud. The bullet had passed through his upper thigh and for years afterwards, when Patton was tipsy at social events, he would drop his pants to show his wound and called himself a "half-assed general." While Patton was recuperating from his wounds, hostilities ended.

For his service in the Meuse-Argonne Operations, Patton received a Distinguished Service Cross, and was given a battlefield promotion to a full colonel. For his combat wounds, he was presented the Purple Heart.

While on duty in Washington, D.C. in 1919, Patton met and became close friends with Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would play an enormous role in Patton's future career. In the early 1920s, Patton petitioned the U.S. Congress to appropriate funding for an armored force, but had little luck doing so. Patton also wrote professional articles on tank and armored car tactics, suggesting new methods to use these weapons. He also continued working on improvements to tanks, coming up with innovations in radio communication and tank mounts. However, with little money in the peacetime military for innovation, Patton eventually transferred back to the cavalry—still a horse-borne force—for career advancement.

In July 1932, Patton served under Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, as a major leading the cavalry {See 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment}, in an action to disperse the veteran protesters known as the "Bonus Army" in Washington, DC.

Patton served in Hawaii before returning to Washington to once again ask Congress to allocate funding for armored units. In the late 1930s, Patton was assigned command of Fort Myer, Virginia. Shortly after Germany's blitzkrieg attacks in Europe, Patton was finally able to convince Congress of the need for armored divisions. Shortly after its approval, Patton was promoted to Brigadier General and put in command of the armored brigade. The brigade eventually grew into the US 2nd Armored Division and Patton was promoted to major general.

During the buildup of the U.S. Army prior to its entry into World War II, Patton established the Desert Training Center in Indio, California. He also commanded one of the two wargaming armies in the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941. Fort Benning, Georgia, is well known for General Patton's presence.

In 1942, Major General Patton commanded the Western Task Force of the U.S. Army, which landed on the coast of Morocco in Operation Torch. Patton and his staff arrived in Morocco aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, which came under fire from the French battleship Jean Bart while entering the harbor of Casablanca.

Following the defeat of the U.S. II Corps as part of British 1st Army, by the German Afrika Korps at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in 1943, Patton was made Lieutenant General and placed in command of II Corps on March 6, 1943. Tough in his training, he was generally unpopular with his troops. Both British and US officers had noted the 'softness' and lack of discipline in the II Corps under Lloyd Fredendall. Patton required all personnel to wear steel helmets, even physicians in the operating wards, and required his troops to wear the unpopular lace-up leggings and neckties. A system of fines was introduced to ensure all personnel shaved daily and observed other uniform requirements. While these measures did not make Patton popular, they did tend to restore a sense of discipline and unit pride that may have been missing earlier. In a play on his nickname, troops joked that it was "our blood and his guts". The discipline paid off quickly; by mid-March, the counteroffensive was pushing the Germans east, along with the rest of British 1st Army, while the British Eighth Army commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery in Tunisia was simultaneously pushing them west, effectively squeezing the Germans out of North Africa.

As a result of his accomplishments in North Africa, Patton was given command of the Seventh Army in preparation for the 1943 invasion of Sicily.

The Seventh Army's mission was to protect the left (western) flank of the British Eighth Army as both advanced northwards towards Messina.

The Seventh Army repulsed several German counterattacks in the beachhead area before beginning their strike northwards. Meanwhile, the Eighth Army stalled south of Mount Etna in the face of strong German defenses. The Army Group commander, Harold Alexander, exercised only the loosest control over his two commanders. Montgomery therefore took the initiative to meet with Patton in an attempt to work out a coordinated campaign.

Patton formed a provisional Corps under his Chief of staff, and quickly pushed through western Sicily, liberating the capital, Palermo and then swiftly turning east towards Messina. US forces liberated Messina in accordance with the plan jointly created by Montgomery and Patton. Unfortunately for the Allies, the Germans were able to withdraw much of their strength, including heavy equipment, across the straits of Messina onto the Italian mainland.

Patton's bloodthirsty speeches resulted in controversy when it was claimed one inspired the Biscari Massacre in which American troops killed seventy-six prisoners of war. Patton's career nearly ended in August of 1943. While visiting hospitals and commending wounded soldiers, he slapped and verbally abused Privates Paul G. Bennet and Charles H. Kuhl, whom he thought were exhibiting cowardly behavior. The soldiers were suffering from various forms of "shell-shock," now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and had no visible wounds (though one was subsequently found to have malaria). Because of this action, Patton was kept out of public view for some time and, although not specifically ordered to do so, apologized to the individual soldiers and hospital units that witnessed the incidents. One of the soldiers thanked him and shook his hand. Ironically, many modern day psychiatrists who have examined these incidents have professed that at the time Patton himself might have been suffering from battle fatigue. When news of Patton's acts was made public months later, there were calls from some that he should either resign or be fired from his position.

However, while Patton was temporarily relieved of his duty, his prolonged stay in Sicily was interpreted by the Germans to be indicative of an upcoming invasion of southern France and later, a stay in Cairo was interpreted as an upcoming invasion through the Balkans. The fear of General Patton helped to tie up many German troops and would be an important factor in the months to come.

In the period leading to the Normandy invasion, Patton gave public talks as commander of the fictional First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG), which was supposedly intending to invade France by way of Calais. This was part of a sophisticated Allied campaign of military deception, Operation Fortitude.

Following the Normandy invasion, Patton was placed in command of the U.S. Third Army, which was on the extreme right (west) of the Allied land forces. Beginning at noon on August 1, 1944, he led this army during the late stages of Operation Cobra, the breakout from earlier slow fighting in the Norman system of planted hedgerows. The Third Army simultaneously attacked west (into Brittany), south, east towards the Seine, and north, assisting in trapping several hundred thousand German soldiers in the Chambois pocket, betweenFalaise and Argentan, Orne. Patton used Germany's own blitzkrieg tactics against them, covering 600 miles in just two weeks, from Avranches to Argentan. Patton's forces were part of the Allied forces that freed northern France, bypassing Paris. The city of Paris itself was liberated by the French 2nd Armored Division under French Marshal Philippe de Hauteclocque ("Leclerc"), insurgents who were fighting in the city, and a US Infantry Division. These early Third Army offensives showed the characteristic high mobility and aggressiveness of Patton's units. Rather than engage in set-piece slugging matches, Patton preferred to bypass centers of resistance and use the mobility of US units to the fullest, crumbling German defensive positions through maneuver rather than head-on fighting whenever possible.

General Patton's offensive, however, came to a screeching halt on August 31, 1944, as the Third Army literally ran out of gas near the Moselle River, just outside of Metz, France. The time needed to resupply was just enough to give the Germans the time they needed to further fortify the fortress of Metz. In October and November, the Third Army was mired in a near-stalemate with the Germans, inflicting heavy casualties on one another. By November 23, however, Metz had finally fallen to the Americans, the first time the city had fallen since the Franco-Prussian War.

By late 1944, the German army made a last-ditch offensive across Belgium, Luxembourg, and northeastern France. The Ardennes Offensive (better known as the Battle of the Bulge), was planned by German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. On December 16, 1944, the German army threw 29 divisions (totaling some 250,000 men) at a weak point in the Allied lines and made massive headway towards the Meuse River during one of the worst winters in Europe in years.

Walter Cronkite (who was present as a war correspondent) tells the story of the staff meeting held the next morning to deal with Rundstedt's breakthrough. Patton was a few minutes late. When he entered, conversation stopped. Realizing that he should say something, Patton asked "What do you do when you catch a monkey hanging by its tail?" Answering his own question, he replied "You cut off its balls, and that is what I am going to do with von Rundstedt."

Patton was as good as his word, abruptly turning the Third Army north (a notable tactical and logistical achievement), disengaging from the front line to relieve the surrounded and besieged 101st Airborne Division trapped in Bastogne. By February, the Germans were once again in full retreat and Patton moved into the Saar Basin of Germany. The bulk of Third Army completed their crossing of the Rhine at Oppenheim on March 22, 1945.

Patton was planning to take Prague, Czechoslovakia, when the forward movement of American forces was halted. His troops liberated Pilsen (May 6, 1945) and most of western Bohemia.

After the surrender of May 8, 1945 extinguished the common threat of Nazi Germany, Patton was quick to assert the Soviet Union would cease to be an ally of the United States. In fact, believing the USSR would become an enemy, he urged his superiors to evict the Soviets from central and eastern Europe. Patton thought that the Red Army was weak, under-supplied, and vulnerable, and the United States should act on these weaknesses before the Soviets consolidated their position. In this regard, he told then-Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson [1] that the "point system" being used to demobilize Third Army troops was destroying it and creating a vacuum that the Soviets would exploit. "Mr. Secretary, for God’s sake, when you go home, stop this point system; stop breaking up these armies," pleaded the general. "Let’s keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to these people the Soviets. This is the only language they understand." Asked by Patterson — who would become Secretary of War a few months later — what he would do, Patton replied: "I would have you tell the Red Army where their border is, and give them a limited time to get back across. Warn them that if they fail to do so, we will push them back across it."

On a personal level, Patton was disappointed by the Army's refusal to give him combat command in the Pacific. Unhappy in his role as the military governor of Bavaria and depressed by his belief that he would never fight in another war, Patton's behavior and statements became increasingly erratic. He also made many anti-Russian and anti-Semitic statements in letters home. Various explanations beyond his disappointments have been proposed for Patton's erratic behaviour. Carlo D'Este, in Patton: A Genius for War, writes that "it seems virtually inevitable ... that Patton experienced some type of brain damage from too many head injuries" from a lifetime of numerous auto- and horse-related accidents, especially one suffered while playing polo in 1936. It should be noted, however, that many of the controversial opinions he expressed were common (if not exactly popular) at the time and his outspoken opposition to post-surrender denazification is still a widely debated viewpoint today. Many still laud his proudly generous treatment of his German former enemies and his early recognition of the Soviet threat, while detractors say his protests reflect the views of a bigoted and obnoxious elitist. Whatever the cause, Patton found himself once again in trouble with his superiors and the American people. While speaking to a group of reporters, he compared the Nazis to losers in American political elections. Patton was soon relieved of his Third Army command and transferred to the Fifteenth Army, a paper command preparing a history of the war. One thing that must be remembered is that Patton was a historian at heart. He lived, breathed and slept history. It was this personal sense of historical existence that prompted his spectacular military and personal accomplishments during his lifetime. As such, to be granted the privilege of helping to write the history of the greatest military conflict he had been a part of was not something that he was opposed to, even under the circumstances.

The relationship between George S. Patton and Dwight Eisenhower has long been of interest to historians in that the onset of World War II completely reversed the roles of the two men in the space of just under two years. When Patton and Eisenhower met in the mid 1920s, Patton was six years Eisenhower’s senior in the Army and Eisenhower saw Patton as a leading mind in tank warfare.

Between 1935 and 1940, Patton and Eisenhower developed a very close friendship to the level where the Patton and Eisenhower families were spending summer vacations together. In 1938, Patton was promoted to full colonel and Eisenhower, then still a lieutenant colonel, openly admitted that he saw Patton as a friend, superior officer, and mentor.

Upon the outbreak of World War II, Patton’s genius of tank warfare was recognized by the Army, and he was quickly made a brigadier general and, less than a year later, a major general. In 1940, Lt. Col. Eisenhower petitioned Major General Patton, offering to serve under the tank corps commander. Patton accepted readily, stating that he would like nothing better than for Eisenhower to be placed under his command.

George Marshall, recognizing that the coming conflict would require all available military talent, had other plans for Eisenhower. In 1941, after five years as a relatively unknown lieutenant colonel, Eisenhower was promoted to colonel and then again to brigadier general in just 6 months time. Patton was still senior to Eisenhower in the Regular Army, but this was soon not the case in the growing conscript army (known as the Army of the United States). In 1942, Eisenhower was promoted to major general and, just a few months later, to lieutenant general — overtaking the rank of Patton for the first time. When the Allies announced the invasion of North Africa, Major General Patton suddenly found himself under the command of his former subordinate, now one star his senior.

In 1943, Patton became a lieutenant general one month after Eisenhower was promoted to full (four-star) general. Patton was unusually reserved in his never having commented on Eisenhower's hasty rise. Patton also reassured Eisenhower that the two men’s professional relationship was unaffected. Privately, however, Patton was often quick to remind Eisenhower that his permanent rank in the Regular Army, then still a one-star brigadier general, was lower than Patton’s Regular Army commission as a two-star major general.

When Patton came under criticism for the "Sicily slapping incident" (see above), Eisenhower met privately with Patton and reprimanded his former superior officer but then reassured Patton that he would not be sent home to the United States for his conduct. Many historians have speculated that, had it been any other man than Eisenhower, Patton would have been demoted and court-martialed.

Eisenhower is also credited with giving Patton a command in France, after other powers in the Army had relegated Patton to various unimportant duties in England. It was in France that Patton found himself in the company of another former subordinate, Omar Bradley, who had now become his superior. As with Eisenhower, Patton behaved with professionalism and served under Bradley with distinction.

After the close of World War II, Patton became occupation commander of Bavaria, and made arrangements for saving the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions of Vienna. However, he was relieved of duty after making comments that the Nazis were nothing more than a normal political party, and ordering former SS units to begin drilling in attempt to gain some respectability. His view of the war was that with Hitler gone, the German army could be rebuilt into a daunting ally in a war against the Russian Soviets, whom Patton notoriously despised and considered a greater menace than the Germans. During this period he wrote that the Allied victory had been in vain if it led to a tyrant worse than Hitler and an army of "Mongolian savages" controlling half of Europe. Eisenhower had at last had enough, relieving Patton of all duties and ordering his return to the United States. When Patton openly accused Eisenhower of caring more about a political career than his military duties, the friendship between the two effectively came to an end.

When the biography of George Patton was aired on the A&E network, a single quote perhaps best described the relationship and destinies of George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower:

[The] course of World War II would lead these two men to very different ends: one to the office of President of the United States and the other to a soldier's grave on a foreign shore.

Near the end of the war (February 1945), Eisenhower ranked the major generals in Europe. Omar Bradley and Carl Spaatz were rated as the best. Bedell Smith was ranked number 2, Patton was ranked 3, followed by Mark Clark, and Lucian Truscott (others were also ranked). Bradley himself had been asked by Eisenhower to rank all the generals in December of 1945 and he ranked them as follows: Bedell Smith #1, Spaatz #2, Courtney Hodges #3, Elwood Quesada #4, Truscott #5, and Patton #6 (others were also ranked)

These rankings probably included factors other than Patton's success as a battle leader. As to that, Alan Axelrod in his book Patton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) quotes German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt as stating "Patton was your best" and, surprisingly, Joseph Stalin as stating that the Red Army could neither have planned nor executed Patton's advance across France. D'Este reports that even Hitler begrudgingly respected Patton, once calling him "that crazy cowboy general."

Largely overlooked in history is the warm reception he received on June 9, 1945, when he and Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle were honored with a parade through Los Angeles and a reception at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before over 100,000 people that evening. The next day, Patton and Doolittle toured the metropolitan Los Angeles area. Patton spoke in front of the Burbank City Hall and at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. He wore his helmet with a straight line of stars, chest full of medals, and two ivory handle trademark pistols. He punctuated his speech with some of the same profanity he had used with the troops. He spoke about conditions in Europe and the Russian allies to the adoring crowds. This may be the only time in America when the civilian people, en masse, heard and saw the famous warrior on the podium. This was also the time when he turned over key Nazi historical documents that he had unilaterally gathered, (such as the original 1935 Nuremberg Blood laws) to the Huntington Library. This a world-class repository of historical original papers, books, and maps, near Pasadena. The existence of this trove of historical papers was kept secret for about 55 years, and only publicized generally in April 2006, in a Los Angeles Times in-depth story. The papers are now on permanent loan to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. He wouldn't live to speak again to the public in his native country, or to follow up on the conservation of the important documents he had collected.

On December 9th, a day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. He and his chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. 'Hap' Gay, were on a daytrip to hunt pheasants in the country, outside Mannheim. It was a cold, wet, hazy December morning. Their 1939 Cadillac Model 75 was driven by PFC Horace Woodring (1926 - 2003). Patton sat in the back seat, on the right with General Gay on his left, as per custom. At 11:45 near Neckarstadt, (Käfertal) a 2 1/2 ton truck driven by T/5 Robert L. Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. General Patton was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. Gay and Woodring were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on 21st December 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present.

Patton was buried at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial in Hamm, Luxembourg along with other members of the Third Army. A cenotaph was placed at the Wilson-Patton family plot at the San Gabriel Cemetery in San Gabriel, California. Patton's car was repaired and used by other officers. The car is now on display, with other Patton artifacts, at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Kentucky.




Awards and decorations

At the time of General Patton's death, he was authorized the following awards and decorations.

United States awards
* Distinguished Service Cross with one oak leaf cluster
* Distinguished Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters
* Silver Star with one oak leaf cluster
* Legion of Merit
* Bronze Star Medal
* Purple Heart
* Silver Lifesaving Medal
* World War I Victory Medal with five battle clasps
* European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one silver and two bronze service stars
* Mexican Service Medal
* American Defense Service Medal
* World War II Victory Medal

In 1955, the U.S. Army posthumously presented General Patton with the Army of Occupation Medal for service as the first occupation commander of Bavaria.

Foreign and international awards
* British Order of the Bath
* Order of the British Empire
* Belgian Order of Leopold
* Belgian Croix de Guerre
* French Legion of Honor
* French Croix de Guerre
* French Liberation Medal
* Grand Luxemburg Cross of the Order of Adolphe of Nassau
* Grand Cross of Ouissam Alaouite of Morocco
* Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia
* Czechoslovakian War Cross
* Luxemburg War Cross

General Patton was also awarded numerous commemorative medals, badges, and pins that were not meant for display on a military uniform or were not considered official military decorations. A street, Patton Drive, was named for him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as the Patton Tank.

While on the internet I somehow stumbled on this.

Although dyslexia creates difficulties in particular areas for children, students, and adults, dyslexic people frequently enjoy above average physical co-ordination skills, empathy, and can be artistically gifted.

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General Patton struggled with dyslexia. His bio makes no mention of dyslexia

Patton was born with dyslexia (at the time the disability was unknown) and because of this was home schooled until he was 11 years old. When he was twelve years old, he could not read yet and he remained deficient in reading all his life. However, he could memorize entire lectures, which was how he got through school. After he graduated from high school Patton a year at VMI before being accepted to West Point. He and studied there for five years before graduating and receiving his commission.

Contrary to popular belief, General George Patton never owned a pair of pearl handled pistols.

As the General, himself, would sharply point out when asked about his famous sidearms:

"Goddamit, my guns are ivory handled. Nobody but a pimp from a cheap New Orleans' whorehouse would carry one with pearl grips"