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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.12.15 16:21l 59 Lines 2506 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 79221_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 21
Path: IZ3LSV<IW2OHX<IR2UBX<IK2XDE<IK6ZDE<I0OJJ<IR0AAB<VE3UIL<N9PMO<N3XPD<
N0KFQ
Sent: 151221/1516Z 79221@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1945
"Old Blood and Guts" dies
On this day, General George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. 3rd
Army, dies from injuries suffered not in battle but in a freak
car accident. He was 60 years old.
Descended from a long line of military men, Patton graduated from
the West Point Military Academy in 1909. He represented the
United States in the 1912 Olympics-as the first American
participant in the pentathlon. He did not win a medal. He went on
to serve in the Tank Corps during World War I, an experience that
made Patton a dedicated proponent of tank warfare.
During World War II, as commander of the U.S. 7th Army, he
captured Palermo, Sicily, in 1943 by just such means. Patton's
audacity became evident in 1944, when, during the Battle of the
Bulge, he employed an unorthodox strategy that involved a
90-degree pivoting move of his 3rd Army forces, enabling him to
speedily relieve the besieged Allied defenders of Bastogne,
Belgium.
Along the way, Patton's mouth proved as dangerous to his career
as the Germans. When he berated and slapped a hospitalized
soldier diagnosed with "shell shock," but whom Patton accused of
"malingering," the press turned on him, and pressure was applied
to cut him down to size. He might have found himself enjoying
early retirement had not General Dwight Eisenhower and General
George Marshall intervened on his behalf. After several months of
inactivity, he was put back to work.
And work he did-at the Battle of the Bulge, during which Patton
once again succeeded in employing a complex and quick-witted
strategy, turning the German thrust into Bastogne into an Allied
counterthrust, driving the Germans east across the Rhine. In
March 1945, Patton's army swept through southern Germany into
Czechoslovakia_which he was stopped from capturing by the Allies,
out of respect for the Soviets' postwar political plans for
Eastern Europe.
Patton had many gifts, but diplomacy was not one of them. After
the war, while stationed in Germany, he criticized the process of
denazification, the removal of former Nazi Party members from
positions of political, administrative, and governmental power.
His impolitic press statements questioning the policy caused
Eisenhower to remove him as U.S. commander in Bavaria. He was
transferred to the 15th Army Group, but in December of 1945 he
suffered a broken neck in a car accident and died less than two
weeks later.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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