Army & Navy: Patton Regilded

Lieut. General George Smith Patton Jr., who had scandalized his fellow officers and angered the U.S. public, whose promotion the U.S. Senate had righteously turned down, was last week again an admired U.S. general. The British press idolized him, the U.S. press forgave him and the Senate fell over itself to confirm his nomination to permanent rank of major general.

For this restoration, Patton could thank his superiors, General Eisenhower and General Marshall. After Patton’s hysterical slapping of two enlisted men in the Sicilian campaign, Eisenhower ordered him to make a public apology, but he did not fire him. After Patton blurted out his opinions on foreign affairs, Eisenhower put him in wraps. Shrill voice, riding breeches, starred helmet, pearl-handled pistols and all, George Patton disappeared from view.

To the 58-year-old Army veteran, V.M.I.-man and West Pointer, possessor of the D.S.M., D.S.C., Silver Star and Purple Heart from World War I and one of the service’s least reliable tempers, Eisenhower gave command of an army. Some days after the Germans had announced the fact to the world, General Patton was officially unveiled as leader of the victorious Third Army in its dash to the Seine. After that, no one could complain.

Quick to throw their hats in the air were the members of the Senate Military Affairs Committee who had blocked Patton’s promotion since last October. In the sudden new acclaim for Tanker Patton, Albert (“Happy”) Chandler rose hurriedly and intoned: “At this hour he [Patton] is perhaps the greatest tank soldier in the world … I have changed my mind.”

Some interesting points about Eisenhower’s restoration of Patton: in Sicily Patton was in command over Bradley; in Normandy the position is reversed. A dispatch from Normandy last week reported that the breakthrough there—which now reglorifies Patton—was “conceived, planned and executed” by General Bradley.

These facts suggest that even General Eisenhower believed that General Patton was not so much a good sculptor of victory as a useful cutting tool—and had used him in precisely that way.

A man who by temperament always demands the impossible from his troops (and therefore sometimes gets it), Patton may be useful as a field general. Demanding the impossible can also result in disaster but Eisenhower evidently believed that Patton’s temperament was a good risk, so long as Bradley was top boss in battle.