General patton biography and family
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By the time the United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, Patton was a brigadier general in charge of organizing America’s new armored forces. Patton headed to North Africa late in 1942 at the head of an American force; before the initial landings on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, he presented his troops with an expression of his now-legendary philosophy of battle: “We shall attack and attack until we are exhausted, and then we shall attack again.” Patton’s lust for battle would earn him the colorful nickname “Old Blood and Guts” among his troops, whom he ruled with an iron fist.
He graduated in 1909, ranking 46th out of 103 cadets.[2] In June 1904, Patton was admitted in the United States Military Academy at West Point and graduating on 11 June 1910. After the war, Patton served positions in tank and cavalry units at various posts in the United States.
| Checking on his wounded men |
Though sidelined, Patton remained valuable.
In 1900, fourteen-year-old Patton was residing in San Gabriel Township, then a rural community just north of the City of Los Angeles. That December, Patton broke his neck in an automobile accident near Mannheim, Germany.
The Weather Prayer
In December 1944, as the American forces faced more than one million German soldiers, including three German armies and over 800,000 reserve troops at the Battle of the Bulge, General Patton asked Rt.
Within days, his forces relieved the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, a feat widely considered one of the most remarkable operational achievements of the war.
Initially tasked with protecting the left flank of British General Bernard Montgomery’s army, Patton quickly pushed beyond his orders, capturing the strategic port of Palermo and then racing Montgomery’s forces to Messina, the gateway to mainland Italy. Beatrice was the daughter of Boston industrialist and philanthropist Frederick Ayer.
Patton personally led the attack, killing Cárdenas and two of his men in the skirmish. This marked one of the first motorized raids in U.S. military history.
In December 1945, Patton was injured in a car accident near Mannheim.
Marriage and Family
| George and Beatrice Wedding Day |
On 26 May 1910, Patton married his longtime friend Beatrice Ayer at Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.
He struggled with reading and spelling, possibly due to dyslexia, but excelled at memorization and physical pursuits. He was also tasked with evaluating and improving the Army’s outdated cavalry weapons and training methods. The operation was a smashing success, but Patton’s reputation suffered greatly after an incident in an Italian field hospital in which he slapped a soldier suffering from shell shock and accused him of cowardice.
Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. He sustained spinal cord and neck injuries and passed away from pulmonary embolism as a result of the accident in a Heidelberg hospital 12 days later.
Patton’s memoir, titled War As I Knew It, was published posthumously in 1947; his larger-than-life persona later made its way to the silver screen in an Academy Award-winning 1970 biopic starring George C.
Scott.
Patton Family
The Patton Family has a strong connection with Virginia Military Institute (VMI).