- Sep 12, 2008
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I found a copy of The Patton Papers at the library recently. I commend them to your attention.
Patton had a huge correspondence and kept an extensive diary. The Patton Papers are his collected letters and diaries from 1940-1945. Like Sherman's memoirs and letters, They make interesting and sometimes disturbing reading. They are also very entertaining, and sort of lend credence to the notion that greatness is a form of psychosis.
Patton was not quite the nut he was portrayed in the movie. Nor was he quite so politicly clueless. He liked to play up his bad reputation sometimes in order to achieve results, despite being quite different in his real personality.
He could be very petty. His letters to his wife and his diary entries have comments about Eisenhower (Mr Destinity in the letters) and Bradley (The Tentmaker) that show his degree of frustration. He was also smart enough to note that those guys had the jobs they did and not him because they were better at it.
Because he had a reputation for calling a spade a spade and not being nice, he got away with being quite a smarmy bastard. He wrote lots of thank you notes where he laid it on with a steam shovel. Lots of them. To darn near everyone.
Third Army was the most integrated. Patton moaned about the intellectual capacity of Jews and Blacks, but he was the only one that used them in large numbers.
Patton made a point of being theatrical, but he also made other points that were more important. He was tyrannical about health and sanitation, led from as close to the front as was possible, maintained cordial relations with the other services (Patton had a pilot's licence and a major part of 3rd Army's success was its integration with Army air. During the Sicily campaign his good relations with the navy saved his bacon on a couple occasions)
I commend this book as an interesting read and containing lessons that are well worth learning.
Patton had a huge correspondence and kept an extensive diary. The Patton Papers are his collected letters and diaries from 1940-1945. Like Sherman's memoirs and letters, They make interesting and sometimes disturbing reading. They are also very entertaining, and sort of lend credence to the notion that greatness is a form of psychosis.
Patton was not quite the nut he was portrayed in the movie. Nor was he quite so politicly clueless. He liked to play up his bad reputation sometimes in order to achieve results, despite being quite different in his real personality.
He could be very petty. His letters to his wife and his diary entries have comments about Eisenhower (Mr Destinity in the letters) and Bradley (The Tentmaker) that show his degree of frustration. He was also smart enough to note that those guys had the jobs they did and not him because they were better at it.
Because he had a reputation for calling a spade a spade and not being nice, he got away with being quite a smarmy bastard. He wrote lots of thank you notes where he laid it on with a steam shovel. Lots of them. To darn near everyone.
Third Army was the most integrated. Patton moaned about the intellectual capacity of Jews and Blacks, but he was the only one that used them in large numbers.
Patton made a point of being theatrical, but he also made other points that were more important. He was tyrannical about health and sanitation, led from as close to the front as was possible, maintained cordial relations with the other services (Patton had a pilot's licence and a major part of 3rd Army's success was its integration with Army air. During the Sicily campaign his good relations with the navy saved his bacon on a couple occasions)
I commend this book as an interesting read and containing lessons that are well worth learning.
