Travels with Patton: Visiting Sicily

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 10:27 AM Share

This is General Patton, writing to his wife about the people of Sicily in July 1943. The inventive spellings are his:

Poor things, I feel sorry for them. They make tomato catchup in the streets and let all the filth settle on it and then eat it with spagattey. All the children beg for food all the time and one could buy any woman on the island for a can of beans, but there are not many purchasers."

U.S. Army

EXPLORE:GENERAL PATTON, EUROPE, HISTORY, MILITARY

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JPWREL

3:06 PM ET

June 10, 2010

Patton was a mentally

Patton was a mentally unbalanced vulgar buffoon who should have been sacked and replaced with Lucian Truscott. Truscott was without peer in the ETO as the western allies most skilled and professionally competent leader. And unlike Patton (and a host of other British and American generals) Truscott possessed superb judgment and complete self-control over his emotions and ego. When I think of the one man who could have instantly replaced Eisenhower had something happened to him the immediate answer would have been Lucian Truscott.

WALKING WOUNDED

7:43 PM ET

June 10, 2010

mentally unbalanced vulgar buffoon

It's amazing what wardrobe discipline and good press relations can achieve. MacArthur and Cortez understood this. But people do seek heroes, and there's always a Bernal Diaz to build stories that fit those needs.

I wonder how the field kitchens and 'comfort tents' in Washington or Marse Lee's army would strike us today?

WHISKEYPAPA

8:11 PM ET

June 10, 2010

Patton was Indispensible

Patton was, as the iconic movie has it, the right man in the right place at the right time with the right instrument. During August, 1944, Patton’s army went from west to east with a German force to its south and no army guarding his flank. No other U.S. general would even have dreamed of doing such a thing.

Patton didn’t write the book on this, there was no book. Patton used his mechanized cavalry to screen his flank and his Tac Air to deal with any threats, had they appeared. Patton will always be known as a master of maneuver warfare for this one thing.

And one of their mutual acquaintances told Eisenhower – “Get over yourself Ike! You didn’t make Patton; he made you!”

Walt

MYSTERY MEAT

5:39 PM ET

June 11, 2010

Most of Patton's modern-day

Most of Patton's modern-day biographers agree that he was dyslexic, which can make the spelling of even simple words difficult.

CAV GUY

4:55 PM ET

June 12, 2010

Patton the Intellectual

If I am not mistaken, Patton had a learning disability - dislexila I believe. He did pull off some amazing victories and had a penchant for making the right call in the midst of confusion. He may have been vulgar and condemning but he got what he wanted from his troops. Maybe he isnt a guy you want to work for but he is a guy you want to work for you. I remember reading a bio on either Patton or Ike and the two, as Majors tore down a Renault FT17 tank and rebuilt it in their spare time - to better understand mechanization between the World Wars. That is dedication to the profession.