70 years ago, Gen. Patton was laid to rest at Third Army Cemetary.

[the ringo kid]

Like him or not? but you have to admit he was the consummate battlefield General. No other is like this unique general, and sadly, I highly doubt there will be another like him.

Anyway, 70 years ago, General George Smith Patton Jr. was laid to rest at Third Army cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg. His funeral procession included at least 100 vehicles including, tanks, half tracks etc and watched by tens of thousands of soldiers and greatful civilians.

Rest in Peace with your men sir. Also, we lost 19,000 of our guys during the Battle of the Bulge. Rest in Peace sirs.

 

[lowriderfxr]

I was just looking at pictures of his .357 today. Great American hero. Might not want him to run the counseling wing for PTSD soldiers but he was a great soldier and a national treasure.

 

[DWalt]

If you haven't read "Killing Patton," It's worth the read. But much better books about Patton have been written. I found a copy at the local Half-Price Book Store for $4.00. I wouldn't pay full price.

The book doesn't speculate on whether Patton's death was an assassination or not, but the circumstances were very strange to say the least. And there was no shortage of those who wanted him to be taken out.

 

[M1A]

The best book on Gen. Patton is by Carlo D'Este. "A Genius for WAR".

 

[steveno]

Patton's funeral procession

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLYVOaKdTvc[/ame]

 

[Ducky2002]

You're right, Ringo. There will never be another one like Patton as long as our "civilian command" refuses to allow our troops to actually win. We must not hurt the other side's feelings or make them feel like we are dissing them.

 

[DWalt]

Ian V. Hogg wrote a good treatment in his 1982 book, "The Biography of General George S. Patton" Lots of pictures and lots of solid text. Also, Martin Blumenson's 1985 book "Patton: The Man Behind the Legend" is very good, but not as heavy on illustrations. Patton was among the greatest field commanders ever, but he was far from being a master strategist or politician.

 

[steveno]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6BX5wnmxo8[/ame]

you will notice that Patton's grave is in the middle of all of the others. it was later moved because so many people were wanting to see his grave and damaging the other graves that they moved it off to the side.

 

[max]

My wife visited this cemetery 2 years ago and saw Patton's grave. One of the local volunteers asked her where she was from and when she answered Illinois, the volunteer took her to the grave of a soldier from Illinois and she was given a white rose to place on the grave. She was very impressed.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I visited there at Memorial Day, 1971. The difference between Patton and his contemporaries and the one we have today is that he was a professional. Today we have careerists.

 

[NYlakesider]

Over the last couple years I have read a couple books about Patton's death. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind he was taken out. Patton was a hero of mine and I have read a lot about him in the past.

He had a feces load of enemies both political and militarily (from a few different countries), anyone of them or a conglomerate of them had reason and the resources to do it.


Way lot of strange thing/events happened and some of them just cannot be explained. The only fact is under extremely strange circumstances he died.

 

[steveno]

the grave

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWFbBce-VCE[/ame]

 

[Onomea]

I had not heard or read about suspicions of assassination. I just looked it up and seems like a fairly straightforward car accident....

I knew a guy once who broke his neck diving into a swimming pool from poolside. Freak accident. So the fact that the others in the car were not injured does not seem overly suspicious to me.

What has the assasination theory got going for it?

 

[steveno]

if a staff car and a deuce and half get together in a crash. the truck will win. freak accidents happen

 

[DWalt]

Why Patton died was that he threw an embolism. Not unusual for someone immobilized in a hospital bed while he was paralyzed from the neck down. Further, he was not receiving what could be remotely called the most expert medical care at what was essentially a field hospital, nothing like Walter Reed or Bethesda could provide. There was not enough evidence to conclude Patton was assassinated, but also not enough evidence to establish without doubt that he wasn't. Some OSS officer long after the war claimed he had engineered Patton's accident allegedly under the direct orders of "Wild Bill" Donovan, the head of OSS, who was one of Patton's most bitter enemies. There was never much of an investigation done by the Army of the circumstances surrounding the "accident" and virtually all records that did exist completely vanished shortly thereafter.

One interesting fact was that Patton was on his way to do some hunting when the accident occurred. He apparently loved hunting in Germany.

 

[Marshwheeling]

"How do you start a flood?"

 

[chud333]

Never be another like Patton.
The quintessential Battlefield Commander.
Let us not forget him and others of his time.
Great Post Ringo.


Chuck

 

[Ed Fowler]

He remains one of my most prominent heroes! I wish he could have written the book he was planning to write, I believe our history would be much different. The allies could not afford to let him live to print it.
RIP Sir, your legacy will live!

 

[DWalt]

I believe there was a lot of fear that Patton would run for political office after the war. And Patton and Truman were far from being the best of friends. He and Ike were not buddies either, as they held diametrically opposite positions about how postwar Europe should be structured.

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

What it looked like in the Summer of 1972. Digitized from dusty 35mm slides......

One of the marble panels. The cemetery is marked by the cross near the lower left hand corner. The photo is centered (sort of) on the city of Trier in Germany. Bitburg is shown a short distance to the north.

 

[DWalt]

Patton's wife wanted his body to be interred at the West Point cemetery, but the Army would not allow it. At the time, government policy was that any service member who was killed overseas was to be buried there, and the body could not be transported back to the US. And the Army would not make an exception, even for Patton.

 

[UncleEd]

Reading a book right now about the Battle of the Bulge, titled
Snow and Steel by a British military historian.

He maintains Patton, among other reasons, had a leg up on other commanders is that he made use of all the intelligence services he could get his hands on, including OSS, partisans, etc.

He was ready for the Bulge attack because where other generals ignored a lot of the available intelligence or simply dismissed it as not being possible the Germans had strength for an attack.

The book also contains a lot of comments by German generals the author interviewed, or officers who knew the generals. They believed the Ardennes campaign was doomed from the start.

 

[steveno]

some more on Patton's funeral and gravesite

General Patton's Funeral and Burial Site Equipment Leasing

 

[NYlakesider]

I had not heard or read about suspicions of assassination. I just looked it up and seems like a fairly straightforward car accident....

I knew a guy once who broke his neck diving into a swimming pool from poolside. Freak accident. So the fact that the others in the car were not injured does not seem overly suspicious to me.

What has the assasination theory got going for it?

Patton has always been a hero of mine since I used a bio about him for a book report in high school (early 60s.) Since then I have read many of the books published about him. I have thought for a long time his death was rather suspicious!

My family knows I like reading and I got both Killing Patton by Bill O Riley & Target Patton by Robert Wilcox as presents. I read both of them and both bring up a lot of information that hardly gets talked about.

The List of SERIOUS players includes but not limited to Eisenhower, Bradley, Truman, members of the Roosevelt/Truman cabinet with Wild Bill Donavan very high on the list. Throw in a few Russian Generals and Stalin and the possibilities are endless. There were some not so serious but dangerous lessor players to think about also.

Read them both - those books should make you go HIMMMMMMM! Yes these books are not as enjoyable as a Tom Clancy yarn. (In fact there a little boring but I did them both) A good case is that it was a well-planned homicide and was not investigated nowhere near the level it should have been. Heck they never even done a autopsy!

Read and make your own decision. His usefulness was over and he was not needed anymore and he would be a LIABILITY to the above mentioned players.

 

[federali]

Patton's Injury

I recall reading recently that Patton had fractured his neck in a horseback riding accident earlier in his life. Apparently, a broken cervical vertebrae remains prone to fracture and it was this old injury that gave way, paralyzing him.

I never put much credence in assassination stories. Also, I'll forever ponder how he would have managed the current Mideast crisis with ISIS.

 

[DWalt]

Another possible attempt on Patton's life involved an attack on Patton's L-3 aircraft, with Patton aboard, by a Spitfire fighter with Polish markings. Patton's pilot managed to evade the attack. No such aircraft should have been within hundreds of miles of that area. Supposition was that it may have been a Spitfire piloted by a Russian.

 

[the ringo kid]

If you haven't read "Killing Patton," It's worth the read. But much better books about Patton have been written. I found a copy at the local Half-Price Book Store for $4.00. I wouldn't pay full price.

The book doesn't speculate on whether Patton's death was an assassination or not, but the circumstances were very strange to say the least. And there was no shortage of those who wanted him to be taken out.

I've been wanting to read it but haven't bought a copy yet.

 

[the ringo kid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLYVOaKdTvc

I thought that was great that his personal aide--the sergeant up front and left side of Pattons casket//whose first name was also George//, was one of his pallbearers.

 

[the ringo kid]

My wife visited this cemetery 2 years ago and saw Patton's grave. One of the local volunteers asked her where she was from and when she answered Illinois, the volunteer took her to the grave of a soldier from Illinois and she was given a white rose to place on the grave. She was very impressed.

One of these years, I plan on going and paying my respects to them all. Its hard enough to see all those crosses in a video, let alone in person.

 

[the ringo kid]

Never be another like Patton.
The quintessential Battlefield Commander.
Let us not forget him and others of his time.
Great Post Ringo.


Chuck

Thank you. I wished I had had more than just a few sentences, he deserves much more.