The Art of Manliness - Patton and the Bulge： Blood, Guts, and Prayer

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.040 general george s padden is known for his aggressive action-oriented tactical brilliance

00:00:15.960 his character was also marked by a lesser-known but equally fundamental mystic piety those two

00:00:22.120 qualities would come together in the lead-up to an execution of padden's greatest achievement

00:00:25.900 during world war ii the relief of baston during the battle of the bulge alex kershaw tells the

00:00:31.640 story in his new book padden's prayer a true story of courage faith and victory in world war ii

00:00:37.180 today on the show alex shares how when the third army's advance into germany was stalled by plain

00:00:41.960 grounding clouds and road money and rain padden commissioned a prayer for better weather that

00:00:46.220 was distributed to a quarter million of his men and how that prayer became even more urgent after the

00:00:50.940 commencement of the battle of the bulge we also talk about padden's qualities as a leader and a

00:00:55.200 man including his reading habits how he combined a profane assertiveness with a pious faith and a

00:01:00.120 belief in reincarnation and what happened to him as the war came to a close after the show's over

00:01:05.020 check out our show notes at awim.is slash patent all right alex kershaw welcome back to the show

00:01:21.000 great to be with you so we had you on at the end of last year to talk about one of your older books

00:01:26.200 that's the longest winter which recounts the story of an 18-man u.s platoon that faced the thrust of

00:01:34.400 the entire german assault at the battle of the bulge you got a new book out and it's about the battle of

00:01:39.480 the bulge as well but this time it's about general george padden's role in rebuffing the nazis last

00:01:46.320 ditch assault on the allies and it's called patent's prayer and we'll get to the title of the book here

00:01:52.260 in a bit because there was an actual prayer that patent had composed for his troops but before we

00:01:57.940 do that let's talk about patent the man first this guy he was a larger than life character he had

00:02:03.020 ivory handled pistols that he carried around the shiny helmet riding boots had all these pithy quotes 0.99

00:02:08.980 about driving and putting people's heads in meat grinders and calling everybody sons of bitches 0.99

00:02:14.200 what's patent's background what was his family background and how did it shape who he became as 0.94

00:02:18.700 a man well he had a very patrician background not from new england but california he's a california

00:02:26.440 aristocrat in many ways and went to vmi and then west point and was a hell of a character i mean

00:02:35.020 his formative years i guess after west point were spent alongside people like eisenhower

00:02:41.740 and he was a cavalryman above all actually competed in the 1912 olympics for the uh one of the events

00:02:50.360 he had created his own sword and famously in 1918 he commanded the first ever american tank unit and

00:03:00.020 that was in france took to combat with great relish he was very brave almost killed wrote i think it was

00:03:07.240 on his birthday toward the end of the war he said that would be a shame for hostilities to end because

00:03:13.340 he was enjoying it so much he wanted a few more scraps so this guy was a natural born warrior

00:03:18.620 very much larger than life deeply religious believed in reincarnation thought that he'd fought in several

00:03:26.340 wars before that he was a man of destiny and that something big was going to happen in his life

00:03:31.980 eventually where he would be truly tested and the point of my book is that that big thing did happen

00:03:37.540 it was called the battle of the bulge or rather world war ii but certainly during the battle of the

00:03:42.400 bulge he performed magnificently he was an extraordinary force well so you mentioned that

00:03:49.180 he was deeply spiritual and you also talk about how he was actually incredibly intellectual i think

00:03:54.180 oftentimes i think of patten as this unthinking brute he just had a bloodlust and that was it

00:03:58.920 but he was extremely well read and thoughtful and as a kid he he really struggled with reading in

00:04:06.600 school he probably had what we call today and he probably had dyslexia probably had adhd and it

00:04:11.760 really frustrated him because as a boy he he had this driving ambition even then to be this you know

00:04:17.560 consummate warrior in both body and mind and so he became this voracious reader as a young man

00:04:23.920 he read the classics he read you know lots of biographies of about past generals and during

00:04:30.000 world war ii he just he kept his reading up he had this extensive field library that he brought with

00:04:35.360 him that had you know books like the bible and a prayer book you know going to his spirituality but

00:04:40.460 then he had things like you know the complete set of roger kipling's poems and something he read a lot

00:04:45.400 was the caesar's commentaries yeah he uh he never stopped studying military history and i have a quote

00:04:53.560 in the book where he explains to a journalist that as he was crossing normandy he was reading yeah julius

00:05:01.120 caesar and he said you know i followed in the path of julius caesar because the guy knew what he was

00:05:09.280 doing and uh you know why not just copy the greats and so literally there were quite a few times in

00:05:16.020 world war ii when patten would trace the route of julius caesar a couple thousand years before and

00:05:20.760 follow it he very much had a sense of his place in history and he relished the fact that you know

00:05:27.480 he was fighting in north africa he was fighting in sicily that he was determined to become the first

00:05:34.160 ally general to reach messina which is at the far eastern end of sicily he wanted to beat montgomery

00:05:41.360 the british general to that because he wanted his name in the history books and i'd say that throughout

00:05:46.960 world war ii he had an eye on making his name and uh going down in history as much as he did on

00:05:53.820 defeating the enemy and believe me he really was highly aggressive when it came to trying to defeat

00:05:59.400 nazism but yeah he it's a good point because you know people when you look when you watch 0.78

00:06:04.120 the the famous movie about patten you just think think he's this screaming maniac i think that

00:06:10.040 that's kind of the takeaway although the movie is really pretty accurate and i think george c scott

00:06:15.540 does a fantastic job i think it's probably his best role um he turned down the oscar actually scott

00:06:21.940 complained at the time when the movie was being made that it it wasn't accurate enough he read

00:06:26.720 hugely about patten and he said that patten wasn't being rendered as a complex enough figure as a

00:06:34.760 figure who had deep emotions and was you know profoundly religious and had a was a man a hugely

00:06:40.940 complex man and as well as being a intellect so one of the things that really drew me to patten was

00:06:47.160 that he was an intellect that i don't think there was anybody in the allied supreme command

00:06:52.180 and an army commander certainly who was as well versed in military history as as patten he read

00:06:58.380 everything he could he read the enemy's works too he studied tank warfare because he read german

00:07:05.240 theorists so he was a polymath in many ways amount of immense culture and really great education

00:07:13.600 yeah i know maybe something that separated him in eisenhower i know in eisenhower when he had time

00:07:18.240 off he would read but it would be like a louis l'amour like a western yeah he would read western

00:07:23.120 novels for relaxation right whereas patten's less reading julius caesar and the greeks and medieval

00:07:29.580 history yeah it's funny because if you look at the route of the third army because he ended up

00:07:34.140 commanding the third army famously and if you look at the route of the third army from normandy all the

00:07:39.560 way to the czechoslovakian border czech border now you know often he's following in the footsteps of

00:07:45.740 the romans and he loved that he loved the fact that when his army crossed the rhine it was the

00:07:51.160 first time for a very long time for many centuries that an invading force had crossed the rhine and he

00:07:57.060 he loved the idea that he was making that kind of history yeah and he decided to mark the occasion by

00:08:02.200 peeing in the rhine yeah yeah in the book you'll see of several pictures about that period and it's uh

00:08:10.960 still debatable whether the famous photograph of patten peeing in the rhine whether that's actually

00:08:15.260 accurate or not but i have no reason i've come across no evidence to suggest that he didn't

00:08:21.000 urinate in the rhine and that would be a very fitting thing for patten to do very patterness yeah

00:08:26.080 so this is a guy a very intellectual he saw himself on the same stage as julius caesar alexander the great

00:08:34.000 like he would had an epic view of himself inside of history he mentioned his spiritual life we'll talk

00:08:39.500 about the reincarnation here in a bit but what was his spiritual life like he was anglican correct

00:08:45.840 yeah and he was a practicing anglican he went to church regularly attended services prayed every day

00:08:53.780 as far as i can make out in his diaries would write messages to his lord you know he was very devout

00:09:00.800 more so than any other american army commander more so than any allied commander that i came across in

00:09:07.240 world war ii he truly did believe that he was doing god's work and that he was going to be

00:09:12.320 protected by god and that god was uh gonna answer his prayers so he was pious and and religious the

00:09:20.180 great contradiction and i guess it if i think this through i don't know whether it is a great

00:09:25.620 contradiction in fact because people say you know here's this guy that's god fearing and yet

00:09:31.640 he swears blasphemes and is the most notorious user of god damn and the rest of it in world war ii you 0.92

00:09:39.800 know the the opening speech that you see in that great movie pattern is actually not one speech but 0.90

00:09:46.140 it's cobbled together from three or four speeches that pattern actually made so although he didn't do

00:09:52.500 have that full-on amazing rant as he did in the movie george c scott's uh speech is actually taken

00:09:59.820 from several that pattern made and he did swear a lot i mean he swore famously turned the air blue and

00:10:05.200 i the instances where i found him to be most vocal i don't think they're anywhere near what he actually

00:10:12.320 was like and this was a guy that you know could use swear words in a very inventive way

00:10:17.460 yeah i would not have liked to be at the end of one of his tirades needless to say there would have

00:10:24.200 been a lot a lot of effing and blinding as us brits say and i think it does make sense if you think

00:10:29.280 of patent as sort of embodying this warrior archetype like julius caesar alexander the great

00:10:35.360 these guys you know had a bloodlust they they were aggressive and they fought but they also they

00:10:40.360 were pious they they made they made their sacrifices before they went out to yeah before

00:10:45.360 they went out to war and just because you swear a lot doesn't mean that you're not devout yeah you

00:10:50.280 know god forbid that people who swore would not be would not be regular church attenders you know

00:10:55.640 yeah they probably need it the most right we wouldn't have many people going to church yeah

00:10:59.260 exactly well tell us about this reincarnation because i've read that about and that he believed

00:11:03.720 that he was reincarnated that he actually saw great battles from history yeah that again without

00:11:11.480 referencing too much the movie there's those famous scenes when he's in north africa where

00:11:16.600 and i believe and i think sicily where he's wandering around and he he looks at the ruins of previous

00:11:23.100 battles and he genuinely believed that he had had many lives and in in several of those lives he'd

00:11:30.720 been a warrior in times gone gone past so yeah he absolutely did believe in reincarnation he'd been

00:11:37.200 reincarnated several times already you know so i don't know which life he was on but it it wasn't number

00:11:44.220 one put it that way and you also talk about he thought he was a man of destiny he really thought

00:11:50.040 providence god had saved him for this period to take part in this great great enterprise and i've

00:11:57.500 seen connections between him and winston churchill like winston churchill talked the same way about

00:12:02.320 himself he's like i'm a man of destiny i was born for this yeah well i think i make the parallel in the

00:12:07.540 book where i i point out that churchill said that he'd walked with destiny beside destiny most of his

00:12:14.140 life and then you know at age 65 suddenly becomes prime minister in may 1940 at the the most critical

00:12:22.260 point in modern british history where you know britain basically stood alone against a nazi onslaught

00:12:28.460 and you know he churchill believed that his whole life had prepared him for that ordeal that trial

00:12:35.080 that moment and pattern was similar he wasn't 65 but he was nearing 60 during the battle of the bulge he

00:12:42.140 was 59 years old he just turned 59 so not far off churchill but he definitely felt that he'd been

00:12:49.880 waiting much of his 20s 30s 40s and into his 50s to really seize the moment seize the day and become

00:12:56.580 what he was destined to become which was in my view the most effective american combat commander of

00:13:02.580 world war ii so patten famously led the third army what was the third army's role in world war ii prior

00:13:09.760 to the battle of the bulge well the third army was activated at the beginning of august 1944 so we

00:13:17.440 were about to break out of normandy a lot of the really heavy bloody fighting had been done in

00:13:23.640 normandy and the third army under pattern was brought into play and basically led the american

00:13:30.800 breakout from normandy and did so in extraordinary style and speed the spearhead of the third army was

00:13:37.500 the fourth armored division that was pattern's favored division hell on wheels and they cut a

00:13:43.840 slash across france that was extraordinary they literally there were stories about how tank commanders

00:13:51.120 would call up pattern and ask where they should rest for the night to refuel etc and pattern said you

00:13:57.700 know what the hell are you doing calling me you're wasting time even picking up a field phone just keep 0.59

00:14:02.040 moving don't stop and so the third army in the summer of 1944 took more prisoners and traveled further

00:14:10.680 than any other mobile force in history in basically about six weeks all the way from britney right to

00:14:17.180 within 100 miles of the german border i was the only thing that stopped pattern was lack of fuel and

00:14:24.100 to some extent the weather but it was mainly the lack of fuel to supply his his armored divisions there was a

00:14:31.580 very potent force pattern had studied german strategy and tactics and the blitzkrieg that had been so

00:14:38.000 effective in 1940 and he basically developed an american form of blitzkrieg a very a very pattern-esque

00:14:45.260 version of it which basically meant that he equipped manned and planned for his armored units to

00:14:53.360 act as really effective modern-day cavalry you know flanked by infantry divisions etc but his main

00:15:01.100 preoccupation was was speed and movement and taking the fight to the enemy and never allowing them if

00:15:07.980 possible to have a break you know constant constant pressure just keep pushing pushing pushing it several

00:15:14.440 times gave instructions which were basically don't don't worry about what's going on 10 miles to the

00:15:21.080 east or the west just keep pushing your head and uh and fight just keep fighting and it proved to be

00:15:26.880 very effective until you get into the late fall of 1944 where the weather became atrocious fuel supplies

00:15:34.820 were very difficult you know it's very hard to come across extra fuel and there was a manpower problem

00:15:40.820 so yeah it was a genius of armored warfare and so uh patent the third army makes this uh slash

00:15:47.420 into europe but then in the fall of 44 they get stymied the weather's bad there's no manpower they're

00:15:55.360 out of fuel but yeah the weather becomes a problem as you get into november december and this is when

00:16:02.240 the title of your book comes into play patent's prayer patent decided to he says we got to pray and

00:16:09.000 he had this great quote talking about patent's idea about what role prayer played in warfare he says

00:16:13.580 you got to plan and then you got to work really hard but then you have to pray really hard as well

00:16:17.960 so he goes and finds this chaplain to say i want you to write a prayer for us so tell us about this

00:16:23.640 chaplain who wrote patent's prayer that was a guy called o'neill he was the senior chaplain in the

00:16:30.100 third army and i believe there were more than 20 denominations within the third army but he was the

00:16:37.200 chief and on the 8th of december 1944 while patent was headquartered in nancy in france o'neill was at

00:16:48.500 his desk one morning and he received a call and it was patent o'neill came from chicago he was i think

00:16:54.840 he was 52 years old at the time and he's a roman catholic priest and but he receives this call from

00:17:02.520 patent saying you know come and see me and when he went to see him patent said look i want you to

00:17:07.080 write a prayer for me which was you know came as a big surprise to o'neill and the prayer was basically

00:17:13.520 for good weather and i can read a little bit of it yeah it was printed onto over 250 000 prayer cards so

00:17:22.840 that basically every guy in the third army received one and i think the last of these prayer cards which

00:17:29.640 you know it's like a business card i've actually got one it fits into your wallet nicely it would fit

00:17:33.620 into any gi's combat pocket neatly and the last of those prayers was distributed on the 14th of

00:17:40.260 december 1944 and that's a hell of a lot of copies of a prayer and a hell of a lot of people to receive

00:17:46.560 them but anyway on one side there was a christmas message that o'neill wrote on behalf of patent and

00:17:54.180 then the main prayer on the other side of the card read like this almighty and most merciful father

00:17:59.360 we humbly beseech thee of thy great goodness to restrain these in moderate reigns with which we

00:18:06.200 have had to contend grant us fair weather for battle graciously hearken to us as soldiers who

00:18:12.960 call upon thee that armed with thy power we may advance from victory to victory and crush the

00:18:19.720 oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations

00:18:25.720 so that was the prayer and pattern was very pleased with it and in my book i go into quite some detail

00:18:32.160 but o'neill recorded the conversation he had with pattern in quite some detail and i i shamelessly used

00:18:38.740 a lot of the dialogue from o'neill's memoirs for that meeting between the two of them on the 8th of

00:18:43.480 december 1944 so yeah pattern made some good points though when he was talking to o'neill he asked o'neill

00:18:50.120 you know how much praying was being done and o'neill said that it was pretty difficult to find places

00:18:55.440 for people to pray as a congregation and that you know in the middle of a war it was difficult to

00:19:02.040 hold services but basically not a lot of praying was going on and pattern said well that you but we

00:19:08.300 need to change that and pattern said uh you know up to now in the third army this is up until december

00:19:13.380 of 1944 god has been very good to us we have never retreated we have never suffered defeats this is

00:19:20.500 because a lot of people back home are praying for us we were lucky in africa in sicily and in italy

00:19:25.580 simply because people prayed but we have to pray for ourselves too and he i love this about pattern he

00:19:32.780 added that a good soldier quote a good soldier is not made merely by making him think and work there is

00:19:39.360 something in every soldier that goes deeper than thinking or working it's his guts it is something that

00:19:45.860 is built up in there it is a world of truth and power that is higher than himself and pattern

00:19:51.300 basically told o'neill that everybody in the third army should be praying all the time and if they

00:19:57.980 didn't pray sooner or later they they'd crack up as he said you know go to go insane or go go to

00:20:04.140 pieces and so o'neill not only wrote a christmas message from pattern plus the famous patterns prayer

00:20:11.520 for good weather we also issued a directive in pattern's name that actually went to unbelievably

00:20:18.580 486 chaplains in the third army 32 i'm correcting myself now 32 denominations and uh the officers

00:20:27.780 of 20 divisions that were under pattern's command and uh the directive was was really precise pray when

00:20:36.540 driving pray when fighting pray alone pray with others pray by night and pray by day pray for the

00:20:43.520 cessation of immoderate rains for good weather for battle pray for victory pray for our army and pray

00:20:49.420 for peace lastly we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:53.880 and now back to the show so patten he has his prayer issued he hands it out the same time hitler's

00:21:05.400 planning his attack right this is like a last ditch effort we talked about this in our last

00:21:09.340 conversation secret attack no one knew it was coming the allies were caught completely off guard

00:21:15.580 how did patten respond like what was his response when he found out that the the nazis had made this

00:21:21.200 surprise attack well you say that nobody knew that it was going to happen and that that's true to the 0.86

00:21:29.300 extent that no one knew the extent of the german attack no one knew that there were going to be

00:21:35.880 over 200 000 troops involved and that this was hitler's last desperate gamble on the western front

00:21:41.880 but in fact patten did know that something was going to happen because he had a superb intelligence

00:21:48.640 staff his entire staff were first class but he had a head of intelligence called oscar kosch who he'd

00:21:55.720 worked with since 1942 and he trusted him hugely he didn't ever make a major decision without

00:22:02.520 consulting kosch and kosch in late november and early december of 1944 had received a lot of

00:22:11.520 intelligence field intelligence etc interrogations of pow's which suggested that the germans were

00:22:19.260 building up a significant force to the north of the third army near the ardennes and so

00:22:25.680 patten when he was told about this he gave orders to make preparations in case there was a significant

00:22:33.460 attack further north and so when the attack finally came on the 16th of december stunning and shocking

00:22:41.020 the allied command and patten himself was surprised by just how many men and how many

00:22:48.520 tanks the germans had been able to bring into play without anybody really realizing it but when it

00:22:54.160 happened when the disaster unfolded patten was the only guy with a plan in fact he had three plans

00:23:00.320 because he'd consulted with kosch and it asked his staff to draw up preparations in the likelihood of

00:23:07.000 such a large scale movement of german forces he had no idea that it was going to be so vast so big that

00:23:14.440 the germans would punch almost 70 miles through past allied lines but he did have a plan in place and

00:23:22.440 it was that plan that the one of those three operational plans that he adopted in the early days of the

00:23:29.600 battle of the bulge there was a famous meeting of eisenhower bradley pattern and other senior staff

00:23:37.400 at verdun a fitting place given what had happened there in world war one on the 19th of december

00:23:44.220 and pattern stole the show you know he was the only guy in the meeting that actually was confident that

00:23:51.120 saw this as you know a real opportunity to finish off the vermact and he had a plan he was the only guy

00:23:58.240 with a plan and said that he could pivot his third army in 48 hours and move that third army

00:24:05.400 over 100 miles to the north to the ardennes and then counter-attack and the reaction particularly

00:24:13.220 from one british senior official at verdun was laughter you know this this guy's joking this guy

00:24:19.940 really is a maniac but uh and eisenhower himself said you know that was somewhat surprised by

00:24:25.960 pattern's plan and said well you know don't go off half cocked you know take a little bit more time

00:24:30.820 than that but in fact pattern did only really need 48 hours and did actually pivot his entire third army

00:24:36.720 in just over two days which is that act of changing the axis of advance of an entire army

00:24:44.880 in such a short period of time and then moving over 100 miles in terrible winter conditions

00:24:51.960 was the greatest achievement of pattern's illustrious military career it was a phenomenal achievement

00:24:58.900 yeah because he had a plan even though he didn't know exactly what was going to happen he had a

00:25:03.900 plan it allowed him to execute with speed they were again it just allowed him to be fast fast fast fast

00:25:08.800 yeah exactly yeah um action was what was required and he knew that the german forces were

00:25:16.020 overextending themselves they were vulnerable but what it took was someone to act quickly and with

00:25:22.680 immense aggression and to take the fight to the enemy and you know the reason why the battle of the

00:25:28.760 bulge is known as the battle of the bulge it's not because of any weight watchers it's because

00:25:32.940 that if you looked at a map in certainly on the 18th or 19th of december of 1944 it would show

00:25:41.240 a big bulge in the allied lines and pattern when he looked at that bulge he saw opportunity that well

00:25:48.040 you know if i can cut off the uh the spearhead of the vermouth if i can attack we can take great

00:25:55.300 advantage of this what others saw as a crisis he saw as an opportunity and i think that he not only

00:26:01.640 saw as an opportunity to to defeat the vermouth decisively but he saw it as a way to shorten the

00:26:09.020 war that if we did the right things we threw enough men into this battle if he was given the right kind

00:26:15.860 of command if he was allowed to make the decisions that he wanted to make then this could be the last

00:26:20.980 great battle of the war it ended up being the last great battle on the western front anyway

00:26:24.820 but he thought that uh german collapse would would soon follow it actually took four months after the

00:26:32.980 conclusion of the battle of bulge in january late january of 1945 it took until the 7th of may 1945 for

00:26:41.200 the third right to finally collapse but um you know it was speeded up yeah defeat in the battle of the

00:26:49.560 and you do such a great job in this part of the book talking about you know this drive that pat was

00:26:55.380 making with the third army they're trying to reach baston and you do a great job of showing the

00:27:01.140 leadership style of pat like he was one who led from the front he actually talked about he said

00:27:06.180 it's important for my men to see me at the front and it's also important that the enemy sees me at

00:27:13.780 the front because he understood the power of presence he understood the power of having an image

00:27:19.280 and that he could inspire his own men but also strike fear in the enemy you recount this there's

00:27:25.680 points where you know germans talk about oh my gosh where's patton is patton here like they start

00:27:31.260 freaking out when they hear that patton's on his way and talking about this theatrical aspect of

00:27:36.000 patton's leadership style you do this great quote when he got asked about it in the press and he

00:27:40.880 started talking about it and he was very self-aware of it he said you quote this i like this a lot he says

00:27:45.940 you know people ask why i swagger and swear wear flashy uniforms and sometimes two pistols

00:27:50.960 well i'm not sure whether some of it is any of my own damn fault but however that may be the press

00:27:56.300 and others have built a picture of me so now no matter how tired or discouraged or even really ill i 0.97

00:28:01.100 may be if i don't live up to that picture my men are going to say the old man's sick the old son of a 0.99

00:28:06.680 bitch has had it then their own confidence their own morale will take a big drop um so yeah you could 1.00

00:28:12.800 see him like there's instances where he would help you know push a truck out of the snow that was 0.52

00:28:18.020 really important for the men to see that yeah definitely i mean if you're in the battle of

00:28:23.520 your life and things are really really tough it's nice to see that the big boss you know lending a

00:28:29.540 hand one of the things that i love about patton is the fact that he you know he walked it as he

00:28:34.600 talked it i mean he talked big but he walked big if you know what i mean yeah and you know in

00:28:39.620 contrast to someone like bradley who was the so-called gi's general you know that was a

00:28:44.180 myth propagated by ernie pile who wrote a bunch of columns about bradley eulogizing him you know

00:28:50.940 bradley barely left his hotel in luxembourg throughout the battle of the bulge whereas

00:28:55.020 patton was out there almost every single day for sometimes all day in uh open jeep

00:29:02.500 armored jeep visiting division commanders core commanders and being seen by countless of his men

00:29:09.500 there are so many examples and so many instances of guys under his command actually spotting him as he

00:29:16.800 passed by in a jeep and he would stand up and shout out encouragement and you know swear and say that

00:29:22.740 they had the germans nuts in a grinder you know etc etc you can only imagine uh but the fact was that

00:29:29.980 he was there he was seen and he was seen at the front pushing his third army towards victory and i

00:29:36.580 think that that's something that you need to know about patton that he was a man that was there and

00:29:42.160 led from the front was seen at the front and uh knew how important it was to be regarded that way

00:29:48.300 by his troops yeah um he was very strict he's a disciplinarian oh yeah he's a big stickler for that

00:29:54.700 sort of thing very very loyal i mean everybody complained everybody complained in the third army that

00:29:59.000 they always had to wear neckties that their helmets had to be polished whatever that it was at this

00:30:04.080 seemed to be this sort of ridiculous level of neatness that pattern required but that was part of

00:30:09.860 a broader philosophy that pattern had which was that he did demand discipline that he wanted men to be

00:30:15.060 extremely well trained to do what they were told to to perform at a very high level and that came

00:30:20.660 through discipline yeah you need you need great discipline in a great army and they might have

00:30:27.080 pitched and moaned about it but after the war when they looked back they were all all proud to have

00:30:31.880 served served under old blood and guts they realized that that kind of order and discipline and pride of

00:30:36.660 unit mattered mattered a great deal did patton's prayer get answered like the weather clear up

00:30:42.360 eventually yeah it did and patton certainly believed that it was that was answered and other men in the

00:30:48.980 third army believed that it had been answered and the main answer came that the answer came on

00:30:53.840 22nd of december when the weather started to change and then the morning of the 23rd

00:31:00.000 patton awoke and looked out of his headquarters in luxembourg up at the sky and it was bright blue

00:31:06.280 so the cloud cover and fogs and mists that had shrouded the vermouth and shrouded the battlefield

00:31:13.400 since the beginning of the battle of the bulge the 16th of december that finally all went away

00:31:18.860 and the point was that with clear skies the allied air forces could go to town and they had air

00:31:25.380 superiority massive air superiority and could do a hell of a lot of damage but they couldn't do that

00:31:30.880 with low cloud cover and mist and fog in fact they'd been grounded until that point but with clear skies

00:31:37.320 on the 23rd of december they just boy did they they pounded everything they could find between the

00:31:42.080 rhine and the ardennes they hit columns of german tanks they strafed and pounded and bombed and shelled and

00:31:48.080 you name it and did a hell of a lot of damage and made and made the critical difference in the

00:31:53.400 battle of the bulge so when patton looked up at the clear blue skies he absolutely believed that his

00:31:58.560 prayer had been answered and then soon after he called for his chaplain o'neill his head chaplain o'neill

00:32:04.140 and he um he gave him a medal um the only only chaplain in world war ii that we know of that

00:32:11.180 received a medal for writing a prayer

00:32:12.780 i think it was a bronze star yeah uh so it's very patent-esque and patent pinned it onto him

00:32:23.120 himself it wasn't just handed it by some underling it was patent he pinned the medal on him himself

00:32:28.460 you know all right so they make it to baston and like this basically this is kind of the that

00:32:33.740 all the bolts sort of winding down it took a few more weeks for it to happen what happened to the

00:32:37.400 third army after that like what do they what do they do well you know baston was relieved on the

00:32:43.320 26th of december but actually in the first couple of weeks of january of 1945 there were much higher

00:32:51.180 casualties suffered by the third army and in fact by the 101st airborne then from the 16th of december

00:32:58.400 through to the end of 1944 because it's one thing to stop a german counter-attack and to relieve

00:33:05.600 a besieged town it's quite another thing to push the wehrmacht back to their starting point 1.00

00:33:10.500 and that took most of january of 1945 and it was a very bloody ordeal indeed because the germans 1.00

00:33:18.000 fought very very hard you know they they knew they had their backs to their homeland finally the two

00:33:24.660 key armies involved in the battle of the bulge met up at a place called hufolies and the americans

00:33:31.360 pipped the brits to hufolies by just a matter of a few hours and so that was the join up of the two

00:33:38.700 main armies involved on the allied side in the battle and from there until the end of january

00:33:44.980 from hufolies until the end of january it was a slogging match to push the germans back to where 1.00

00:33:49.400 they'd they'd started from on day one of the battle of the bulge they took a break for a while and then by

00:33:55.520 early february the third army was on the move its progress was relatively slow through february

00:34:02.100 again because of the winter conditions and determined german counter-attacks and and stubbornness you

00:34:08.660 know but then finally by march they're starting to move they've broken the back of the wehrmacht on the

00:34:13.460 western front and they're moving towards the rhine the allies crossed the rhine first on the 7th of

00:34:18.880 march 1945 across the ludendorff bridge at reymargen and then through the rest of march the rest of

00:34:25.600 the allied armies across the rhine from north to south patten crossed the rhine on the 25th of march

00:34:32.260 near oppenheim and famously urinated in the river and got to the other side to the eastern banks of the

00:34:39.280 rhine and fell to his knees and grabbed a bunch of dirt and shouted out thus william the conqueror

00:34:44.880 you know basically you know that this is this is we were talking earlier on about his understanding

00:34:51.520 of military history and his love for those who'd come before so only patten would have now dropped

00:34:57.060 to his knees on the other side of the rhine and and invoked william the conqueror you know so that's

00:35:01.800 that takes you to april of 1945 you know once we were across the rhine that was the last natural

00:35:07.860 barrier between us and berlin you know you go siegfried line and then the rhine and then that's it

00:35:14.700 basically you're you it's there was still a lot of heavy fighting going on but it was all over

00:35:19.620 really for the third rank on the western front and and patten became he was a celebrity he became a

00:35:24.200 hero like everyone loved patten oh yeah i mean his name was in the headlines through much of the

00:35:29.120 battle of the bulge i mean he became a superstar eventually so you know patten's not fighting as

00:35:35.620 much there's still some fighting going on but he starts getting into trouble and eventually he gets in a

00:35:41.460 lot of trouble and he got relieved from his command of the third army what caused that

00:35:46.120 he hated the soviets that was the main the main reason and he spoke out about it unwisely and time

00:35:54.640 and time again just couldn't keep his mouth shut and uh basically said that we should carry on fighting

00:36:00.540 and that rather than the nazis we should be fighting the the red army it's not what people wanted to hear

00:36:06.260 certainly not what eisenhower or any politicians wanted to hear it what when i read that i thought

00:36:11.720 he kind of has a point he said like we got to probably fight these guys because if we don't

00:36:16.140 we'll be fighting them in 20 years and like that's exactly what happened yeah it was called the cold war

00:36:21.940 but that looming conflict was pretty hot even in 1945 you know and that you know if you ask somebody

00:36:29.540 that lived throughout the uh cold war or was in the part of eastern europe that was occupied by the

00:36:36.080 red army they they certainly didn't regard themselves as being liberated and patten insisted on trying to

00:36:42.200 get to prague and was stopped he was told no you you got to stop we've agreed that the altar these are the

00:36:48.520 lines that we're going to finish with at the end of the war stalin gets this we occupy this and and that's

00:36:53.480 it and uh patten wanted to go as far as he could as fast as he could and the reason why was because he

00:37:00.560 he knew that he was a liberator not a conqueror that he wanted to set people free rather than enslave

00:37:07.020 them which is what he believed the soviets would do and did do so in terms of identifying the soviets as

00:37:16.320 the main enemy of democracy in europe he was dead right but that was not the time to do it when we

00:37:22.140 you know over 19 million european civilians lay dead and we'd gone through a horrific global conflict

00:37:28.740 it was just you know not what people wanted to hear they and it's not what his men wanted to hear

00:37:34.020 either to be honest they you know they all they could think about in 1945 was going home and they

00:37:40.480 didn't want to go and didn't want to stay in europe and fight against a formidable red army that would 1.00

00:37:45.820 have that would have been a horrific bloodbath yeah so yeah you know eisenhower he was thinking about

00:37:52.140 the ally he was thinking about relationships and trying to figure out how we're going to

00:37:55.300 organize this post-war thing yeah he's thinking bigger picture and patten's comments weren't

00:38:01.300 helping that and so yeah yeah he basically got sacked from yeah he didn't get he didn't get sacked

00:38:06.860 for comments about the soviets although those were very impolitic and it's surprising that he wasn't

00:38:14.220 disciplined severely he got sacked eventually because eisenhower ran out of patience and the reason

00:38:21.960 why he ran out of patience finally was that in a press conference patten had been set up by a

00:38:27.560 journalist and patten was pretty easy to set up you know you just ask them a question about the red army

00:38:32.720 or you ask them a question that would set patten off and one of the questions was it was seemingly

00:38:40.240 benign and it was basically about his role after the end of the war which was that he was the governor

00:38:46.840 of occupied bavaria and it was his responsibility to you know put that shattered part of germany back

00:38:54.800 together and make it run and and organize things it was an army of occupation that he was commanding

00:39:00.700 and he was asked a question about the treatment of nazi officials and patten basically pointed out that if

00:39:09.700 you didn't allow any nazi official back into government if you didn't allow them to some of 0.82

00:39:15.880 them to run the show and you know to make the electricity work to organize various things to run

00:39:22.220 towns and cities and then who are you left with because pretty much anybody that had been in power

00:39:27.940 of any kind since the rise of hitler had been in the nazi party you had to be in the nazi party to be in 0.86

00:39:34.200 a senior government official anywhere in germany you know that's what it was all about and so

00:39:39.860 patten basically said well you know the nazis aren't that different to the republicans and the

00:39:43.800 democrats you know it's like if you belong to them you know it's not that much different to being in

00:39:48.080 the nazi party and of course that comparison of the republicans and democrats to the nazis

00:39:53.320 just you know lit a bonfire people that was a step too far even though when you really think about it

00:39:59.340 what patten was saying was pretty true you know and as we learned to our great dismay but not a lot

00:40:06.660 of people's shock in some parts of the world when we invaded iraq there was no plan for real plan for

00:40:13.380 what we're going to do once we'd invaded just a lot of idealism and uh you know when you get rid of

00:40:19.900 when we got rid of saddam hussein's forces and his senior command structure etc and all those who had

00:40:26.120 obeyed saddam hussein you know you were left with a vacuum you didn't have anybody to turn to and to

00:40:32.760 help you organize our occupation of iraq and patten was basically saying the same thing you know you

00:40:38.620 need to find people who can actually run the show otherwise we're going to have to do it all and

00:40:43.280 we can't do it all on our own how did he respond to his getting removed from command well you have to

00:40:50.480 remember that eisenhower's patients had been tested since 1943 with the the famous slapping

00:40:57.480 incident and there were several other occasions since then that that had caused him a lot of 0.98

00:41:04.040 irritation he basically just wanted patten to keep his goddamn mouth shut and you know when they finally 0.88

00:41:10.900 met it was in september of 1945 in europe in germany and they had a real ding dong i mean 0.98

00:41:20.320 the meeting went on for about two hours voices were raised eisenhower's assistant and driver a

00:41:28.740 woman called case summersby wrote in a memoir that this was the most annoyed that she'd ever seen 0.98

00:41:33.800 eisenhower that he aged like 10 years during this whole episode when he was having to you know

00:41:39.880 basically fire a good friend and that was what you know patten was and he basically relieved patten of

00:41:47.900 command of the third army which was a stunning blow to patten when patten left the meeting he was

00:41:53.360 an observer so that he was white you know maybe with shock but certainly with disappointment

00:41:57.900 and he was given sort of a bogus role as head of the 15th army which is basically a

00:42:03.940 was going to write the history of world war ii as an historical unit so uh it was a real come down

00:42:10.980 from you know at the end of the war patten had almost 500 000 americans and there was commanders

00:42:16.540 third army commander and then to suddenly find himself in charge of a bunch of guys who were going

00:42:21.940 to write the history of world war ii was was a real demotion and it hit him hard he pretended that

00:42:27.040 it didn't in public anyway but you know it left him somewhat embittered deeply saddened and wondering

00:42:34.080 about what the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life because his glory days were

00:42:37.560 definitely over yeah the problem for patten was that even then you know when the war ended in

00:42:43.880 europe on the 7th of may 1945 he wanted to go to japan he was all for it and in fact he visited

00:42:49.720 washington dc in june of 1945 and he was on a mission to try and get sent to japan at his last

00:42:55.960 meeting with his third army staff he said i'll see you in china so he was all up for the for even more

00:43:01.800 of a war but macarthur who was the king of the pacific theater he wouldn't have patten anywhere

00:43:07.800 near him i think he was threatened by patten it certainly didn't want that size ego anywhere near

00:43:12.120 him and so patten there was no role found for patten in the pacific even though patten had actually

00:43:17.680 asked president truman when he was at the white house in june of 1945 to send him there it wasn't

00:43:23.480 going to happen because macarthur wouldn't allow it basically and so it raises a question about what

00:43:29.240 would have happened to patten had he not died in a car accident in december 1945 so yeah he was a

00:43:35.660 man without a real role or purpose or as he saw it a future and it hurt him a great deal he'd spent

00:43:41.880 his entire devoted his entire life to the u.s army yeah that car accident it was a pretty banal death

00:43:47.840 for patten i don't think it was the death that he thought he had like this glorious warrior death

00:43:52.040 so yeah it's the end of 1945 he's about to leave europe he's thinking about retiring from the army

00:43:57.580 and he gets gets in this dumb car accident everyone else was fine but he ended up being paralyzed from

00:44:03.460 the neck down he had to spend i think 12 days in spinal traction in a hospital but even during that

00:44:09.880 time he was the the he was a stoic soldier the nurses said he was the ideal patient but he said yeah

00:44:15.820 this is a this is a hell of a way to die and he ended up dying from those injuries from that car accident

00:44:20.800 what's interesting though is that patten had a clear premonition of his death several months before

00:44:27.740 so he went back to the united states for leave and while he was there you know right before he went

00:44:34.460 back to europe he told his family this is our last goodbye and they were like what are you talking

00:44:39.180 about like the war's over you're not going to die but he knew he was going to die soon because he

00:44:43.960 thought he believed you had a certain amount of protection from providence or a certain amount of luck

00:44:48.900 and his had run out but he did think he would be reincarnated again so after writing this book

00:44:56.880 did you take any life lessons from patten yeah that's a great question the one thing that i came

00:45:02.340 to realize by looking at patten is that you know today he would be totally ostracized he wouldn't stand

00:45:10.200 a chance in the modern us military he was too outspoken he uh wasn't a team player in some ways

00:45:18.100 but if you look at human history if you look at in detail at human history a lot of it is about

00:45:24.360 conflict modern history is the history of war in many ways one war after another and we are we would

00:45:30.280 be very naive to assume that we're not going to stay that way as a basically conflictual species

00:45:36.200 and we need people like patten we're always going to need figures like patten in the future if we face

00:45:43.760 great military tests we're going to need aggressive brilliant commanders who want to win and are

00:45:51.600 prepared to do whatever they can to win you don't want to have your hands tied behind your back in a

00:45:56.280 war if the stakes are everything national survival is on the line you're out to win and from my point

00:46:03.500 of view men like patten we've always needed them and we'll always need them in the future well alex

00:46:09.380 this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:46:12.780 you can go to all the usual online bookstores and you can also go to my website alexkershaw.com

00:46:21.220 and follow me on twitter yeah the book's published on the 21st of may and um you know hopefully people

00:46:28.400 will enjoy it i had a great time writing it because i got to write about an incredibly fun fascinating

00:46:34.660 colorful figure which is patten yeah i had a great time reading it's a it's a great book

00:46:38.760 oh thank you well alex kershaw thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:46:42.220 uh my pleasure mate thanks a lot my guest here is alex kershaw he's the author of the book patten's

00:46:48.360 prayer it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about

00:46:52.080 his work at his website alexkershaw.com also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:46:56.320 slash patten we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:46:59.720 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:47:10.840 artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles that

00:47:14.660 we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done

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The Art of Manliness - May 20, 2024

Patton and the Bulge： Blood, Guts, and Prayer

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