Get the $%^* Off the Road!
Musing, after a recent Memorial Day, thoughts of my service in WWII came to mind. One of them, memories of General George Patton, was clear as day. I didn't serve under General Patton, but during WWII, I encountered him a number of times. He and I crossed paths many times here at home, in 1942-43, and later in England, France, and Germany.General Patton was a bigger than life hero of WWII, loved and respected by most of the men who served under him, a true patriot, a skilled and dedicated soldier, considered only as a flashy soldier by many, and a general whom General Eisenhower had to reprimand at one time.
My first encounter with this fabled soldier was in Southern California's Mojave Desert. I was a Second Lieutenant, out with a couple of my men searching for a suitable bivouac spot for our battalion to set up and emplace our artillery for practice. While I didn't know it at the time, General Patton was out in the same area, looking for a spot to do some tank drills with his men. Our jeep was traveling on a one-lane trail along the bank of a canal. We were looking for a level spot big enough to emplace the guns, set them up, and tear them down any number of times. Up ahead of me, I saw a dust cloud from military vehicles headed my way. As their forward unit approached, a buck sergeant stood up and yelled at us, "Get the $%^* off the road, General Patton is coming!"
Second Lieutenants don't argue with Generals, so we hastily rolled down off the road, stood at attention at the bottom of the decline, with hand salutes. General Patton passed by, sitting in the right front seat of a jeep, and he returned a sloppy hand salute as he passed.Several other times, while still in the states, my unit saw Patton and his tanks here and there, as we both prepared for the day, we'd be overseas where the war raged. In England, I ran into General Patton again a few times, as we both continued training, preparatory to moving across the English Channel to France where the fighting was.
Later, as we moved on through France and into Germany, General Patton was ahead of us, leaving a trail of disabled tanks, both his and the Germans, in various spots along the way. One I remember well was just outside Andernach, Germany, where a big level field was spotted here and there with wrecked tanks. And in another place, where we were headed to replenish our gasoline supplies, we arrived at the spot only to find a much-subdued American GI there and no gasoline cans. The soldier said, "General Patton came and took all the gasoline."
Patton was a key factor as the Battle of the Bulge took place, as the besieged troops at Bastogne were relieved, and as he charged on through to the Rhine River. His service to his country came to a sad end in December of 1945. He and another general officer were traveling along a road near Mannheim, Germany, when he was injured in a vehicle accident at a railroad crossing. He was taken to a military hospital in Heidelberg, where he died some fourteen days later. In my travels doing recon work for my unit, I passed by that spot where he was injured, many times.
Years after WWII, my wife and I journeyed to Europe to visit some of the places where I served. A neighbor, Doris, told me once that she and her husband made that trip also. He had served under General Patton in the Tank Corps.
I'm sure that General Patton expected to die in battle, not in a road accident.