George S. Patton Lesser Known Facts

14. An Honored Latrine

As became immediately apparent to George Patton, it was all a huge misunderstanding. The French had mistaken the crossed sticks for the religious symbol, and “Abandoned Rear” for the deceased soldier’s name. “Abandoned Rear” was actually the designation for a covered latrine, to warn others from digging in that spot. “I never told them the truth“, wrote Patton. Decades later, during WWII, he passed through the same village, and was given a hearty procession by the locals. They took him to the long-buried latrine, which the villagers had dutifully maintained over the years with all the dignity due a fallen soldier.

13. You Did Not Want to Mess With Patton

Patton was a force of nature. A hard-driving, bumptious, overbearing, often obnoxious, but usually effective force of nature. He was not above physically assaulting his soldiers, as evinced by the time he slapped around a pair of GIs down with malarial fever and PTSD. That almost got him cashiered out of the Army, but his undoubted effectiveness as a battlefield commander earned him a second chance. In short, Patton was not the kind of general that a lowly enlisted man wanted to stand up to. Yet that is precisely what GI cartoonist Bill Mauldin did, when Patton tried to pressure him into self-censorship.

12. The Cartoonist Who Annoyed Patton

Patton’s unlikely nemesis, William Henry “Bill” Mauldin, was born in 1921 in New Mexico. He studied cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine arts, then enlisted in the US Army in 1940. He won initial fame in WWII as a cartoonist for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. His sardonic Willie and Joe cartoons, about the travails of two disheveled combat soldiers, were highly popular with the troops. Mauldin started drawing for the 45^th Infantry Division’s newspaper. His work attracted the attention of Stars and Stripes, which began to publish his cartoons in 1943, then added him to its staff in 1944. Mauldin was not just a rear echelon creative type. He covered the fighting in Sicily and Italy, and was in the thick of heavy combat. He was wounded near Salerno, and after D-Day, was sent to France and accompanied the advancing GIs into Germany.

11. A Spit-and-Polish General’s Take on Slovenly Cartoon Characters

While working for Stars and Stripes, Bill Mauldin created his most famous cartoon characters, Willie and Joe, two frontline GIs. They frequently found themselves caught between the horrors of war, and the sometimes ridiculous expectations and directives and pressure Army higher ups. The irrepressible duo thus struggled from one cartoon to the next, in order to triumph over both the Wehrmacht and their own rear echelon officers. Something about the bedraggled duo did not sit well with the spit-and-polish General Patton. To say that he disliked Mauldin and his cartoon creations would be an understatement. Willie and Joe’s slovenly appearance was the opposite of the ramrod straight and soldierly image fetishized by Patton. On top of that, the duo often pointedly jabbed at the fatuousness of the military hierarchy.

10. When Patton Tried to Intimidate a Cartoonist

One of Bill Mauldin’s cartoons ridiculed a Patton directive that troops be clean-shaven at all times. That made the general view Willie and Joe as detrimental to discipline and morale. So he ordered Mauldin to report to his headquarters, and tried to intimidate him into toning it down. Patton berated Mauldin, accused him of trying to incite a mutiny, described him as an “unpatriotic anarchist”, and threatened him with jail. Mauldin withstood the pressure, however, knowing that the GIs loved Willie and Joe. Patton’s boss, Dwight D. Eisenhower, correctly judged that the cartoons gave soldiers an outlet for frustrations that might otherwise get expressed in more problematic ways. So he ordered Patton to back off and leave Mauldin alone. The War Office also supported the cartoons, and helped Mauldin get them syndicated in the US.

9. A Cartoonist’s Victory Over Patton

To Patton’s annoyance, Mauldin’s cartoons were deemed useful because they depicted war’s dark side. They showed civilians that victory would not come easy, but would require considerable effort and sacrifice. It was a good thing that Bill Mauldin stood up to Patton and did not cave in under pressure. Back home, the Willie and Joe cartoons became a wild success. Not only with the military, but also with civilians after they were syndicated. They earned Mauldin a Pulitzer Prize in 1945. As Band of Brothers author Stephen Ambrose described Willie and Joe: “More than anyone else, save only Ernie Pyle, [Mauldin] caught the trials and travails of the GI. For anyone who wants to know what it was like to be an infantryman in World War II, this is the place to start – and finish.”

8. A Great General’s Great Controversies

One incident from 1943, in which he slapped sick soldiers, almost cost Patton his career. It was nothing compared to another incident in 1945, hurriedly swept under the rug, in which Patton got hundreds of his men killed, wounded, or captured, because of nepotism. General Patton’s best-known controversy occurred during the 1943 Sicilian Campaign. On a hospital visit, he came across a PTSD-suffering soldier who was also burning up with malarial fever. Seeing no visible wounds on the GI, Patton flew into a rage, accused the unfortunate man of cowardice, slapped him around, and threatened to shoot him. The great general repeated the disgraceful performance a few days later in another hospital, and physically assaulted another PTSD-suffering soldier. When the scandal broke, it nearly got Patton cashiered from the US Army. Fortunately, General Dwight D. Eisenhower protected Patton and gave him a chance to command another army in France.

7. Patton’s Nepotism

Patton did not learn the lesson about abuse of power. In 1945, he had a worse, but lesser-known scandal, in which he got hundreds of GIs killed, wounded, or captured, for personal reasons. It happened in March, 1945, when Patton ordered Task Force Baum, comprised of 314 men, 16 tanks, and dozens of other vehicles, to penetrate 50 miles behind German lines. Their mission: to liberate Hammelburg POW camp, which housed Patton’s son-in-law, John K. Waters. Task Force Baum’s raid ended catastrophically. All tanks and vehicles were lost, and of 314 participants, 32 were killed, and most of the rest were wounded or captured. Only 35 men made it back. The worst part was that the mission was totally unnecessary. Patton’s beloved son-in-law, for whom the great general had gotten the beloved sons, brothers, and fathers of many Americans killed or injured, had never been in any danger.

6. A Disastrous – and Needless – Operation

Hammelburg was liberated two weeks after the Task Force Baum fiasco. When Eisenhower found out, he was furious at Patton’s misuse of military personnel and assets for personal reasons, and reprimanded him. In light of his valuable services, however, Eisenhower declined to punish Patton beyond the reprimand. Shortly thereafter, a reporter got wind of the scandal. When the story first broke in a major publication on April 12^th, 1945, it would have wrecked Patton under normal circumstances. However, FDR died that same day, and his demise eclipsed all other news. The scandal got little traction, and when Patton died a few months later, the Task Force Baum affair was reduced to a mere historic footnote.

5. The US Army Initially Refused to Help With the Patton Movie

The Oscar-winning Patton is probably the most recognized war biographical movie of all time. However, the US Army refused to help with its production at first. Making a movie – especially an action film – is seldom cheap. That’s why Hollywood executives constantly seek ways to cut costs. When it comes to any movie that involves the military, one of the best cost-cutting ways is to get the Pentagon’s help. For more than a century, the US armed services have has been more than happy to help Hollywood by lending it military gear and letting it film on military installations. However, in order for the Pentagon to scratch the backs of Hollywood producers, it asks them to scratch its back in return.

4. Getting The Pentagon’s Help With a Movie

As with any movie that seeks help from the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Patton’s producers had to meet some basic criterion. The DOD demands a say in every American made movie that wants to use US military resources that are not available on the open market. There is an section dedicated to that: the DoD’s Entertainment Media Office. The resultant mutually beneficial relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon is known as the “military-entertainment complex“. There are quite a few hoops that Hollywood films have to jump through in order to get production assistance from the US military.

3. The High Costs of War Movie Production

An action blockbuster’s production can get pretty expensive, and Patton, with its expansive scenes, was no different. Borrowing military gear from the US armed forces is one way to put cool stuff on the silver screen, at little to no cost. Do you want great shots of Apache attack helicopters nipping around a battlefield, a US carrier task force majestically slicing through the waves, or the newest US Air Force warplanes doing nifty things? The Pentagon is happy to help – provided you make it happy in return. To qualify for support from the DoD, a movie script has to get vetted in advance by its Entertainment Media Office.

2. Scratching the Pentagon’s Back

All will be well, and the Pentagon will offer assistance that can be worth millions of dollars, provided a movie meets some basic criterion. First, the movie has to present the US military in a positive way. Second, the movie has to depict the US military accurately and authentically – with the Pentagon getting to define what counts as “accurate” and “authentic”. Finally, the movie has to have a positive impact on US military recruitment and retention.

1.     Fortunately, The Patton Movie Finally Got the Pentagon’s Assistance

For a change, the Army’s refusal to help with the Patton movie was not because it did not like the script, nor did it result from other censorship-related reasons. Instead, it was because when the idea for the movie was floated in 1951, only a few years after Patton’s death, his family wanted no part of it, and the Army honored their wishes. Fortunately, both Patton’s family and the Pentagon eventually got on board, and the film was released to great acclaim in 1970.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Atkinson, Rick – The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (2007)

History Collection – German Espionage in the United States During WWII

History Net – How Gen. George Patton’s Legend Went From Real to Reel

Lenoir, Tim, and Caldwell, Luke – The Military-Entertainment Complex (2018)

Library of Congress – Bill Mauldin Beyond Willie and Joe

Los Angeles Times, August 21^st, 2011 – The US Military’s Hollywood Connection

Mauldin, Bill – Up Front (1945)

Patton, George S. – War as I Knew It (1995 Edition)

Task Force Baum – The Hammelburg Raid

US Department of Defense – How and Why the DOD Works With Hollywood