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 45th 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.
