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George S. Patton Lesser Known Facts

Khalid Elhassan November 19, 2024 12 min

Patton - George S. Patton — George S. Patton. Europe Remembers

10. When Patton Tried to Intimidate a Cartoonist

Patton - A Willie and Joe cartoon making fun of Patton and his absurd Third Army spit and polish directives — A Willie and Joe cartoon making fun of Patton and his absurd Third Army spit and polish directives. Stars and Stripes

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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.