George S. Patton

Patton with a strict look (http://library.flawlesslogic.com/patton.gif)

George S. Patton was born in 1885 in California in the city of San Gabriel. He began his military career by going to West Point Military Academy. From there he was sent to France in WW1 to fight the Germans on the Western Front. In 1942 Patton was assigned to a camp in the border of California and Arizona for desert training and trained armored units there. When Patton took over the second army in 1943 it had been defeated in the last battle in Africa by the Germans. However Patton changed this army in their fighting abilities. Patton made this military much more successful by his talent in planning attacks. He also was strict and made his soldiers have discipline by making them shave once a day and even having them wear a tie into battle! Another reason Patton made the second army so victorious in battle was that his men feared him, and so Patton made them work very hard and they would not slack off.

The famous painting of General Patton (http://www.npg.si.edu/img2/brush/big/bigpat.jpg)

One of Patton’s first campaigns in 1943 was Operation Torch in North Africa. The goal here was to send the Nazi Afrika Korps back to Europe and out of North Africa. After defeating the Afrika Korps in North Africa he moved onto his second campaign in the war which was Sicily. However this was not his main campaign, because he was not able to be in a portion of this invasion of Sicily. The reason being that during his last campaign he slapped a soldier crying over the war that could not take the fighting any more. This army consisted of tanks that were basically types of balloons to make the axis think they were being attacked in one part.

After the successful attack to breach the beaches of Sicily, Patton got the third army back. With this, he immediately successfully began to march through Sicily. It was not long until the country was taken and the Italians were forced to surrender. This lead to Benito Mussolini, the leader of the Axis troops in Italy, to be taken out of office and to be thrown in the streets for the Italian people to [contend with].

In 1944 Patton was to take command of the third army. Patton arrived in France on April 1st, 1944. When he arrived in France to take control of the third army he quickly flew through France by taking many Nazi-occupied towns and being victorious in many battles. It was not until the battle of the bulge, which was his last campaign battle, that Patton lost many troops but defeated the Germans and forced them back to their homeland. After the war Patton became governor of Bulvaria and in the year of 1945 he was killed in a car crash.

George Patton in uniform (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/aa/patton/aa_patton_subj_e.jpg)

Patton is my hero because without Patton in World War II the war could have lasted a lot longer without successful campaigns like his. It is possible that the Germans may have even been able to attack the U.S. without Patton. The reason that Patton had such good troops and so many victories was because he was strict. Even though he may have been strict this was good because this made his troops well-disciplined and this made them soldiers that were confident to fight. Patton was so strict that if his men would shed a tear about the war, he would slap them right in the face. From this a poster was made of Patton kicking a soldier with a swastika on his boot.

Unlike most generals in WWII, Patton was very tough on his men which earned them discipline. Since these soldiers were well-disciplined and hardened up for battle they could now fight in battle with much more courage and loyalty to fight. One example came in North Africa, when the 2nd army was handed down to them after they had suffered from being defeated in battle. However since Patton was strict and was very good at planning attacks, the second army began to win battles soon after. They eventually forced the Germans out of Africa.

This was the key to his victories and this is why Patton is my hero. General Patton turned our small and non-skilled Army in WWII into very experienced soldiers. He was the one that mainly turned the war on the Germans by winning battles such as the Battle of the Bulge.