Patton Born: America's Fiercest General Arrives

George Patton was a general who slapped soldiers and named his ivory-handled pistols. Born in San Gabriel, California, in 1885, to a family with deep military roots tracing back to the American Revolution, he attended West Point and competed in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics as a pentathlete. He led the first American tank unit into combat in World War I and spent the interwar years advocating for armored warfare when most of the Army still thought cavalry had a future. In World War II, he commanded the Western Task Force during the North Africa invasion, led the Seventh Army through Sicily in a race against Montgomery that he won but that cost him politically, and then slapped two soldiers he believed were malingering in field hospitals. The incidents nearly ended his career. Eisenhower was furious and sidelined Patton, but the punishment had an unintended benefit: the Germans, who considered Patton the Allies' best general, became convinced he would command the main invasion force and expected him to land at Calais rather than Normandy. The deception held through D-Day. Patton was given command of the Third Army in August 1944 and led the breakout across France, covering more ground faster than any Allied force. His relief of the surrounded 101st Airborne at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge required turning an army ninety degrees in the middle of winter, a maneuver that military historians still study. He died on December 21, 1945, in Heidelberg, Germany, from injuries sustained in a minor car accident twelve days earlier. He survived the entire war and was killed by a truck collision on a German road.