On August 3, 1943, Gen. George Patton visited a field hospital on the island of Sicily. He was coming off the capture of the city of Palermo and was moving on Messina. “Old Blood and Guts” toured the hospital, stopping at beds to chat with the wounded soldiers. He was good at that, normally. Nothing special was happening until the general noticed Private Charles Kuhl sitting on a box. When Patton asked the 18-year-old what was wrong, Kuhl said: “I guess I just can’t take it.” (He did not tell the general that he was suffering from malaria and dysentery and was running a 102 degree temperature.) Patton, who had recently read a report about a large increase in men claiming battle fatigue, became enraged. He pulled Kuhl to his feet, called him a coward, slapped him with his gloves, pushed him out the hospital, kicking him in the butt on the way out. Two days later, Patton informed soldiers in his 7th Army that there would be no more battle fatigue cases. On August 10, Patton was visiting another hospital when he encountered PFC Paul Bennet, age 21. Bennet had been in the army for four years, but recently had seen a friend wounded and then could not sleep. He was admitted suffering from physical exhaustion and dehydration. He wanted to go back to his unit but the doctors refused. When Patton got to him and asked him what his problem was, he said: “It’s my nerves. I can’t take the shelling anymore.” Patton, a veteran of combat in WWI, did not believe in shell shock (or as it was called in WWII – battle fatigue). “Hell, you’re just a damned coward. I should shoot you.” Patton slapped Bennet, knocking his helmet off. He reached for his pearl-handled pistols. The hospital staff rushed Bennet away. The staff was appalled by the general’s behavior and the chief surgeon wrote to Gen. Eisenhower about it. Ike conducted an investigation which resulted in a written rebuke to Patton. Patton was forced to apologize to the two soldiers. He did so grudgingly. He also apologized to gatherings of each of his divisions. The press quickly sniffed out the story, but held off after Eisenhower told reporters that Patton was too valuable to be fired. However, the story broke anyway and the American public was upset. Many demanded Patton’s head. However, Ike weathered the storm, but he did suspend Patton for a period of time. Patton, who would have been a likely choice to be in command of American forces on D-Day, was instead put in charge of the fake army that tricked the Germans into thinking the invasion would be at Calais. After the invasion at Normandy, Patton was given command of the 3rd Army and he was a major factor in the defeat of the German armies in the west.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton_slapping_incidents
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