War As I Knew It

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Account of War by one of its Best Practicioners
Review: "War As I Knew It" is not an autobiography. It is not a study of World War II. And it is not a doctoral dissertation. It is simply one of the greatest, most insightful accounts of the campaign in NW Europe, beautifully written by one of history's most charismatic and successful generals.

The book begins with a collection of open letters written by Patton during the time of his campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. For cesnorship reasons, these letters do not contain much battle information, but they provide a unique insight into the man Patton was, and how he dealt with problems that were not military in nature. He discusses his meeting with French and Arab leaders in attempts to protect his rear while he defeated the Germans to his front. The letters from Sicily are similar, discussing not so much tactics but outcomes, reactions, and the like. These early letters show how much Patton was moved around, and the interesting places that he visited.

The main part of the book covers Patton's proudest moments--commanding the U.S. Third Army. This section is wholly unique. Written shortly after they campaign ended with Germany's surrender, Patton describes the actions of Third Army from Normandy to Czechoslovakia. While he does not go into great detail about tactics and such, he provides a window into his own mind. The reader knows what he was thinking when he made his decisions, and the reasons that he made those decisions. In so doing, the reader gets a firm understanding of how an army worked in WW II. Also, he mentions his personal relationships with many different generals...ones you don't read about in history books. In short, this is a first hand account from the man who was a pure warrior.

The concluding section is Patton's gift to future leaders. He was a student of warfare, and his own contributions to the art are invaluable. He discusses everything from the conduct of general officers, to what the best tactics for attack are, to how to deal with trenchfoot! In conclusion, anyone who enjoys military history, or just plain good writing, should read this fascinating book written by a man born for war.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Account of War by one of its Best Practicioners
Review: "War As I Knew It" is not an autobiography. It is not a study of World War II. And it is not a doctoral dissertation. It is simply one of the greatest, most insightful accounts of the campaign in NW Europe, beautifully written by one of history's most charismatic and successful generals.

The book begins with a collection of open letters written by Patton during the time of his campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. For cesnorship reasons, these letters do not contain much battle information, but they provide a unique insight into the man Patton was, and how he dealt with problems that were not military in nature. He discusses his meeting with French and Arab leaders in attempts to protect his rear while he defeated the Germans to his front. The letters from Sicily are similar, discussing not so much tactics but outcomes, reactions, and the like. These early letters show how much Patton was moved around, and the interesting places that he visited.

The main part of the book covers Patton's proudest moments--commanding the U.S. Third Army. This section is wholly unique. Written shortly after they campaign ended with Germany's surrender, Patton describes the actions of Third Army from Normandy to Czechoslovakia. While he does not go into great detail about tactics and such, he provides a window into his own mind. The reader knows what he was thinking when he made his decisions, and the reasons that he made those decisions. In so doing, the reader gets a firm understanding of how an army worked in WW II. Also, he mentions his personal relationships with many different generals...ones you don't read about in history books. In short, this is a first hand account from the man who was a pure warrior.

The concluding section is Patton's gift to future leaders. He was a student of warfare, and his own contributions to the art are invaluable. He discusses everything from the conduct of general officers, to what the best tactics for attack are, to how to deal with trenchfoot! In conclusion, anyone who enjoys military history, or just plain good writing, should read this fascinating book written by a man born for war.

Rating:
Summary: Honest account from a one eyed war horse
Review: .... man did [Patton] know how to fight a war. I would want him leading a column into battle, but not running the war. He just was too direct to be a great leader.

This book is insightful and honest. Just like the man. I enjoyed it and was reminded of a few of the poorer boses that I have had. I think it was true that he was born a few centuries too late.

The book is a good read about a not so good man-but a great field general.

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: A great book even after all those years. The reader gets a pretty good impression of Patton's personality an his way of thinking. The first part of the book covers his experiences in Northern Africa and Sicily from 1942 on. Besides the military aspects he describes how he learned to know the local cultures and we are reminded how well educated he was in some other sciences than war. The second and biggest part deals with the operations conducted by his Third Army from France to Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. Very informative are his views of Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery as well as the German side especially concerning the Battle of the Bulge. The third part is a personal view of tactics, the military generally and his career. All in all a great book for people interested in military history as well as leadership. A little drawback, as in many books covering military history, is the lack of good maps, the few maps in the book only give a very general impression of the campaigns.

Rating:
Summary: YOUR FAME SHALL LIVE FOREVER
Review: Army Commander that he was, Patton, at critical times would send a letter to be read to his soldiers, commending them on their battle performance. On August 22, 1943, in Sicily, following the successful completion of Operation Husky there, he ended his letter to the Seventh Army, with which he had raced to Messina, with this sentence: "Your fame shall never die." Fitting words to say to men who would see much death and destruction in the many days ahead. So, I've tampered with his statement somewhat, but I think it's fitting to apply it to him and his soldiers, given what they accomplished during WWII, and, to this day, the statement is true. His letters and methods are also a testimony to how well he cared for the men under him. The book does follow the movie quite a bit, though it is not credited as such; the diary begins in North Africa with the date of October 29, 1942. Patton encouraged all of his men to keep diaries, which this one is of the 3 U.S. operations he commanded: Operations Torch, Husky, and Overlord. At times, I would admit that his diary was not terribly interesting when he would speak of the different divisions etc. that were being shuttled here and there. I don't think he was writing to publish a New York Times best seller, just to document what actually transpired; also, I would think that should be a standard, wise habit to utilize in the midst of a major war. Most of the time, I found myself admiring Patton for his abilities to command and inspire. He took good care of his men, and I think there is ample evidence to support that.

When they were on their way to Luxembourg and Germany, he asked his chaplain to write the "weather prayer", also in the movie, because of incessant rains and flooding which were slowing them down, causing a high incidence of trench foot and hampering efforts to provide air cover. I stumbled on an article that that chaplain, Msgr. James H. O'Neill published on October 6, 1971 in the Review of the News about him and how he dealt with this predicament. From what Mr. O'Neill wrote, the footnotes and other commentaries of Colonel Paul D. Harkin's in War as I Knew It, were a little off in explaining the significance of this prayer. He writes, "Many conflicting and some untrue stories have been printed about General George S. Patton and the Third Army Prayer. Some have had the tinge of blasphemy and disrespect for the Deity." The weather prayer was printed as a Christmas card greeting and given to every single soldier, 250,000 men, underneath his command. An additional "Training Letter" went out to every chaplain, every officer under his command, a total of 3200 because Patton believed in the power of prayer. He told Mr. O'Neill, "Up to now, in the Third Army, God has been very good to us. We have never retreated; we have suffered no defeats, no famine, no epidemics. This is because a lot of people back home are praying for us. We were lucky in Africa, in Sicily, and in Italy. Simply because people prayed. But we have to pray for ourselves, too. A good soldier is not made merely by making him think and work. There is something in every soldier that goes deeper than thinking or working--it's his "guts." It is something that he has built in there: it is a world of truth and power that is higher than himself. Great living is not all output of thought and work. A man has to have intake as well. I don't know what you call it, but I call it Religion, Prayer, or God. But the time is now to intensify our faith in prayer, not alone with ourselves, but with every believing man, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or Christian in the ranks of the Third United States Army. "Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers. 'Hands lifted up,' said Bosuet, 'smash more battalions than hands that strike.' " His chaplain reveals in his article how the prayers were answered: "On the 19th of December, the Third Army turned from East to North to meet the attack. As General Patton rushed his divisions north from the Saar Valley to the relief of the beleaguered Bastogne, the prayer was answered. On December 20, to the consternation of the Germans and the delight of the American forecasters who were equally surprised at the turn-about-the rains and the fogs ceased. For the better part of a week came bright clear skies and perfect flying weather. General Patton prayed for fair weather for Battle. He got it...It was late in January of 1945 when I saw the Army Commander again. This was in the city of Luxembourg. He stood directly in front of me, smiled: "Well, Padre, our prayers worked. I knew they would." Then he cracked me on the side of my steel helmet with his riding crop. That was his way of saying, "Well done."" Patton had socks sent to all the soldiers of the (now) Third army to deal with the trenchfoot problem. He loved his men and his men loved him.

From his diary, it seems that a large part of their success was how well the commanding generals worked so well together and were of the same mind. Patton felt that delays of any sort in the midst of battle were sure roads to defeat and death to be avoided at all costs. After every campaign in his diary, he shows the tallies of losses to the allies vs. the enemy. What he doesn't show, and what cannot be calculated, is the numbers of lives that were saved, soldiers and civilians, because of his swift methods. Many times he ponders, however, that if some orders had not been questioned, not only would more U.S. soldiers' lives have been lost, but we might have lost the war. Hmm.

General G. S. Patton, Jr., I give you FIVE STARS, FIVE STARS!!!

Rating:
Summary: War As I Knew It
Review: First published in 1947, War As I Knew It is the captivating memoir of George S. Patton, Jr., the legendary American general, incendiary warrior, and unparalleled military tactician of World War II. Drawing on his vivid memories of battle and detailed diaries, Patton dramatically recounts his celebrated Third Army's sweeping campaign across Western Europe right up to the final Allied casualty report. The result is a remarkable frontline view of daily strategies and heroic drivesincluding the rescue of the Battle of the Bulge from Allied infamy and the triumphant Palatinate Campaign - revealing a fascinating portrait of the full-of-vinegar, controversial commander. With selected prefatory letters from Patton's earlier ventures in North Africa and Sicily and a powerful concluding retrospective, War As I Knew It is a classic of American military history

Rating:
Summary: Patton's Account of the War without Patton's Personalitity
Review: Gen. George Patton may have been the most successful battlefield commander of World War II. And he had a reputation for honesty and fiercely-expressed opinions. So I was disappointed by this relatively slim volume of reminiscences about his experiences in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and western Europe during that conflict. The introduction written by Douglas Southall Freeman, the great biographer of Robert E. Lee, tells us that Patton "kept a full diary from July, 1942, until Dec. 5, 1945," four days before his fatal accident," and Southall asserts that the diary entries are "always candid, frequently critical, and occasionally caustic." I regret to report that I did not find that to be the case. The notoriously fiery Patton temper is rarely on display here, which prompts me to suspect that the diary entries were heavily sanitized for publication. (Patton's widow was the original editor this book, which raises my level of suspicion.) It is possible, however, that Patton, himself, exercised extreme discretion in deciding what to commit to writing. In either case, the result generally makes for dull reading.

Some of what Patton has to say is intriguing. Patton frequently compares the casualties of the Third U.S. Army, which he commanded in France, and those of the enemy, and German casualties are consistently much higher. Patton's nickname was Old Blood and Guts," but there is, in fact, reason to believe that he was more economical with his men's lives than the conventional wisdom occasionally suggests. Patton's competition with the British commander Field Marshal Montgomery is frequently on display. In August 1944, Patton reports that Montgomery wanted all American forces to stop their advance across France so Montgomery's could make a "dagger thrust with the Twenty-First Army Group at the heart of Germany." Patton's colleague Gen. Omar Bradley was skeptical, stating that it would be "more like a 'butter-knife thrust." In November 1944, Patton was visited in the field by Averell Harriman, the United States' Ambassador to the Soviet Union, who told Patton Josef Stalin had said: "The Red Army could not have conceived and certainly could not have executed the advance made by the Third Army across France." A lengthy footnote reports that, in December 1944, Patton ordered his chaplain to prepare a "prayer for good weather" because the general was "tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as Germans." When the chaplain attempted to demur by saying, "Sir, it's going to take a pretty thick rug for that kind of praying," Patton replied: "I don't care if it takes the flying carpet, I want the praying done." According to Patton, when he saw Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the Allies Supreme Commander, shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower never mentioned the efforts of the Third Army, and Patton clearly was hurt. (In March 1945, Patton clearly was pleased when Eisenhower attended a Third Army briefing and was "most complimentary.") And Patton shows no remorse for the notorious incident when he slapped a soldier in a hospital who clearly was suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

But the chapter on the Battle of the Bulge is more typical. It contains some useful detail about one of Patton's most successful operations, but it is almost complete devoid of color and personality. For instance, one passage states: "On [Dec. 31, 1944], the Germans made seventeen counter-attacks against us, all of which were repulsed." Is that all Patton had to say? A couple of pages later, he adds: "At midnight on the night of December 31, all guns in the Third Army fired rapid fire for twenty minutes on the Germans as a New Year's greeting. When the firing ceased, our forward observers stated that they could hear the Germans screaming in the woods." Now that's interesting!

Patton's account of his campaigns during World War II is an important document. I only regret that more of Patton's personality did not come through here. One other interesting historical note: The footnotes, which are very helpful, were prepared by Col. Paul D. Harkins, who served as Patton's Deputy Chief of Staff. After his promotion to general, Harkins commanded the United States's forces in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Harkins clearly was a better staff officer than a commander.

Rating:
Summary: Never Take Counsel of Your Fears
Review: General George S. Patton, Jr.'s diaries and letters were assembled into this book in 1947, two years after his death. His widow Beatrice Ayer Patton served as a capable editor. This edition has some new material and was reprinted in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of V-E day.

Unfortunately with Patton's premature and unusual death in December 1945, (calm yourselves, conspiracy theorists) the post-war world lost its opportunity for the war's greatest memoir and its most unpredictable political leader. War As I Knew It is the next best thing, a full account of the leadership and strategic thinking of our greatest warrior.

Readers will travel with Patton from his arrival in North Africa in 1943, through the campaigns in Sicily, Western France, Belgium, the Bulge, and ending in May 1945 in Austria. Lesser known events are related such as the initial fighting with the French in Africa. In many cases, Patton revisits towns and territory that he had first seen as a young officer in the First World War.

Surprisingly, the book is also full of humorous stories such as unusual encounters with African tribal leaders, British generals, and French politicians. Cameo appearances include Marlene Dietrich, General T. Roosevelt (son of the President, who participated in the Normandy Invasion), and historical figures like William the Conquerer who influenced Patton's tactics.

Patton greatly plays down the events that led to his downfall, only briefly mentioning the slapping incidents, although he does make a very forceful argument that malingerers are a great threat to morale and need to be punished with extreme measures. The press conferences in London and Boston that led to his dismissal from the Third Army are basically outside the scope of this book, as they occurred after V-E Day and receive only a footnote.

On another level the book is chocked full of real insights into leadership that are probably more relevant today than in the 1940's. Patton is a clear proponent of focused planning, communication, speedy execution and offensive action.

Here are some examples:

It is vital to good morale that decorations get out promptly and on an equitable basis.
Staff officers of inharmonious disposition, irrespective of their ability, must be removed.
Time (speed) is more valuable than co-ordination.
In war,the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it. Successful generals make plans to fit circumstance, but do not try to create cirmcumstances to fit plans.
Whenever a man gets a medal, he usually attempts to outdo himself and gets killed, whereas in order to produce a virial race, such men should be kept alive.
I believe in fighting until lack of supplies forces you to stop, and then dig in.

Rating:
Summary: Great book about an enigmatic man
Review: General Patton was one of the more interesting figures history has produced. As a military history expert, I always prefer to read memoirs by the 'actors' themselves. Read this one. Rent Patton. Read Ladislas Farago's book (on which the movie was based). Then read this book. When you're done, tell me (whether you like the man or not) that you aren't at least impressed with the man's skill as well as knowledge of the enemy (specifically, the Soviet Union near the end of the war).

You will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Patton - War as I knew it - reviewed by Tom Rawlings -
Review: Having read Patton - a genius for war, I bought this book with great expectations. I believe the description of the war in Europe to be both accurate and enlightening. I find it hard to believe that in War as I knew it, there was very little on both Africa and Sicely. The fact that there was no refence to the death of Dick Jenson and the profound sadness Patton felt, surprised me. I also felt that there being no reference to his relief of Lloyd Freedendall, an officer Patton obviously disliked left the book short. However, as an admirer of Patton, I enjoyed the book overall. I recommend the book, but take it as it comes and don't expect what may not be there. Regards Tom Rawlings, Victoria, Australia.