Patton's Progress

A look back at the first months of Patton's command in North Africa and Sicily

With two stars. George S. Patton soon after his arrival in North Africa, November, 1942.

Our duty . . . is plain. We must utterly defeat the enemy.

Fortunately for our fame as soldiers, our enemy is worthy of us. The German is a war-trained veteran - confident, brave, ruthless.

We are brave. We are better-equipped, better fed, and in the place of his blood-gutted Woten, we have with us the God of our fathers known of old. The justice of our cause and not the greatness of our race makes us confident.

But we are not ruthless, not vicious, not aggressive, therein lies our weakness.

11th March 1943: Promoted in his first week in command of US II Corps, Patton is candid on the state of the Army that he takes over and his views on Fredendall

Patton watching the progress of the battle in Tunisia, March 1943

29th March 1943: Patton's troops advance at El Guettar - A graphic eye witness account of US heavy artillery preparing the ground for a tank attack

US troops in Tunisia 1943.

2nd April 1943: The American soldier on the front line- Reflections on the attitude of front line troops from a journalist turned soldier

Men of the 6th Durham Light Infantry chat with an American paratrooper in Avola, 11 July 1943

… About the time we got through explaining this to them, two Hurricane Bombers came over and strafed the beach, and all the soldiers jumped right back into the same holes they had dug. I continued to walk up and down and soon shamed them into getting up.

11th July 1943: George S. Patton "earns his pay"- The General commanding US forces in Sicily arrives on the beachhead soon after the first landings

Civilians in Palermo’s theater district cheer and wave to the Americans, whom they treated as liberators.

… we captured the two Generals, both of whom said that they were glad to be captured because the Sicilians were not human beings, but animals. The bag in prisoners for the day must have been close to ten thousand.

23rd July 1943: The congested battlefield of Sicily causes tension between Patton and Montgomery - but Patton charges off to take Palermo

Patton, Eisenhower and Montgomery at a press conference at the end of the Sicily campaign. Whatever the tensions under the surface, the Allies presented a united, confident face to the public.

I am convinced that my action in this case was entirely correct, and that, had other officers had the courage to do likewise, the shameful use of ‘battle fatigue’ as an excuse for cowardice would have been infinitely reduced.

10th August 1943: In the second of two controversial incidents General Patton accuses another sick soldier of cowardice

American troops advancing into Messina, the final objective on Sicily.

Born at sea, baptized in blood, and crowned with victory, in the course of thirty-eight days of incessant battle and unceasing labor, you have added a glorious chapter to the history of war.

22nd August 1943: Patton congratulates his troops for their success in Sicily in his inimitable robust style