(4 of 5)
Day & Night. Impatient of routine and red tape, Patton habitually asks and gets the impossible from his supply men. During the winter bog-down on the Saar front, the Third's tanks floundered in the greasy mud. Someone recommended "duck bills"—metal flanges to be welded to tank treads to give them wider grip. Patton tried to get them, "through channels," and finally got 168 duck bills— enough to equip one tank. Next day four companies of the Third's ordnance mechanics, about 1,000 men, were set to work on scrapped treads and other material. Patton wanted duck bills. His order was typical: work any number of hours a day the job will take—not to exceed 24. Six days & nights later, the Third had duck bills on 250 tanks.
The General inspires hot loyalty. No other U.S. Army in Europe has higher mo rale, higher unit pride. Third Army men do not call Patton "Old Blood & Guts" (that nickname came from such fervid advice to trainees as: "Rip their belly buttons; spill their guts around"). To his own men Patton is "The Old Man" or "The Big Guy"—and they say it respect fully.
A favorite story with his officers is how the General stopped the rain after the Rundstedt breakout last December. Rundstedt's offensive was blessed by soupy days at its start. No planes flew. Tankmen, called on to drive 80 miles in a night, could not find the enemy in the endless drizzle. By the third day Patton, who can be reverent and blasphemous in the same breath, called one of the Third's chaplains. The reported conversation:
Patton: I want a prayer to stop this rain. If we got a couple of clear days we could get in there and kill a couple of hundred thousand of those . . . krauts.
Chaplain: Well, sir, it's not exactly in the realm of theology to pray for something that would help to kill fellow men.
Patton: What the hell are you—a theologian or an officer of the U.S. Third Army? I want that prayer.
The General got his prayer; it was printed on thousands of small cards with Patton's Christmas greeting on the reverse side. On the fifth day of rain and Rundstedt it was distributed to the troops. On the sixth day the sun shone, and the Third proceeded to its warlike harvest.
Men & Medals. Patton is a great morale-booster: he distributes medals lavishly, builds up rivalries among his units. The 4th Armored Division is his pace setter, the one that is always sprung through for open-field running. It has a dazzling record. It cut off the Brittany peninsula, plunged through the Loire valley with only air protection on its flanks. In the Battle of the Bulge it raced to the rescue of Bastogne, went on to help carve up the German advance. In the Saar-Palatinate cleanup it sliced through in parallel combat columns, scored one of the big victories of the west.