(5 of 5)
This crack division has had three crack commanders. First was doughty, 57-year-old Major General John S. Wood, who took a pounding as his tank bumped over Brittany, then rumbled 400 miles across France. Patton's grey-haired, hard-as-nails chief of staff, Major General Hugh S. Gaffey, took it over in December. Soon after the Rhine crossings, Gaffey was made a corps commander. Now the 4th is run by dark, handsome Brigadier General William Hoge, who seized the Remagen bridge intact while he was with the First Army, then captured whole the Main River bridge at Aschaffenburg in his first east-of-the-river task for Patton.
The Third's other armored divisions challenge the 4th's dash and sometimes perform feats that would be textbook nightmares. Two Patton armored divisions once crossed each other at a right angle road junction in the midst of combat, but only the Germans were confused. Patton's forces have run right off their tactical maps, and have had advanced maps, gasoline and ammunition parachuted to them (see SCIENCE).
Strikes & Pauses. Patton has had much success in fooling Germans. Few U.S. generals know the German military mind as well. Patton has studied Germans diligently from Africa northward, from Normandy eastward. When Patton moves swiftly, as in the Rhine crossing, it is because he knows the Germans expect him to pause. When he pauses, it is most likely because he knows the Germans are set for him to strike.
Patton also knows his enemy's weapons and, among others in the field, has been defender of the highly maneuverable U.S. Sherman tank v. heavier German tanks. Last week the General apparently had a clinching last word in the tank argument. He could say: look where ours are, and look where theirs are.
In Europe this week the Patton legend was still growing, its newest a song composed by Americans liberated at the Ziegenhain Prison Camp. After the General's 6th Armored Division had rolled up and turned them loose, the Yanks set their theme song to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It began:
We're a bunch of Yankee soldiers living deep in Germany,
We're eating soup and black bread, and a beverage they call tea. . . .
And it ended, triumphantly:
Come and get us, Georgie Patton, so we can come rambling home.
* His 20-year-old son, now at West Point, is the fourth.