The Leadership Of George Smith Patton During World War II

On November 11, 1885, in San Gabriel, California, George Smith Patton was born to become one of the most renowned and controversial United States Military combat leaders in history. Coming from a family consisting of many relatives who served in both the American Revolution and the Civil War, Patton was destined from a young age to follow in their footsteps. As a young adult he attended Virginia Military Institute, and then went on to attend and graduate from the U.S Military Academy, at West Point, in 1909. Patton was a very talented fencer who actively participated in fencing at West Point and even went on to place fifth in the fencing portion of the 1912, Stockholm Olympics. His aptitude for fencing lead him to become a successful combat

Going into the war, Patton had the ranking of captain. As the war went on, he continued ascending the rankings and even became commander of the First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG). His main role in World War II was leading a variety of United States army groups on different occasions, two of the biggest, most successful being when he lead the U.S. seventh army group into Sicily and the U.S. third army into Northern France, eventually entering into Germany. His passion for U.S. military triumphs played a huge role in his success as a military commander as he was a forceful and powerful leader. He often gave speeches that included strong language that would inspire his soldiers, as well as he had a powerful nature that helped push his soldiers

seventh army in the invasion of Sicily on July 10th, 1943. With both the British eighth army and the American seventh army, the invasion of Sicily, also known as “Operation Husky”, became the largest land and sea operation in regards to number of men involved, in the entirety of World War II. Patton’s job in this invasion was to lead the U.S. seventh army to protect the left flank of the British eighth army as they moved towards Messina. With a lot of determination, Patton made the decision to not follow original plans and lead his fleet to Palermo and then ended up reaching Messina before the British troops did. Although Patton helped lead the Allies to success with this invasion, his act of defiance ended with a number of repercussions. One of the biggest repercussions was the accusation against Patton that he verbally assaulted and slapped a “shell shocked” soldier. This allegation almost resulted in the ending of Patton’s military career, however, Eisenhower believed that Patton was too strong of an asset to loose and ordered him to make a public apology. This event was one of the most significant contributions to how Patton got his controversial