The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
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 patton the vector




From: warinner@flood.xnet.com (Robert Warinner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.folklore.military
Subject: Patton: UL vector
Date: 9 Feb 1996 22:13:44 GMT

I've been reading Carlo D'Este's new biography of George S. Patton (_Patton: a Genius for War_, ISBN0-06-016455-7). D'Este relates a couple of tales of legends and Patton.

D'Este debunks the legend that Patton's poor showing in the pistol competition of the Modern Pentathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games was due to a bullet passing through the hole of a previous shot. Some of Patton's fellow competitors argued that this was what happened but the judges penalized Patton anyway. In fact, Patton had missed the target twice. A better performance in the pistol competition may well have put him in the medals. He finished fifth.

In a second encounter with legend, D'Este recounts Lucian Truscott's description of Patton's charm displayed during a dinner party hosted by upper-class Brits: "He told them of murderers he had known ... of the rare California vintage he sampled and enjoyed only to discover, when the great cask was cleaned, the body of a drowned Mexican ... his audience was duly appreciative, and registered the appropriate degrees of horror, astonishment, and doubt."

I seem to recall someone asking about some legendary exploits Patton supposedly committed while at West Point. D'Este devotes some 29 pages to Patton's career at West Point but mentions no extraordinary incident.

Another bit of Patton trivia: Patton was nicknamed the "Green Hornet" because of an outlandish uniform he designed for the Tank Corps. "Old Blood and Guts" came later.

Andrew "War is Hell" Warinner
warinner@xnet.com
warinner@ttd.teradyne.com


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