For centuries, history’s great commanders have documented their wartime experiences in diaries and memoirs, in their own words.
But what if we could see war through their eyes, as if Caesar, Napoleon or Grant had carried a camera and photographed war as he experienced it?
Gen. George S. Patton, the brilliant but troublesome U.S. Army commander of World War II, did just that during his campaigns across North Africa and Europe from 1942 through 1945.
Patton, an amateur photographer who carried an Army-issued Leica camera, took hundreds of photos of the war he saw — ruined villages and fleeing refugees, ordinary soldiers and illustrious commanders, humble camps and his palatial headquarters in Sicily, where, he wrote, the maids all gave him the fascist salute.
Those photos today reside in the Library’s Manuscript Division. Patton died following a car accident in Germany just months after the war ended, and in 1964 his family donated his papers — including his wartime diary and photo albums — to the Library.
The general had mailed the photos home to his wife, Beatrice, to create a record of his wartime experiences — and, he said, to help set the record straight. “I’m going to send you photographs and letters so that some future historian can make a less-untrue history of me,” Patton told her.
Beatrice wrote captions and placed his photos into albums alongside images of the general taken by others. In the albums, GIs cross a snowfield near Bastogne, German prisoners march toward the rear, soldiers dig a jeep out of bumper-deep mud; Patton wades ashore during the invasion of Sicily, meets with Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, plays with his pet bull terrier, Willie.
The albums and diary also chronicle Patton’s time in limbo following two infamous incidents during the Sicily campaign in August 1943 — Patton twice slapped soldiers suffering battle fatigue, setting off a public furor and drawing the wrath of Eisenhower and Congress. Awaiting a new assignment, Patton restlessly toured forts in Malta, pyramids in Egypt and battlefields and cemeteries in Sicily.
“A year ago, I commanded an entire corps,” he wrote to Beatrice after visiting the 2nd Armored Division cemetery. “Today, I command barely my self-respect.”
Patton claimed one photo saved his life. The general stopped to photograph artillery in action and, seconds later, a shell landed in the path ahead — just where, Patton said, he would have been if he hadn’t stopped to use his camera.
Patton took the near-miss as a sign that God was saving him for greater achievements, which indeed soon came.
Only a few days later, he was called to England, where he eventually took command of the Third Army for the campaign that followed the Normandy invasion. Patton led Third Army on a rapid, highly successful drive across France, engineered the relief of besieged American troops at the Battle of the Bulge and, by the end of the war, pushed his army deep into Nazi Germany.
He captured it all, in his own words and through the lens of his own camera — today, preserved for posterity in Library collections.
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Comments (9)
My uncle Eugene Ira Lowe was a part of it all!! My soulmate and a Silver Star etc achiever.
My Dad was part of the Third Army as an Officer’s orderly due to injuries sustained. When they ran short of fresh troops he fly combat missions as a forward artillery observer fo a while. He is still with us and doing well at 102. I leave tommorow to spend the week with him at his coastal cottage and am sure I will hear the stories of the Third Army again. They never get old!
What library? How do we see this?
where can I find this????
Hi Chris,
The article is based on Patton’s papers, which are at the Library. Click on the link in the story!
Cheers,
Neely
I have my fathers papers from world war 11 from 1943 to 1948 gen Patton signed on every order of where they were going ge gave to the merchant marines
My father was a Tech 5 combat engineer during World War ll, he was in the Third Army Division. He served in Europe/General Patton, and in the South Pacific/General McArthur. His unit crossed the Rhine River twice and into Germany, then to the Phillipine Islands. I do not know his unit number. The National Personnel Records Center could only give me a copy of his “Final Payment Work Sheet” from 1946. They indicated to me that his discharge orders 214 were destroyed during a fire in 1973. Am still trying to find the discharge order 214.
My Dad Elmer Earnest Schneck, Private was in North Africa. He mentioned that Arab’s were buried feet up in sand; American dead buried “normal ” for later identification. (Sad inappropriate terminology in my thinking). He was told to build a wood picnic table as Patton would be there for dinner. He worked hard to make table very nice and was very excited Patton was coming.
Patton’s schedule changed and didn’t come. Daddy was so disappointed. He was in France and later Germany. In France a young woman came to his tent every night until they shipped out quickly and “I wasn’t able to tell her”. In Germany all asleep in their tents he awoke hearing a plane approaching and knew instantly it was a German jet—one of very few Hitler rushed into flight at the end of German war. The plane strafed the road sending sleeping soldiers running terrified to bomb bunkers. Some were naked and he always chuckled saying the guys teased them mercilessly. I read (unconfirmed) that Hitler sent those jets out without landing gear. My initial question was, “What was Patton’s 3rd Army (or part of it) doing in North Africa?
I think the Merchant Marines were contract-for-hire troop ships for moving soldiers en masse. My Daddy said they were ‘tin cans’ and he was afraid of them.