細節
PATTON, GEORGE SMITH, JR., Lieutenant General. Autograph letter signed ("G S Patton Jr.") as Lieutenant General and commander of the U.S. Seventh Army, to C. Edward Holland, City Editor of the Boston Daily Record, "Headquarters Seventh Army" [on Sicily], 19 August 1943. 1 page, 4to, on thin Army typewriter paper.
TEN DAYS AFTER SLAPPING TWO BATTLE-WEARY SOLDIERS, "OLD BLOOD AND GUTS" PRAISES "THE AMERICAN SOLDIER...THE GREATEST FIGHTING MAN ON EARTH"
An exhuberant letter written the day after the Patton's Seventh Army and British forces under Montgomery completed the 38-day campaign to wrest Sicily from the German armies; only nine days before, Patton had "impetuously slapped and verbally abused two soldiers suffering from combat exhaustion" (DAB), an incident which nearly ended his career. Here, the General thanks a newspaperman for "the courtesies you have shown Mrs. Patton" and extolls the soldiers under his command: "...You say that America and particularly Massachusetts are proud of me and my soldiers. So far as I am concerned, there is nothing much to be proud of, but so far as the American soldier is concerned he is the greatest fighting man on earth, and it is a pity that Americans at home cannot see the insurmountable difficulties of terrain and enemy resistance which he has gloriously overcome...."
TEN DAYS AFTER SLAPPING TWO BATTLE-WEARY SOLDIERS, "OLD BLOOD AND GUTS" PRAISES "THE AMERICAN SOLDIER...THE GREATEST FIGHTING MAN ON EARTH"
An exhuberant letter written the day after the Patton's Seventh Army and British forces under Montgomery completed the 38-day campaign to wrest Sicily from the German armies; only nine days before, Patton had "impetuously slapped and verbally abused two soldiers suffering from combat exhaustion" (DAB), an incident which nearly ended his career. Here, the General thanks a newspaperman for "the courtesies you have shown Mrs. Patton" and extolls the soldiers under his command: "...You say that America and particularly Massachusetts are proud of me and my soldiers. So far as I am concerned, there is nothing much to be proud of, but so far as the American soldier is concerned he is the greatest fighting man on earth, and it is a pity that Americans at home cannot see the insurmountable difficulties of terrain and enemy resistance which he has gloriously overcome...."