Famous generals proliferate in American history. After all, ours is a story of conquest and almost unceasing warfare from the earliest days of European settlement on the North American continent well into the 21st century. The names of George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower dominate critical events in our history. But few, if any, conjure up the awe and respect General George S. Patton commands even eight decades after he fought his greatest battle. Now, in Patton’s Prayer, a new Patton biography, British historian and journalist Alex Kershaw tells the jaw-dropping story of Patton’s leadership in what history knows as the Battle of the Bulge. It was Hitler’s last gasp, probably doomed to failure even before it started. But it required superhuman effort by the man often identified as America’s most aggressive and winningest general.
Unsurpassed courage in a titanic battle
The Battle of the Bulge was a titanic affair. Patton alone commanded some 350,000 men in his Third Army. And, as Kershaw notes, “In all, the US Army suffered seventy-five thousand casualties with nineteen thousand men lost in the fighting in the Ardennes, making the battle the deadliest for the US in World War II.” Arrayed against Patton’s men were some 300,000 German troops. One hundred twenty thousand of them ended up killed, wounded, or missing during the battle.
To achieve this thousands of Patton’s troops displayed courage far beyond the call of duty, with 21 Medals of Honor awarded for conspicuous bravery during the battle. And Patton himself repeatedly risked his life to visit his troops at the front. Yet he and many of the men under his command ascribed the victory to the eponymous prayer he had distributed throughout the Third Army. That prayer called for better weather, so the Army’s 8th and 9th Air Forces could provide support from above. And the weather did in fact begin to break on Christmas Eve, the ninth day of the battle.
Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II by Alex Kershaw (2024) 362 pages ★★★★★
Did George Patton deserve his reputation?
Abbreviated or casual histories of World War II typically leave readers with two impressions of General Patton. First, that he was Ike’s winningest general, universally feared by the German generals who opposed him in battle. He was the “most feared general on all fronts,” as Kershaw reports. And, second, that he was cruel to the troops under his command, as illustrated by his having slapped two soldiers hospitalized for battle fatigue in Sicily in August 1943. In a furious response, Eisenhower sidelined him from combat until after the early stages of the Normandy invasion.
He was, indeed, the “most feared general on all fronts.”
The first of these impressions is indisputable. Patton was, without question, the most aggressive and skillful of the senior US Army generals during the war. It’s no accident that he began his drive from the beachhead of Normandy to the far reaches of Germany with 250,000 men under his command in the Third Army. He ended the war less than a year later leading a half million troops in 39 divisions. And the men he led often paid the price for his aggression.
“Patton’s Third Army had been in action for nine months and ninety-eight days,” Kershaw writes, “suffering some hundred sixty thousand casualties with more than twenty-seven thousand killed. Almost twenty thousand men were missing in action at war’s end.” But he never lost a battle. And, despite repeated attempts by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to drive into Germany ahead of Patton, he failed again and again while Patton succeeded.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, he showed compassion and concern for hospitalized men
By contrast, the second element of Patton’s enduring reputation is misleading. It’s true, of course, that Patton refused to believe that shell shock or battle fatigue was anything but malingering, and that did indeed lead him to slap those two soldiers in the Sicily campaign. But Kershaw forcefully insists that “in fact Patton most often showed his deep compassion and concern for his men when he encountered them in hospitals.” He repeatedly risked his life to visit troops on the front lines, and his men loved him for it.
Patton’s faith has been overlooked
Alex Kershaw succeeds in Patton’s Prayer to convey a balanced picture of George Patton, and the book’s title suggests a long-overlooked aspect of the man’s makeup: his deep religious faith. He firmly believed that his God had favored him in response to a prayer for a break in the weather. Patton had that prayer, drafted by the Third Army’s chief chaplain, printed and distributed to every soldier in the army. And “[e]verywhere he went,” an investigator at the end of the war noted, “he found men in Patton’s Third Army who ‘believed—firmly believed—that God’ had answered Patton’s prayer.” Men in battle turn to religion more readily than they do in peacetime. So, doubtless, that prayer did in fact help boost morale and confidence in his troops. The upshot is that no one can truly understand George Patton without an appreciation for his faith.
About the author
British journalist and public speaker Alex Kershaw is the author of a dozen nonfiction books, ten of which are about World War II. Many, including Patton’s Prayer, have been bestsellers. Kershaw was born in York, England, in 1966 and studied politics, philosophy and economics at University College, Oxford, and taught history for a time before turning to work as a journalist at The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times.
For related reading
I’ve also reviewed the author’s earlier book, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Europe (A revealing account of life under the Nazis in occupied Europe).
Was the Battle of the Bulge one of the most significant events of WWII? Find out at The 10 most consequential events of World War II.
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