Table Of ContentAN UNPRECEDENTED EXPLORATION OF AXELROD
THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF A LEGENDARY
AMERICAN WARRIOR
Military Book Club® Main Selection History Book Club® Featured Alternate
In nine months and eight days of campaigning during World War II, the Third P
United States Army of George S. Patton Jr. moved faster and farther, killed or
captured more of the enemy, and liberated more cities, towns, and villages than any A
other army in World War II, and quite possibly, in the history of warfare. In Patton’s
T
Drive, acclaimed historian Alan Axelrod tells the story of how a young man who, in
the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, was “born to be a soldier,” became a modern
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American general and one of the greatest field commanders of the twentieth century.
O
Beginning with a dramatic account of Patton’s magnificent drive across Europe
during World War II, Axelrod looks back to the decades before the war and traces N
the trajectory that revealed the commander’s fighting destiny. In a refreshingly clear,
colloquial voice, Axelrod leads us through the determining episodes of Patton’s life ’
and the results they produced. In doing so he weaves a story rich with new insights—a S
story as absorbing as a great novel, but one in which history truly comes alive.
D
“Like Patton at his best: [Alan Axelrod’s writing is] polished, precise, and persuasive.”
—Kirkus Reviews R PAT TON’S
I
Alan Axelrod, who holds a PhD from the University of Iowa, is the best-selling author
V
or coauthor of more than sixty books, including Miracle at Belleau Wood and
Revolutionary Management: John Adams on Leadership (both Lyons Press), as well E
as Patton: A Biography, a Military Book Club Editor’s Choice. He lives in Atlanta,
Georgia.
DRIVE
Lyons Press
Guilford, Connecticut
www.LyonsPress.com
Lyons Press is an imprint of
Globe Pequot Press US $16.95/CAN $18.95 THE MAKING OF AMERICA’S GREATEST GENERAL
Cover design by Georgiana Goodwin
Cover photograph © Getty Images ALAN AXELROD
LY O N S
P R E S S
Printed in the United States of America
Pat ton’s
Dri ve
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Pat ton’s
Dri ve
the Making of aMerica’s greatest general
alan axelroD
U
An imprint of The Globe Pequot Press
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Copyright © 2009 by Alan Axelrod
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans-
mitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests
for permission should be addressed to The Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights
and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
The Lyons Press is an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.
Text designer: Sheryl P. Kober
Layout artist: Kim Burdick
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-1-59921-539-6
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Anita and Ian
21 guns—each
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contents
Introduction
Noli Me Tangere ix
Chapter 1
“I Am Destined to Achieve Some Great Thing” 1
Chapter 2
“A Very Timid Operation” 24
Chapter 3
Giving Cobra Its Venom 39
Chapter 4
From Breakout to Breakthrough 65
Chapter 5
“I Wish I Were Supreme Commander” 89
Chapter 6
“Don’t Be Fatuous, George!” 112
Chapter 7
“I Belong to a Different Class” 139
Chapter 8
Sierra Blanca 160
Chapter 9
The Punitive Expedition 184
Chapter 10
The Dogs of War 207
Epilogue
Patton in Hell 250
A Note on Sources 272
Bibliography 273
Index 277
About the Author 288
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Introduction
Noli Me TaNgere
In World War II, George C. Marshall held the title of Chief of
Staff, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander
in Europe, but it is General George S. Patton Jr. who is remem-
bered as America’s Warrior.
It is not an official title, of course, but a universal accolade
that puts him in company with the likes of Hannibal, Caesar,
Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, William Wallace, Napoleon,
Horatio Nelson, Stonewall Jackson, and Geronimo—history’s
great fighting “captains,” men who masterminded victory
and always led from the front, in person, where the spears, or
arrows, or bullets flew, and where men got killed. For better or
worse, war was their vocation and their destiny. They could
not help themselves. They had to fight, and they had to lead
others in the fighting.
Patton’s Drive is in part a meditation on the nature and the
role of the pure warrior, the frankly atavistic man of war in a
modern army, the army of a rational democracy, no less. It is
a theme that Shakespeare adumbrated in such military tragic
heroes as Othello, Julius Caesar, and Titus Andronicus, but it is
a theme that few of Patton’s many biographers have broached,
let alone explored. Yet I believe it is the key to understand-
ing Patton as a man and as a soldier. Thus, Patton’s Drive is
intended to contribute to the understanding of Patton psycho-
logically and culturally, but also in the narrower context of
military history.
Ix
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