TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Major General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing was made the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front, and he brought Captain George S. Patton Jr. with him to France. Patton had joined Pershing’s staff the year before, accompanying him on a military expedition into Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa.

In November 1917 Patton, newly promoted to major, left Pershing’s headquarters staff to become the first officer in the new U.S. Army Tank Corps. In the ensuing months he would organize and train the new tank units; he was also promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Patton would go on to become an expert practitioner of mobile tank warfare in the European and Mediterranean theaters during World War II. After he warned his men, who both feared and admired him, that they would be up to their necks in blood and guts, they took to calling him “Old Blood and Guts.” He died on December 9, 1945, after seriously injuring his head and spine in an automobile accident.

Throughout his career Patton wrote loving, supremely candid, and often touching letters to his wife, Beatrice, whom he married less than a year after graduating from West Point