“What chance have I to ride a horse again?”
GEOFFREY KEYES, who commanded the Seventh Army and the Western Military District, wrote to his wife Leila on Friday, December 7:
Gen Patton called this morning to say he is leaving for home in a short while so I think I’ll go up and spend the night with him to-morrow. I shall hate to see him go, but I’m glad he will soon get out of all the controversy.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 10, 1945
He was leaving Monday (to-day) on his way home for Christmas, so I drove up to Bad Nauheim Sat. to spend the night and say good bye. Had a fine visit with him, and yesterday morning after breakfast I started home, and he and Hap Gay were to start for Mannheim . . . in a few minutes to go hunting. They also planned to stop along the way to visit some old Roman ruins.
Well about 5 miles out, my car died out, and the driver couldn’t start it, so I thumbed a ride back to Bad Nauheim to get a mechanic or another car. I passed Gen P and Hap but didn’t stop them. They saw my car, stopped, and when they found I had gone for help, they continued . . .
It took some time to round up help and then the darned car broke down twice more, so to make a long story short, I didn’t get home until after 1 pm, when I should have been here by 11 am. As soon as I arrived, I was told of the accident.
Statement, Horace L. Woodring, no date
I was stationed at Bad Nauheim, Germany with the Fifteenth Army as a Private First Class driving for General George S. Patton.
On a Sunday morning, 9 December 1945, General Patton went pheasant hunting with Major General Gay. I was driving for them at the time in a 1938 Cadillac, 75 Special Limousine. I had driven for General Patton for four months . . .
This trip was strictly a pleasure trip for the General. He was leaving on the following day, Monday morning, for the States in General Eisenhower’s plane. His equipment had already been stored on the plane, and this was to be his last hunting trip. He went hunting every Sunday morning and on this morning he offered me a position as a civilian driver.
We left his headquarters and on the way to where he was to hunt he visited a castle high in the hills. The weather was clear and cold, and we encountered snow up in the hills which we didn’t have below. The General had gotten his feet wet.
From the castle we rode on the auto-bahn and before turning into road N-38 on the outskirts of Mannheim we stopped at an MP check point. There the General got into the right rear seat. (He had been riding in the front with me.) General Gay was in the left rear, and at the check point their hunting dog, which had been in the jeep ahead of the General’s car, was moved into the limousine, since he was very cold, and they thought he wouldn’t hunt well if he was too cold.
On N-38, we stopped at a railroad crossing for a train to pass.
We had just crossed the Polish DP camp on our left.
When the train got by, we passed the Quartermaster Depot which the General was looking at and commenting on. About 600 yards beyond the railroad track, I noticed two 6x6 trucks ahead.
When I first started up, one of these also pulled away from the curb and approached in our direction. General Patton made a comment on the depot just as I noticed a GMC [truck] coming close from the opposite direction.
The driver made no hand signal. He just turned into my car. Both generals made the remark . . .
I saw him in time to hit my brakes but not in time to do any thing [else]. I was approximately not more than twenty feet away from him. The GMC [2½-ton truck] barely hit with its right front fender and hit us solid with the right side of the bed.
The General was thrown forward and hit his head on the railing above the rear of the driver’s seat. The partition glass at the time was in a lowered position. It took all the skin from the General’s forehead for approximately three inches above his eyebrows and three inches across, partially scalping him and completely separating his spinal column.
The car was knocked back approximately ten feet.
It was approximately 11:45 in the morning . . .
The General was conscious at the time and swore a little.
Within five minutes the MPs were there.
The left front end of Cadillac was crushed and demolished, but when the military police learned that the truck was traveling at 10 miles per hour, the car at 30, they placed no charges against Woodring or T/5 Robert L. Thompson, who was driving the truck. In letters Gay later wrote to both drivers, he absolved them of any blame. The accident apparently just happened.
No one was injured except Patton, who said he could not move and had pain in his neck. Most of his scalp was peeled from his head and hanging in a loop. Across the middle of his forehead was a ragged, deep laceration, leaving the bone bare. He was bleeding moderately.
Someone called the 130th Station Hospital near Heidelberg for an ambulance and a doctor – probably by radio from a military police vehicle or from the jeep that preceded the Cadillac to carry weapons and other equipment. It was not long before the general was being taken to the hospital, about 25 miles from the scene of the accident.
The doctor in the ambulance put adhesive tape on Patton’s skull to hold the scalp down temporarily.
Woodring thought that Patton had struck the railing above the rear of the driver’s seat. Gay believed that Patton hit the partition between the front and back. Captain William Duane, Jr., a medical officer who examined Patton later, concluded that he had come into contact with the strut of the car roof.
Whatever it was that received the blow of Patton’s nose and forehead, he sustained a severe smash that injured the spinal cord in his back. The Cadillac was a large roomy, seven-passenger automobile, with jump seats that were folded down and closed at the time. The distance from the partition behind the front seat to the rear of the back seat was at least six feet, perhaps as much as eight. The impact of the collision sent Patton hurtling through the air. His head brushed the interior light on the ceiling of the vehicle, a diamond-shaped fixture with sharp points and edges that protruded dangerously. It was probably this that ripped the skin from his head just before he landed with a crash on the rail or partition.
Admitted to the hospital at 12:45, about an hour after the accident, he lay fully clothed on a litter. He was conscious, oriented, in mild shock, and aware of his serious predicament. He was unable to move his arms or legs. He had no sensation below his neck except at the tips of his shoulders.
In the outpatient room, after they cut his clothing away, they gave him blood plasma for shock. He showed improvement at once. Later they gave him a tetanus shot and penicillin.
Remarking that Patton opened his eyes and grumbled something, Dr. Frank S. Yordy leaned over him and asked what he wanted.
Patton said, “Relax, gentlemen, I’m in no condition to be a terror now.” He chuckled.
A few minutes afterward he said, “Jesus Christ, what a way to start a leave.”
The hospital chaplain came in, and Patton said, “Well, let him get started; I guess I need it.”
The chaplain said a few prayers, and Patton thanked him.
Within two hours, Yordy recalled, eleven generals had come to the hospital.
As soon as Keyes heard the news,
I went at once to the hospital and spent the rest of the day there. Hap was there of course and later Kenner and another specialist arrived.
Well it was a bad accident, and the remarkable part about it is that neither Hap nor the driver were hurt at all.
General P sustained a severe dislocation of a vertebra and a bad scalp wound as well as a bang on the nose . . .
The big question is of course the extent of damage to the spinal cord.
Patton’s old friend Kenner, now a major general and the chief surgeon of the theater, Colonel Earl E. Lowry, the chief surgical consultant in the theater, and Duane, chief of neurosurgery at a nearby general hospital, were there soon after the accident.
The doctors x-rayed Patton and gave him more plasma. After suturing the scalp wound, Lowry inserted Crutchfield tongs into the skull to apply traction to Patton’s neck. They catheterized him and moved him to a private room.
As soon as Kenner realized the gravity of Patton’s injury, he telephoned Washington. The Surgeon General advised him to get in touch with Brigadier Hugh Cairns, Professor of Neurosurgery at the Oxford University School of Medicine and a consultant to the British Army. When Cairns agreed to come to Heidelberg, Kenner had a military plane dispatched to London for him.
The Surgeon General notified Beatrice Patton of her husband’s serious condition. She asked whether she could go to him. Eisenhower, now the Army Chief of Staff, made a plane available to her. The State Department worked at record speed to issue her a passport. On the evening of December 10, the day after the accident, she was at the Washington airport.
In Heidelberg, Patton spent his first night sleeping in short naps. He was restless and complained to the nurse of severe pain in the back of his neck. Awakening at 5 A.M., he talked with her for more than two hours. He tried to be cheerful, but she noted that he was “apprehensive about his condition.”
Late that morning Cairns, accompanied by Colonel Gilbert Phillips, another British neurosurgeon, arrived. They examined Patton and approved what had been done.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 10, 1945
Gen Patton’s condition is still very serious but he has made some remarkable strides toward recovery. The doctors say it will be another 48 hours before they can make a definite prognosis . . .
The x rays today show the dislocation almost reduced but the swelling and inflammation as yet makes it difficult to assess final damage.
To day a couple of British specialists arrived, and to-morrow Mrs. Patton arrives. She will stay at my quarters at least initially.
The General’s spirits yesterday were fine, and he sounded like his old self, but to-day, although actually better, he was uncomfortable and sore – principally I believe because of his nose which is difficult to breathe through.
Think of all he has been through and then to meet with such an accident. Had he spent another 10 seconds inspecting the Roman ruins or had he started 10 seconds earlier, he would have missed the truck completely! . . .
It is about closing time, and I want to run out to the hospital again before I go home. Heaps of love, sweetheart. I know how hard you are praying for him [to] get well, and I sure have put in my best efforts along that line.
Patton was very cooperative and in good spirits that evening, although the nurse thought he sometimes confused the time of day. He drank a cup of coffee, which he said – apparently trying to make a joke – was the worst he ever tasted, then added that he enjoyed it.
Duane noted at midnight:
Although the nurse believes the general is slightly confused, I do not believe he is, so much as that he is despairing of recovery. This fact will play considerable part in the prognosis. His mental attitude is not good. He is greatly concerned about being permanently paralyzed.
They gave him glucose intravenously. Although Patton seemed to be resting well, the bottle of fluid, which he could see, bothered him. When the nurse removed the needle from his arm and the bottle from his sight, he said good night and ten minutes later fell asleep.
In the morning he said he felt much better. He thought he could move his right index finger ever so slightly. Shortly after lunch he said he had a queer sensation in his hands, as though the skin was falling away from the bone. He was suddenly depressed.
About thirty reporters had come to the hospital, many of them having left the Nuremberg trials, to cover the Patton story. Keyes authorized the hospital to issue periodic press releases.
That afternoon Mrs. Patton arrived in Heidelberg. With her was an American specialist, Colonel R. Glen Spurling.
Spurling had been the chief neurosurgical consultant in the European Theater, then had gone to Washington to be senior consultant in neurosurgery to the Surgeon General. On the afternoon of December 10, he was returning to Washington after a three-day leave in Louisville, Kentucky. He was traveling by train instead of by air because the weather was bad and unpredictable. The conductor came through the car paging him, and Spurling learned that an urgent message awaited him at Cincinnati. On the platform there, the station master handed him a telegram from the Adjutant General: “You will . . . proceed to the airport . . . where an army plane will fly you to Washington, thence Germany.”
A waiting army car took Spurling to the airport, where he was hustled to a plane that was warming up. In Washington, in a small room at the air terminal, he met Mrs. Patton and Lieutenant Colonel Walter J. Ker-win, Eisenhower’s representative. After being assured that the Surgeon General knew of Spurling’s whereabouts and would cancel his appointments, he, together with Mrs. Patton and Kerwin, boarded a C-54 aircraft that had bucket seats, about 7000 pounds of mail, and a small curtained room arranged for Mrs. Patton.
When she noticed how inadequately Spurling was clothed for the flight in an unheated plane, she insisted that he take a pair of ski pajamas t© wear and a sweater.
To Spurling, Mrs. Patton had a personality that radiated “like a brilliant gem.” Within a few minutes of meeting her, he felt they were old friends.
They flew to Stevensville, Newfoundland, and after refueling and breakfast, to the Azores, where they learned that severe storms covered Europe. All airports on the continent were closed. A news bulletin informed Spurling that Patton “had sustained a fracture of his cervical spine, with paralysis,” which was a “bad outlook under any circumstances.” After dinner the pilot decided to chance the weather and continue. At Paris both airports were closed because of fog and rain. They proceeded to Marseilles, where General J. C. H. Lee and his personal plane were waiting to take them to Germany. After they landed near Heidelberg, Spurling went directly to the hospital where “the doctors were waiting for me.”
Keyes took Mrs. Patton to his headquarters, where Gay and Kenner were waiting. “After we brought her up to date,” Keyes later wrote his wife,
we went to the hospital. She and he were fine – of course they would be. She is staying at my place and so is the WAG Capt. we’ve detailed as a sort of aide. Also Gen P’s aide Merle-Smith.
Spurling learned that Patton had a fracture-dislocation of the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.
He was paralyzed from the neck downward. There was complete paralysis of both legs and all of the abdominal muscles and the muscles of respiration. He was incompletely paralyzed in both arms. He was breathing with only one side of his diaphragm. His bladder and bowels were paralyzed. The only ray of hope was that the tendon reflexes, which are so commonly abolished after an acute injury of the spine, were still active. It was hoped that perhaps the spinal cord had just been shaken – a concussion, as we call it – rather than completely destroyed.
His medical condition was therefore precarious. In the first place, there was serious doubt that he could live very long with so much restriction of breathing. The chances of his ever regaining complete control of his musculature, even under the most favorable circumstances, were very slight. All medical experience indicates that patients who have sustained spinal cord injuries at this high level seldom recover.
After conferring with the doctors, Spurling went to Patton’s bedside.
Patton was cheerful. He apologized “for getting you out on this wild goose chase” and taking him away from his family at Christmas.
Spurling checked the patient and found the reports “accurate in all details.”
Patton’s only comment during the examination was, “This is an ironical thing to have to happen to me.”
Asked whether he was comfortable, Patton said he was in no pain except for “the rather persistent drag” of the skeletal traction.
The doctors then conferred again and
decided that nothing further could be done. Certainly an operation was out of the question . . . The spinal cord had undoubtedly been damaged the instant the accident had occurred, and no surgical effort could hope to restore it. In the second place . . . an operation . . . would have been an almost impossible task because the patient was barely able to breathe under normal conditions, much less anesthesia.
The consultation was interrupted by a message from Patton asking Spurling alone to come to his room.
When Spurling entered, Mrs. Patton was gone, and the nurse left soon afterward. He was sure he knew what was coming – “the General wanted the truth.”
After some small talk about Spurling’s trip, Patton said, “Now, Colonel, we’ve known each other during the fighting, and I want you to talk to me as man to man. What chance have I to recover?”
Spurling said that Patton was doing so much better than the usual patient with a cervical cord injury that it was impossible to give a forthright answer at the moment. If the cord was severed or severely damaged, his chance of recovery was very slight. But if the cord had been only shaken up, there might be rather drastic improvements in the next 48 to 72 hours.
“What chance have I to ride a horse again?” Patton asked.
Spurling answered directly. “None.”
“In other words,” Patton said, “the best that I could hope for would be semi-invalidism.”
“Yes.”
Patton thought a moment, then said gravely, “Thank you, Colonel, for being honest.”
In a flash he became jovial. “Colonel,” he said, “you’re surrounded by an awful lot of brass around here. There are more generals than privates, so far as I can gather from the nurses and the doctors. I just want you to know that you’re the boss. Whatever you say goes.”
Spurling then told him that many of Patton’s friends were clamoring to see him.
“It’s your decision,” Patton said.
“All right, no one is to see you except Mrs. Patton, General Keyes, General Gay, the doctors and the nurses on duty.”
“I think that’s a good decision, irrespective of the medical point of view. After all, it’s kind of hard for me to see my old friends when I’m lying here paralyzed all over.”
Spurling asked him to save his strength. He explained the medical problems in his case, and Patton grasped them at once and accepted them without question.
“I’ll try to be a good patient,” he said.
At midnight when he awakened, the nurse read him a get-well message from President Truman.
“That was nice, wasn’t it?” he said.
The newspapers and radio broadcasts were full of reports of the accident and of Patton’s condition, and a host of telegrams, letters, and cards poured in from well-wishers, individuals, and organizations, who hoped for his speedy recovery. “Best of luck from an American among the millions” wrote one. “Just one of the great many persons who are deeply distressed to hear of your unfortunate accident,” wrote another. “A grateful America prays for the recovery of her greatest war hero.” Communications came from the Jewish War Veterans, the Irish War Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, mayors of villages in France, a nun who offered to send a sacred healing badge, a physiotherapist who promised his services in Germany or anywhere “(without charge),” Ira F. Lewis, President of the Pittsburgh Courier who wired “the hope and prayers of every Negro GI who served in the war and of 15 million Negroes throughout the nation in wishing you our heartfelt desire for complete recovery. America and the world needs men who practice the democracy they preach.”
There was a letter from Eisenhower, and Beatrice read it to her husband:
You can imagine what a shock it was to me to hear of your serious accident. At first I heard it on the basis of rumor and simply did not believe, thinking it only a story . . . I immediately wired Frankfurt and learned to my great distress that it was true . . . By coincidence, only the day before yesterday, I had directed that you be contacted to determine whether you wanted a particular job that appeared to be opening up here in the States. The real purpose of this note is simply to assure you that you will always have a job and not to worry about this accident closing out any of them for your selection . . . It is always difficult for me to express my true sentiments when I am deeply moved . . . You are never out of my thoughts and . . . my hopes and prayers are tied up in your speedy recovery.
When she was not with her husband, Beatrice was answering the messages that stacked up in piles. Throughout her stay at the hospital she kept her equanimity. Nothing seemed to ruffle her. Spurling thought that her devotion to her husband was evidence of an exceptionally beautiful human relationship. “She had lived her life for him.”
In the middle of the morning of December 12, when Spurling and Kenner examined Patton, they found no voluntary motion, no sensation, more labored breathing. Their impression was that the patient had failed to maintain the progress noted the day before. Recovery became more doubtful.
Since the Crutchfield tongs tended to slip because of the shape of his skull, the doctors put Patton under local anesthesia and Cairns inserted large-caliber fishhooks beneath his cheekbones.
Examination afterward revealed no fracture of the nasal bones and almost perfect reduction of the vertebral dislocations. The paralysis remained unchanged. The general’s attitude was deemed good.
That evening Patton said he had no appetite. He felt fatigued. He had pain in his neck.
Fred Ayer departed New York for London on a commercial flight en route to Heidelberg. With Spurling on hand to take charge of the case, Cairns and Phillips left for England.
At 1.30 A.M., December 13, Patton awakened and showed great apprehension over his condition. He told the nurse he wanted to sleep and “forget it all.”
He seemed alert at breakfast. His disposition became cheerful. At midnight he complained of neck pains.
According to Spurling,
Twenty-four hours after my arrival, there had seemed to be a distinct improvement in the General’s condition. He regained a little more power in one arm and a very minute amount of power in one leg. Also the muscles of respiration began to function feebly. This gave us high hopes that the cord was not as seriously damaged as we had had every reason to believe in the beginning. In addition to these favorable neurological signs, his general condition remained remarkably good. He was cheerful and took a well balanced diet freely. His temperature and pulse remained normal, and his elimination was highly satisfactory.
At the end of 48 hours, while improvement still was noticeable, it was not nearly so rapid as it had been . . . By the end of the third day the improvement ceased and there was no further return of spinal cord function. Yet in spite of this grim outlook, General Patton’s general condition held up remarkably well.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 14, 1945
Things have gone along with satisfactory progress as to general condition but the final outcome is still in doubt. Day before yesterday was the only day so far that some progress wasn’t noted. But yesterday and to-day he has really picked up and everyone is pleased. I wish you could see the telegrams that come in from over the world.
Patton was wide awake during most of the night and the early morning hours of December 14. He talked a great deal, and cheerfully, with his nurse. He had a good breakfast and a good lunch, but wanted no supper, preferring to sleep. Several hours later he said he was cold. Throughout the night he tried to raise phlegm by coughing.
Spurling found slight reflexes in both arms and the right leg on December 15. Patton was sweating, and his sensory level was down to just above the nipple line. He said that the traction hooks were painful.
On December 16, Patton had breakfast, refused lunch, and reluctantly had grapefruit juice and beet juice for supper. He was coughing much of the time. He was, Spurling noted,
undoubtedly aware of extent of paralysis and is always subtlely testing out the doctors’ statements. Occasionally on awakening he is confused mentally for a few minutes, otherwise normally alert.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 16, 1945
Well it [is] just a week ago to-day . . . that the accident occurred and it really seems ages in view of all that has happened. However, things look much brighter this Sunday than they did last Sunday. The doctors are very optimistic now and say, barring unforseen complications, Gen Patton is out of danger as far as saving his life is concerned, but the degree of recovery is still unsettled, although each day now there is improvement and real cause for encouragement.
Mrs. P is just as cheerful and lively as ever and of course has won everybody from MPs to nurses to doctors etc. Last night her brother Mr. Fred Ayer arrived, and he too is a real addition to the party. I don’t know how long he will remain but with the progress being made by the Gen I don’t imagine he will remain long.
On December 17, Patton said all he wanted to do was sleep. Reluctantly he swallowed some juice and soup during the day. He was still trying to cough to raise mucus.
The doctors applied a plaster neck-and-shoulder cast and removed the traction fishhooks. “Once the General was out of traction” Spurling noted, “he was much happier” He said he thought he had a tingling in his hands and feet or in his arms and legs, but he could not be sure.
Since he took insufficient nourishment and drank liquids only when urged, Spurling prescribed eggnog and whiskey before supper to stimulate his appetite. Although Patton drank only part of his allotted ounce and a half of whiskey, he was cheerful that evening and alert. He said that eating tired him.
When a reporter learned that Patton had liquor, he filed a story that the general was following his usual custom of taking his whiskey straight. Screaming headlines followed.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 18, 1945
I think I wrote you that Mrs. Patton’s brother (Mr. Fred Ayer) was arriving. Well he did and is still with us. They are certainly nice and it is a treat having them in the house.
The Gen. still improves and now . . . he seems much better.
Alone with his nurse, Patton was depressed. With visitors, he tried to keep up appearances and be cheerful, jovial, and joking.
Telegram, Spurling to Lieut. Col. Michel de Bakey, Office of Surgeon General, Washington, D.C., December 19, 1945
Arrangements being made air evacuation General Patton, 30 December [to the United States]. Family desires that I wait and accompany him. While unnecessary, this course appears desirable.
Blood chemistry studies revealed a marked protein disbalance, so the doctors gave Patton plasma and albumin. They remarked a few slight rales – rattles or bubbles in his breathing; otherwise his lungs were clear.
“From the beginning” Spurling recalled,
Mrs. Patton had been concerned about the possibility of an embolism. When he had had a broken leg 15 or 20 years previously, he had almost died of a pulmonary embolism. She kept saying to me every night, “If he just doesn’t get an embolism, I think he may pull through.”
On the afternoon of December 20th, it happened. Mrs. Patton was reading to him at the time, and he was perfectly quiet and under no emotional strain. All of a sudden he said, “I feel like I can’t get my breath —” A doctor was called and, sure enough, he was cyanotie. Oxygen was started and he rallied very fast, but he raised a little blood-tinged sputum – unmistakable evidence of a small infarction of the lung.
The next morning a bedside x-ray showed that he had an embolism involving the right upper lung; but that morning he was feeling fine again and was as cheerful as ever. There was no predicting where the embolism might have formed. There was certainly no external evidence of phlebitis in any part of the body.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 21, 1945
We are all in a pretty low state, sweetheart. Gen Patton took a sudden turn for the worse last night, and he is again very critically ill. In fact the doctors hold out very little hope. Of course we haven’t given up, and Mrs. Patton is as plucky and courageous as five ordinary people.
I have just come back from the hospital where I had lunch with her. She spent the night there and will probably stay there to-night. Fortunately her brother is still here, and he is a great help in these times ...
Well everyone is getting ready for the holidays and if I have to attend all the troop and Red Cross and private parties, I think I’ll have to get a week’s leave to recover! Of course the condition of Gen Patton has changed things as far as my own plans are concerned . . .
Sure hope I have better news when I next write, sweetheart, but the chances are mighty slim.
An oxygen mask was being held to Patton’s nose and mouth most of the time. His pulse was weak. He slept or rested quietly almost constantly. He roused himself to have eggnog at noon. He told his nurse several times during the day that he was going to die.
At 4 P.M., he was very drowsy.
The hospital press release stated that his condition was considered serious. An accumulation of secretions in the lungs embarrassed respiration and the heart.
The doctors thought that Patton probably had a small collection of fluid in the pleural cavity of the right chest. His heart showed cardiac dullness, but no aortic examination was possible because of the cast.
He fell asleep shortly after 4 o’clock, although his breathing was irregular. At 5:30, he was still sleeping. His breathing was better.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 23, 1945
It looked pretty bad for the General, but the doctors thought it was a matter of 48 hours or more. However that evening he was sleeping, and Mrs. P. went to supper there in the hospital, and as I left her, she told me to tell her brother not to bother about coming back to the hospital after supper as everything was OK, and she was going [to] sleep there.
Spurling remembered that “the day of December 21st went along smoothly enough. Mrs. Patton spent most of the afternoon reading to him.” Since Patton was asleep, she and Spurling went to the hospital dining room for dinner. They were
half-way through the meal when a messenger appeared, asking that we come immediately. When we got there, he was dead. Death was undoubtedly due to a large pulmonary embolism.
He had simply expired at five minutes to six. The cause was “pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure.”
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 23, 1945
The minute I got home the phone rang and it was the Gen’s aide at the hospital asking me to come right back. The General had dozed off and never woke up. Mrs. Patton was just wonderful.
Spurling:
Patton died as he had lived – bravely. Throughout his illness there was never one word of complaint regarding a nurse or doctor or orderly. Each and every one was treated with the kindest consideration. He took orders without question – in fact, he was a model patient.
Heidelberg was unusually quiet. All the service clubs were closed. A plain Christmas tree in a square near the university seemed almost a discordant note in the hushed city.
Seventh Army General Orders 635, December 22, 1945, signed Reyes
With deep regret, announcement is made of the death of General George S. Patton, Jr. . .
Probably no soldier has had a greater compliment paid him than that given General Patton by his most powerful and skillful opponents. He was termed the ablest American field commander faced by the German Army on any front.
The entire Allied World now pays tribute to the man who deserves more than a lion’s share of the credit for the victories of our arms in the bitter European struggle just ended.
Seventh Army has lost a great friend, a gallant warrior, and inspiring leader. Our country has lost a great and fearless citizen. May we comfort ourselves with the thought that he died as he loved to live – ever fighting!
Letter, Williston B. Palmer to Ruth Ellen Totten, December 22, 1945 For him I think it is seemly that he rode out on the storm, and escaped the dullness of old age, while he was at the height of his fame. Surely no man ever held the attention of the entire world more completely by sheer force of his own personality and achievements, without the brilliance of a sovereign position to draw attention to him.
Lieutenant Colonel Montgomery C. Jackson was in London, and more than fifty British officers and men had anxiously inquired of Patton’s condition before his death. Jackson had never realized the hold that Patton exerted on the hearts of the British who regarded him as their favorite American general.
Letter, a soldier (“in mourning”) stationed in Germany to his parents, December 22, 1945
Last night one of the greatest men that ever lived died. That was Patton. The rest of the world thinks of him as just another guy with stars on his shoulders. The men that served under him know him as a soldier’s leader. I am proud to say that I have served under him in the Third Army.
It sure looks different here. All the flags are at half-mast. We are making every Heinie that passes stop and take off his hat. They can’t understand our feelings for him. I don’t know whether or not you can understand them either.
Letter, Capt. Charles W. Clark, Jr., Clarksdale, Miss., to Beatrice Patton, December 22, 1945
He was the greatest soldier of them all.
Spurling requested permission to undertake an autopsy, but Mrs. Pat-ton refused. Not only was a fully qualified pathologist unavailable, but “Mrs. Patton felt that under the circumstances she would prefer not to have one performed.”
While communications between Washington and Heidelberg were arranging the return of the body to the United States for burial, Keyes took Spurling aside and said that no deceased American soldier had been sent home since the beginning of the war. An exception in Patton’s case, Keyes feared, would have an adverse effect on American mothers whose sons had been interred overseas. Yet he hesitated to put the matter to Mrs. Patton because of his long friendship with the family.
So Spurling talked to Mrs. Patton.
She said, “Of course he must be buried here. Why didn’t I think of it? Furthermore, I know George would want to lie beside the men of his Army who have fallen.”
Certainly in his letters he had made this wish known.
From among three large American military cemeteries which held most of the Third Army casualties, Mrs. Patton selected the one at Hamm, Luxembourg.
Seventh Army Memo, December 22, 1945
Mrs. Patton wishes to present a case of wine to Hospital Mess in appreciation of kindness and best wishes for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Later she would write to Cairns, offering payment for his services. He said he would cheerfully accept a donation to his hospital for the purchase of medical equipment.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 23, 1945
Yesterday Hap took her and her brother to Bad Nauheim to see the General’s last GP and house. They spent the night there and will be back [today] about noon.
The funeral services at the church will be at 3 pm and then we go by train to Luxembourg where he will be buried at 10 am tomorrow.
The arrangements have been enormous. Troops from all over had to be assembled. Dignitaries invited and cared for. Transportation. Flowers from Paris, the Riviera, and every other place as there are none locally at this time of year. Planes for the return trip. As the burden of arrangements and coordination fell on us, you can imagine how busy we’ve been. . .
If I go to Paris to see Mrs. P and her brother off [for home], I probably won’t get back till late Xmas.
Someone gathered up Patton’s belongings for shipment to Green Meadows – official papers, stag horns, footlockers, a big wardrobe, two steamer trunks, several canes, a sword (which the family gave to Sergeant Meeks), books, a portable typewriter, his portrait (his Christmas present for Beatrice), helmets, dictaphones, scrapbooks, suitcases – Willie too.
On Saturday, December 22, the day after Patton’s death, his body was placed in state at the Villa Reiner, a lovely house on a mountain overlooking Heidelberg. On Sunday, December 23, the casket was closed, then escorted by a platoon of cavalry and the pallbearers to the Protestant Church in Heidelberg for the Episcopal funeral service. Flowers surrounded the coffin – camellias from Keyes, white lilacs from Clark, cut flowers, plants, lilacs, pussy willows from friends and organizations, including a large spray from the 130th Station Hospital. Present were official delegations from Britain, France, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as from the major American commands in Europe.
After the service, the body was solemnly escorted the mile to the railroad station. As the train started to leave, an artillery battery fired a 17-gun salute. When the train was gone, the band played a lively tune.
Letter, Keyes to his wife, December 26, 1945
The honorary pall bearers assembled about noon and after greeting them I came home and had lunch with Mrs. Patton and Mr. Ayer and of course Hap and the aides. Then we drove to the church and the services there were very impressive. Hap and I sat with and accompanied Mrs. Patton throughout. From the church we drove to the RR station, and the streets were lined with troops and civilians. It was really a great tribute ...
On our train was of course the casket with all the flowers, the color guard, the pall bearers (NCOs), several honorary pall bearers, and the family party. Commencing at about 7 pm as we crossed into the French sector, and continuing until after 11 pm, we stopped 6 times for honor guards at stations. Each time Mrs. Patton would get off and inspect the guard, and the commander would make a very appropriate little speech, which she answered just as appropriately in French. At the last stop the Division Commander Gen Caille was there with a beautiful wreath which he placed at the casket.
When we got up at Luxembourg it was raining and dreary looking. There was first the ceremony of placing the casket on the half track with the guard of honor formed of Lux-troops. Then the procession through the city with the streets lined with troops and civilians. It took about half an hour to reach the cemetery and again the services and ceremony was awfully impressive. Afterwards Mrs. P sat in the car and the various dignitaries and representatives came up and paid their respects.
Patton’s marker would be a white cross, like every other, bearing his name, rank, and serial number. In 1948, his body would be moved to a more central place in the cemetery, with five surrounding graves left vacant, for the convenience of the thousands who came to visit him.
We then drove back to the train and found the weather reports favorable for flying, so drove to Metz and flew to Paris. There another lucky break occurred, and they took off at 3 pm headed home via Iceland with great hopes of getting home before noon Xmas. I haven’t heard yet of their arrival. ..
I couldn’t get a plane back from Paris, so Seignious and I took an afternoon train and arrived at Frankfort at 8 am Xmas. I got back to Heidelberg just in time for 9:30 Mass and then rushed home, changed my clothes, and started out on inspections of mess halls and hospitals.