'We've got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he's out of control and we must save him from himself'.
The OSS head General did not trust Patton
Posted on 12/20/2008 6:04:53 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with Russians that cost American lives.
'We've got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he's out of control and we must save him from himself'.
The OSS head General did not trust Patton
The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.
But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS head General "Wild Bill" Donovan ordered a highly decorated marksman called Douglas Bazata to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname "Old Blood and Guts".
His book, "Target Patton", contains interviews with Mr Bazata, who died in 1999, and extracts from his diaries, detailing how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton's Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile, which broke his neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.
Mr Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general.
Mr Wilcox told The Sunday Telegraph that when he spoke to Mr Bazata: "He was struggling with himself, all these killings he had done. He confessed to me that he had caused the accident, that he was ordered to do so by Wild Bill Donovan.
"Donovan told him: 'We've got a terrible situation with
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
No, Montgomery did get the green light for Market Garden. The drive wasn't toward Berlin, however. It was intended to go from Holland into the Ruhr, cutting off much of the coal and steel, and cutting off the German troops west of the Rhine.
I’m also a Pattonphile. As you know, Drew Pearson was a real SOB who did everything he could to hurt General Patton.
Military history ping
Go to the Patton Museum website and there is a lot of neat information.
Exhume the body!
Montgomery was certainly the wrong general to command at Market Garden. While he was a genius at the set-piece battle, dynamic operations were not his strong suit. (The opposite was true with Patton.)
If Patton had run Market Garden, the outcome would likely not have been the disaster that it was.
I became a history student in 1976 after reading Anthony Brown’s “The Body Guard of Lies”. (made possible because of the Freedom of Information Act) I spent 10 years studying WWII sig-intel influence on that war. Am not an authority, but a student.
“Wild Bill Donovan” was first a patriot. He did have some “odd ducks” in the OSS, would have never betrayed his country. He probably did have contact with Wilheim Canaris, but was always an American Patriot.
I put little faith in tales of KGB exploits.
Patton was a h-ll of a pistol shot...it’s even speculated that he
missed an Olympic medal because one of his follow-up shots simply when
through a part of the target that had already been blow away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton
Pistol shooting controversy
In pistol shooting, Patton placed 20th out of 32 contestants.
He used a .38 caliber pistol, while most the other competitors
chose .22 caliber firearms. He claimed that the holes in the paper
from early shots were so large that some of his later bullets passed
through them, but the judges decided he missed the target completely once.
Modern competitions on this level frequently now employ a moving
background to specifically track multiple shots through the same hole.
There was much controversy, but the judges’ ruling was upheld.
Patton neither complained, nor made excuses...
(and Patton gained some reknown for his use of the Colt Peacemaker
when making his tour of Mexico with Pershing)
During his service, Patton, accompanied by ten soldiers of the 6th
Infantry Regiment, killed two Mexican leaders, including “General”
Julio Cardenas, commander of Villa’s personal bodyguard.
For this action, as well as Patton’s affinity for the Colt Peacemaker,
Pershing titled Patton his “Bandito”. Patton’s success in this regard
gained him a level of fame in the United States, and he was featured in
newspapers across the nation
william colby iii was assassinated.
he was writing his memoirs in an old fishing cabin way out on the potomac.
the los angeles times reported, about p. 31 of the a section, that colby was missing from his cabin.
two days later the times reported that his body was found floating in the potomac.
Bazata started selling his BS nonsense in the early 90’s.
Outside of that one 'murdering General Patton' thing, of course.
..... another possibility, admittedly far-fetched, is that the screenwriter of “Brass Target” was familiar with the events surrounding Patton’s alleged assassination.
You never know!
I think the point of this article is that he did not die in a road “mishap”
The Forties also had its share of liberal sob sisters. Reporters from the NY Times and other wire services despised Patton and loved trying to trip him up at press conferences. That’s how the “Nazis are just like Republicans and Democrats” controversy came about which eventually got Patton fired from his beloved Third Army.
“If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.”
“General, we are surrounded. Puller’s reply - Good, fire in all directions.
I served in the Third Army under Gen. Patton and passed his
Hqs. numerous times. Hqs. was a large red brick bldg. From the crossroad to his Hqs. was about 1/4 mile of straight, 2 lane road. No buildings or obstructions along it except for several homes at the intersection. His command car was hit at the right front by a duce and a half US Army truck, driven by a US Army PFC. Gen. Patton suffered a broken neck and died in the hospital. Murdered or not I do not know. I talked to a Major who knew the PFC and he was certain it was an accident. I think the PFC hated Patton and and did it on purpose. Remember the incident where he ‘slapped’ a wounded soldier in a hospital? After that many of the trooped HATED Patton. The attitude among the troops was either ‘love or hate.
Csherm
I am not a military historian and do not know the details. It was not market garden tho. The only reason I mentioned it is many years ago, in one of the books on Patton it was mentioned that he saw a weakness and knew if it was taken advantage of he could drive straight to Berlin.
What really piqued my interest was I was recently reading about Montgomery and noticed he had thought the exact same thing. I honestly think both Patton and Montgomery were on to something. It had nothing to do with how many resources the Germans had left but with the fact that a weakness was seen which taken advantage of, they believed would work. It was one of those rare times when Patton and Montgomery agreed.
Of course no one knows what would have actually happened. It reminds me of something I read in a book by Adolph Galland. He said during to attack on Poland, a Polish General saw an opportunity to destroy the German Army and began to do it. The Germans were saved by .88mm anti aircraft artillery being used against troops which they had never been intended for. Galland said the Germans actually came close to losing that war.
To most, death comes naturally. To others, it is thrust upon them.
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