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The chapter introduces George S. Patton as a relatively junior Army officer and focuses on his exploits in Mexico hunting Pancho Villa and his relationship with John J. Pershing. Patton leads the first motorized infantry action in United States military history. Patton’s marriage to Beatrice Ayer is also introduced and his push for an assignment with the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. Without his experience in Mexico and in World War I, Patton would have developed into a commander much different from the one that is celebrated for his performance in World War II.

Patton, assigned as a staff officer, deploys to France as part of the lead element of the American Expeditionary Force under General John J. Pershing. Patton sails to France aboard HMS Baltic and arrives in England in July 1917. He spends time fine-tuning his command of the French language, staying in shape, and preparing for combat, but is disappointed with his role as a staff officer. With little to do, Patton spends the first few months of his deployment to France attempting to get his wife, Beatrice Ayer Patton, overseas. By the end of 1917, Patton decides to leave his staff role and joins the newly created Tank Corps.

Patton, after transferring to the United States Tank Corps, is now the head of the nation’s first light tank school. He has yet to develop the reputation for training he will attain by 1938 and show in the lead-up to American entry into World War II. In many ways this position will be the most important in Patton’s career. How he performs will make or break his career. Patton selects the land for the tank school and begins to develop the training center and fight for more officers and soldiers. The tank school slowly builds a cadre of instructors and students, but a lack of tanks slows training.

Prior to the Great War, George S. Patton was a lowly lieutenant known more for his personal wealth than for military ability. World War I changed all that. Always a driven and intrepid solider, Patton was a decent peacetime officer, but in peace he had no chance to rise through the ranks. World War I offered Patton a chance to prove his abilities to his superiors, his family, and, more important, himself. The war taught Patton how to organize, how to command, and how to lead men in battle and make them do things they did not want to do. Without his experience in World War I, Patton would never have learned how to prepare and lead men for war, and without this knowledge there would have been no dashing Third Army commander to help win World War II.

In the late summer of 1918, the American Expeditionary Force has grown enough in size and in structure to participate fully in the war. Though American forces have already been pushed into battle to stop the German summer offensive, the St. Mihiel attack is the first major engagement the American Expeditionary Force participates in as a fully organized and independent force. Patton takes command of the first light tank brigade in American military history, and his unit helps the Americans reduce the St. Mihiel salient. While the Germans offer little resistance, Patton and his unit perform well, gaining praise from his superior officers.

Patton’s wound is slow to heal; during this time, however, Patton is promoted to colonel. Discharged from the hospital, Patton returns to duty as the war ends. He hopes for the Medal of Honor but is awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. With the war over, Patton spends the rest of his time overseas maintaining discipline, giving lectures on armored warfare and the future of tanks, and preparing for his return to the United States and his family. Patton prepares himself also for the fight to keep tanks in an independent Tank Corps as a vital weapons system for the US Army.

Patton finally returns to the United States and his wife and two young children, whom he has rarely seen since 1916. At the age of thirty-four, Patton is still a colonel and still a part of the United States Tank Corps. However, a battle is brewing within the United States Army, the War Department, and Congress about what to do with tanks and the air service. As the fight for the United States Tank Corps looms, Patton decides to stay with the tanks for the next couple of years, mainly out of loyalty.

The chapter covers the early history of what will become known as the tank and the creation of the United States Tank Corps. Patton is the first “tanker” in American military history. After leaving the staff of John J. Pershing, Patton embarks on an educational journey to learn about tanks. He attends tank school in France and tours the Renault tank factory. It is here that he learns to drive a tank and selects the Renault light tank for use by the United States Army. The Renault tank is covered in detail, and Patton prepares to establish the American light tank school in France.

This section provides the biography of Courtney Hicks Hodges, who was born in Perry, Georgia, on January 5, 1887. It tells us that he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, with the incoming class of 1908 in June 1904, a member of the same class as George S. Patton Jr. The section notes that Hodges was “found deficient” in mathematics, as was Patton, and left West Point following his plebe year of 1904–5. It further notes that Hodges enlisted in the army as a private in Company L, Seventeenth Infantry, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry on November 13, 1909; served in the Philippines and the Mexican Punitive Expedition, and in France during World War I; and received a Distinguished Service Cross for valor during the Meuse–Argonne operation.

The Meuse-Argonne offensive is a massive undertaking, the largest operation by the United States Army in World War I. Much larger and size and scope than St. Mihiel, it has a small but important role for the 304th Tank Brigade. Patton personally leads his brigade into combat and is severely wounded in the initial phase of the offensive. He spends the rest of the operation in a field hospital recovering from his wounds. His tank brigade performs well in his absence.

This chapter looks at the longer aftermath of WWII and traces the creation of the second generation of ABMC sites. Focusing on the process of securing grounds overseas, allowing family members to decide where their loved ones would be buried, and obtaining US government clearance on designs, the account is reminiscent of the start of the ABMC and its first project. By 1960, fourteen cemetery memorials had been dedicated. This chapter also highlights the leadership of the agency’s second chairman, General George C. Marshall, and his direction of the building of memorials in eight countries to remember the 400,000 Americans who had died and the 16 million who had served in WWII. Marshall’s high standing in the US government and in the public esteem, just as was true of Pershing, greatly helped the agency to fulfill its renewed mission. The special treatment shown the grave of General George S. Patton in the Luxembourg American Cemetery is also detailed.

Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal provided a bonanza for the “Washington Merry-Go-Round.” The president and his cabinet members showered the columnists with strategic leaks, often to test the waters before making official announcements. This enabled Drew Pearson and Robert Allen to scoop the rest of the press corps on pending appointments and other issues. Although Pearson admired Roosevelt and his liberal policies, he resisted playing propagandist. He criticized the administration and irritated Roosevelt by revealing news the president was not yet ready to release. Roosevelt retaliated by prompting General Douglas MacArthur to file a libel suit against the columnists, and by denouncing Pearson as a “chronic liar.” Pearson used the column to attack his father’s critic, Senator Millard Tydings, which Robert Allen regarded as vindictive. The pressures of reporting eventually caused strains between the two columnists, leading Allen to quit the column after Pearson revealed damaging information about General George S. Patton during World War II.

This chapter examines the Allied forces' counterattack from the southern shoulder of the Battle of the Bulge. It discusses the combined offensive launched by George S. Patton's five divisions on a front extending from the Luxembourg border with Germany to just inside Belgium some thirty-five miles farther west. It describes this engagement which lasted until January 1945 and the conditions of local residents and the number of civilian casualties.

This chapter examines the Allied forces' efforts to flatten the “bulge” during the final stages of the Battle of the Bulge. The Allied offensive phase started in earnest on January 3, 1945, led by George S. Patton, with simultaneous attacks from the north and the west launched first. By January 25, the Allied forces have successfully eliminated the bulge. This chapter suggests that the German forces' killing of civilians continued until the very end of this battle.

This chapter examines the Allied forces' lifting of the Siege of Bastogne in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. This engagement started on January 3, 1945, and after barely five days, the final German push against Bastogne had fizzled out. On the same day, Adolf Hitler at last agreed to a limited withdrawal from the tip of the Bulge to a line anchored on a point some five miles west of Houffalize. One January 9, George S. Patton relaunched the offensive from around Bastogne with his III and VIII Corps.

The Americans requisitioned all means of transportation to move and supply their troops. This, too, required much cooperation by the French. The Red Ball Express was a largely successful experiment in monopolizing the roads for military purposes, but it was not repeated. Fortunately for all, the United States returned most roads and railroads to French control fairly quickly. However, US efforts to retain control of army gas cans introduced discord into relations, and General George Patton’s seemingly capricious regulations about French roads exasperated French civilians and officials alike. Even after the French were once again masters of most of the transportation network, they had little means to use it without Allied assistance.