From Tolkien to HitlerFamous Soldiers of World War I

Warfare History Network Presents:

From Tolkien to HitlerFamous Soldiers of World War I

3: The Red Barons Band of BrothersLed by the dashing and charismatic Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen,

the young pilots in Jasta 11 wreaked havoc in the skies over the Western Front. Their reign was brief but glorious.

11: A Hobbit on the SommeA young writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, witnessed the worst single day of

British military historyWorld War Is Battle of the Somme.

19: Blood & Guts, Grease & GloryFiery young officer George S. Patton rode into World War I at the head of the U.S. Armys brand-new Tank Corps. It was the beginning of a storied career.

29: Hitler in WWIAn obscure would-be artist was changed forever by his horrific experiences

in the German trenches of World War I.

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LIKE A SWARM OF UNGAINLY DRAGONFLIES, Asquadron of six British RE8 observation aircraft dronedover the trenches of northern France on the afternoon April13, 1917. The sky was a bright, cheerful blue and the RE8swere intently engaged in spotting, or visually identifying,German positions and signaling coordinates to Britishartillery on the ground. Suddenly, six German AlbatrosD.III biplane fighters, one painted completely red and allgaily adorned, roared out of the yellow sun, their twin

machine guns spewing a hail of bullets. In a few minutes,all of the RE8s were burning on the ground, their crewslost. The German planes reformed, wagged their wings invictory, and flew on into the dazzling sunlight.It was just another day for the aces from Jagdstaffel 11,

Jasta for short. In the brief but deadly encounter, 2nd Lieu-tenant Lothar von Richthofen had destroyed two of theBritish planes, with Lieutenant Kurt Wolff, Sgt. Maj. Sebas-tian Festner, and their skilled leader, Lieutenant Manfred

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LED BY THE DASHING AND CHARISMATIC RED BARON, MANFRED VON RICHTHOFEN, THEYOUNG PILOTS IN JASTA 11 WREAKED HAVOC IN THE SKIES OVER THE WESTERN FRONT.THEIR REIGN WAS BRIEF BUT GLORIOUS.By OBrien Browne

Manfred von Richthofens fighter squadron flies high among the clouds in this watercolor by Claus Bergen. The Red Barons fatal last flight wason April 21, 1918. INSET: The dashing and doomed Manfred von Richthofen poses for a photo at the age of 25. He would not see 26.

The Red Barons Band of Brothers

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von Richthofen, shooting down oneeach; Lieutenant Hans Klein from Jasta4 bagged another. For the men of Jasta11, it was a time of grand success andcamaraderie. From September to July1917, the men lived, fought, and diedtogether in the skies over the WesternFront, creating one of historys mostillustrious squadrons. For a briefmoment, the four men of Jasta 11 wereGermanys aces of aces. Their leader,known to future generations as the RedBaron, would become the 20th cen-turys first media superstar.In the winter of 1917, however, the

future of Jasta 11 was not so promising.Since the units inception, it had not scored a single victoryover the enemy. The 25-year-old Richthofen, Germanysmost successful living ace with 16 kills, was unhappy tolearn that he had been appointed Jasta 11s new com-mander. Even worse, he was being transferred out of therenowned Jasta Boelcke, named after its fallen leader, Cap-tain Oswald Boelcke, whose 40 victories were unmatchedby any other airman. Under Boelckes expert tutelage,Richthofen had become a talented combat pilot himself.Richthofen revered his mentor and dreaded leaving his oldunit. His spirits were lifted somewhat when he wasawarded the Pour le mrite, popularly known as the BlueMax, Germanys highest and most prestigious decoration,on January 12.The weather was suitably bleak and cold when

Richthofen took up his new command near the French vil-lage of Douai. He was greeted by 12 badly trained andunmotivated pilots smoking and slouching around themuddy airfield, among them three scoreless pilots who hadbeen in Jasta 11 since November 1916. The notably unsuc-cessful trio included a modest, soft-spoken Bavarian, Sebas-tian Festner, 22; fun-loving Karl Allmenrder, a pastors sonand a mere boy of 20 with the unwarrior-like nickname,Little Karl; and unlikeliest of all, a frail-looking 22-year-old named Kurt Wolff, called Wlfchen (Little Wolf) bythe others. Richthofen observed his new command with acold eye. Working here, he wrote home, brings me verylittle joy.Being highly competitive and eager to surpass Boelckes

score, Richthofen determined to turn his men into efficientand deadly fighters. The Jasta 11 pilots quickly learnedthat their new commander was not a paper-pushing

bureaucrat, but a fearless combat leaderwho led by example. Underscoring thatimpression, Richthofen scored the unitsfirst victory on January 23, shootingdown a British FE8; he destroyed a sec-ond British plane the next day.Richthofen took Allmenrder, Festner,and Wolff with him on patrol. In the firstdays, they were little help. Richthofen,said his brother, came back somewhatannoyed, but did not reproach them; onthe contrary, he did not say a word aboutit. Wolff and Allmenrder told me thatinfluenced them more than the harshestdressing-down.Gifted with immense organizational

and teaching talents as well as a shimmering charisma,Richthofen schooled his unbloodied gentlemen, as hecalled them, in the aerial combat tactics he had learnedfrom Boelcke. Stressing comradeship and discipline,Richthofen instructed his pilots to carefully select their tar-gets while ceaselessly watching their own backs, then toget above and behind the enemy and attack out of the sunwhile their opponents were blinded by the glare. Hestressed the need for the pilots to keep together and coverone another and forbade any stunt flyingdoing loopsor other tricksas superfluous and dangerous in combat.He also advised them to never fly too low or too far overenemy lines because ground fire often proved fatal. Soexpertly did Richthofen train his men that Jasta 11 did notsuffer its first combat casualty until the end of March.

Although Richthofen believed that the man was moreimportant than the machine, he and his pilots were fortu-nate that German industry produced an excellent fighterplane, the Albatros D.III, equipped with two Spandaumachine guns firing through the propeller. Powered by theever-reliable 160hp Mercedes engine, the Albatros wasfast, maneuverable, and boasted a good rate of climb. Itwas far superior to such lumbering British aircraft as theRE8, BE2, and FE two-seaters, and was more heavilyarmed than the DH2, Sopwith Pup, and French-built SpadVII and Nieuport 17 single-seat fighters. The Albatros did,however, suffer from one major weaknessa deadlypropensity to shed its lower wings during a steep dive.While Jasta 11 honed its skills, Richthofen continued to

lead by example, shooting down a variety of enemy air-craft ranging from observation craft to fighters. By the

Manfred, still wearing flying gear,after combat.

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end of March he had increased his score to 31 as he inex-orably closed in on Boelckes magical 40. Around thistime, Richthofen had his Albatros painted red. Althoughhe coyly claimed in his memoirs that the garish hue wasthe color of his old cavalry unit, it also appealed to hisinnate sense of drama and individualism. On a more mun-dane level, the color helped his novice pilots locate theirleader in the sky and enabled ground dwellers to identifyhis aircraft, thus adding solid confirmation to any victoryclaim. Richthofen hoped that the blood-red plane wouldstrike terror in the hearts of its opponents. With this inmind, he encouraged his pilots to apply personal markingsto their own birds, as they called their aircraft, an ideathat greatly boosted unit pride. Eventually, they alladopted various colorations of red, but with personaltouches. Allmenrders Albatros, for example, sported awhite nose and rear stabilizer, Wolffs a red fuselage andgreen nose. In the publics mind, the chivalric colorsharkened back to the romantic days of medieval warfare.

Soon, Richthofens patience and superb leadership skillsbegan to pay off. The quiet Festner was the first of hispupils to score a kill, shooting down a BE2c two-seateron February 5. Eleven days later, Allmenrder matchedhim by bringing down a BE2c; Festner destroyed an FE8on the same day. Richthofens men had tasted blood andyearned for more.Meanwhile, 25-year-old Karl Emil Schfer, flying with

another unit and with one victory under his belt, was burn-ing to fly in a fighter squadron. Aware of Richthofens suc-cess, Schfer sent him a telegram: Are you able to useme? This was exactly the type of aggressive airman thatRichthofen appreciated. Come at once! he replied, andSchfer joined Jasta 11 on February 21. Energized byRichthofens electric personality, Schfer destroyed a two-seat Sopwith Strutter on March 4. Not to be outdone byhis squadron mates, the delicate little flower Kurt Wolffrevealed his fierce nature by blasting a BE2d out of the skytwo days later. Jasta 11 was becoming an efficient killing

The Band of Brothers radiating camaraderie in Bloody April 1917. Back row, left to right, Allmenrder, Hintsch, Festner, Schafer, Wolff,Simon, and Brauneck. Front row, Esser, Krefft, and Lothar von Richthofen, sitting. Manfred von Richthofen in cockpit. Led Zeppelin used thisfamous photo on the cover of their best-selling second album.

Authors Collection

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machine. My squadron is getting good, a proudRichthofen wrote home. I am very happy with it. At theend of March, 23-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Lothar vonRichthofen joined Jasta 11, thanks to his older brothersinfluence. Now the band of brothers was complete. Thedays of glory could begin. March was a successful month for Jasta 11. Richthofen

was promoted to Oberleutnant after he knocked down10 enemy aircraft. His men eagerly attempted to emulatetheir leader, with Allmenrder shooting down threeenemy machines, Wolff five, and Schfer seven. EvenRichthofens neophyte brother scored, bringing down aFE2b on the afternoon of March 28.The twisting, confused nature of dogfighting was cap-

tured in a letter by Schfer, describing his third kill onMarch 4. My first opponent eluded me in a steep dive,he wrote. Before I could follow him I saw Allmenrderbeing pressed hard by two Englishmen and I gave himsome breathing room. As I did, a Vickers single-seater gotin behind me. I made a half-loop and went into a spin; twocomrades who saw it thought I had been shot down, asdid the Vickers pilot, who then left me alone. I squeezedout of the scrap in such a way that I had a measured lookat things and then very calmly went after a Sopwith two-seater. After I fired 100 shots it began to burn, then side-slipped down, fell end over end and fluttered earthwardsin a burning heap, whereupon I could not help letting outa loud Hurrah.More than just a military unit, the six men were

friends. Richthofen and I, Allmenrder, boasted in aletter to his sister, always fly together, each lookingafter the other. Wolff in particular ingratiated himselfwith the others because of his gentleness and playfulsense of humor. He was close to both Richthofens, andvisited the Richthofen family estate in Schweidnitz.Richthofens mother liked Wolffs dear, amusing boysface. A great source of amusement was the long night-cap Little Wolff always wore under his flying helmetas a lucky charm. With his jokes, he was the darling ofJasta 11.The victories of March were a mere foretaste of the

glories to come. April was a splendid month for thesquadron. The skies were blue, the weather mild. TheBritish Army was planning a major attack around Arrasin Jasta 11s sector, and the air was rife with RFC obser-vation and fighter craft on vital photographic, recon-naissance, and combat missions. The British deployed365 aircraft on the Arras front against only 195 German

machines. Despite these odds, Jasta 11 was determinedto deny the enemy aerial superiority.

Fired by their first successes and egged on by the infectiousambition of their commander, Richthofens band of broth-ers threw themselves into the battle, flying an exhaustingfour or five patrols a day, usually together. By the end ofApril, Wolff had destroyed an impressive 23 enemy craft.Lothar von Richthofen and Schfer both boasted 15 kills,Allmenrder nine, and Festner 12, including a notable vic-tory over a BF2a, one of whose occupants was CaptainWilliam Leefe Robinson, winner of the Victoria Cross,Britains highest award for bravery. While patrolling withWolff on April 11, Manfred von Richthofen shot down alow-flying BE2d for his 40th kill, at last matching his men-tor Boelckes score. But Richthofen was not satisfied tostop there. His tally reached 52 when, in a breathtakingperformance, he shot down two fighters and two obser-vation craft on the 29th. Called Bloody April by theirBritish foes, the month saw Jasta 11 score a stunning 89confirmed victories, making it the German Air Forcesmost successful squadron.Richthofen was the undisputed ace of aces. His and

Jasta 11s achievements were widely reported in the press,feeding the German peoples hunger for flair and excite-ment in an increasingly bloody and protracted war.Richthofen, his brother Lothar, Festner, Allmenrder,Schfer, and Wolff became household names, their pic-tures immortalized on a popular series of postcards pro-duced by the Sanke Company and avidly collected by

Fun-loving Karl Allmenrder, a pastors son, poses in front of his Al-batros.D.III fighter in 1917.

enthusiasts much as Americans collected baseball cards. Richthofen was quickly promoted to the prestigious

rank of Rittmeister (cavalry captain) on April 6, and hishandsome face, his service cap tilted at a rakish angle,his coat collar turned up and the Pour le mrite gleamingat his neck, appeared everywhere. He is in all thepapers, his proud mother wrote in her dairy, on thelips of all the people; the flag waves over his name. Hereceived hundreds of fan letters at squadron headquar-ters, and was besieged by countless autograph huntersand reporters. Women especially adored him and wroteto him by the hundreds. Showered with virtually everymedal his country could bestow upon him, Richthofenwas dining with top-ranked generals and even the kaiserhimself, mobbed by adoring crowds wherever he went.Richthofen was equally famous across the lines, where

he was called the Red Devil, le petit rouge, and othermore colorful, unprintable expressions. Only later wouldhe become legendary as the Red Baron. All of Jasta 11sfighters, carrying the unit marking of red, were wellknown. A visiting reporter thought the units aircraftlooked like a swarm of radiant butterflies. Because ofthe squadrons ability to pack up their tents and move upand down the line according to necessity, Allied pilotsbegan referring to them as the Flying Circus, orRichthofens Circus.

But fame was no protection against the vagaries of aerialcombat. One of the peculiarities of this form of combatwas that anybody, regardless of skill and experience, couldbe brought down by anybody else at any given moment.Schfer, for instance, crash landed on April 4, was shot

down on the 13th, and was brought down again on the22nd, struck by ground fire and narrowly escaping cap-ture by British troops as he worked his way across no-mans-land. During a dogfight with the British 60thSquadron on April 8, the lower port wing on FestnersAlbatros broke apart, and he was forced to land.Richthofen himself survived two potentially fatal inci-dents, one when his fuel tank was struck by enemy fireand he had to land. On the other occasion, when he brokehis own rule by flying too low, his airplane was severelyhit when the Sopwith Strutter he had just forced downunchivalrously kept firing at him from the ground. I oncemore attacked him, Richthofen wrote, and killed oneof the occupants.Under the intense strain of ceaseless combat,

Richthofens young team was forced to deal with the pres-sures of historys first air warthe adrenaline rush of fear,the daily brushes with death, the thrill of the chase and thekill, the nerve-killing dullness of fatigueyears beforenotions of combat stress had been identified. Treatmentfor shattered nerves did not exist and pilots simply flewand fought until they collapsed or were wounded or killed.And everybody was trying to kill them: small arms andmachine guns from the trenches, antiaircraft guns, enemyfliers, structural and engine troubles on their aircraft, mid-air collisions during dogfights, and friendly fire. On top ofthis, they had to cope with killing young men like them-selves. When Schfer destroyed a British FE2d on April 3,he sardonically referred to it as infanticide, alluding tothe youth of his victims. Richthofen smoked constantlyand suffered from nightmares about seeing his first Englishvictim die in the air. Early in the morning of April 25, Sebastian Festner

attacked several Sopwith Strutters from the 43rdSquadron. Depending on the source, he was either shotdown by one of these, suffered wing failure, was hit byground fire, or was the victim of a broken propeller.Whatever the fate that pressed him earthward, he smashedinto the ground and died. As the first of the band to fallin combat, Festners death shocked and saddened his com-rades. Jasta 11 suffered its second blow when Schfer, aseasoned ace with 23 victories, was awarded the Pour lemrite and appointed commander of Jagdstaffel 28, onApril 26. In a letter to his parents, Schfer wrote that hewas bitterly sad that I must leave the Staffel I have cometo love, the splendid circle of comrades and most of all,Richthofen. If I had a choice, I would prefer a thousandtimes more to remain here.

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LEFT: Lieutenant Lothar von Richthofen proudly displays his Pour lemrite medal at his throat. RIGHT: Lieutenant Kurt Wolff, calledLittle Wolf, poses in his leather flying coat.

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On May 1, Richthofen was ordered to take an open-ended leave, the kaiser wishing to preserve his valuablenational hero. Richthofen appointed his brother actingcommander of Jasta 11. Back in the Fatherland,Richthofen sat for portraits, dined with royalty, and dic-tated his memoirs, The Red Combat Pilot, which becamean instant bestseller. It was translated into English andwidely read in Great Britain and elsewhere. Surroundedby ecstatic fans wherever he went, Richthofen sorelymissed his squadron mates and longed to return to them.In the newspapers, Richthofen proudly followed the vic-

tories of his friends. Little Wolff raised his score to 29and was awarded the coveted Pour le mrite on May 4.Three days later, Lothar was involved in an evening dog-fight with brand-new double-gunned SE5 fighters from thecrack 56th Squadron. During the clash he shot down Cap-tain Albert Ball, Great Britains highest ace and holder ofthe Victoria Cross. This impressive feat, Lothars 20th kill,made headlines across Germany. Delighted with hisbrothers achievements, Richthofen was jolted by atelegram: Lothar is wounded, but not mortally. Flyingwith Allmenrder on the 13th, Lothar had been struck inthe hip by ground fire and hospitalized. Richthofen visitedhis recuperating brother, writing to their mother that helooked splendid, tanned with the Pour le mrite aroundhis neck. But in a subsequent letter home, Richtofen cau-tioned: Under no circumstances should [Lothar] beallowed back at the Front until he is physically fit. Other-

wise he will suffer a relapse or be shot down.Boyish Allmenrder, the last of the old band still

remaining in Jasta 11, was appointed its commander.The entire responsibility has been given to me byRichthofen, he excitedly wrote his sister. Hopefully, Iwill remain in his Staffel a long time! Allmenrdergamely carried on the old traditions by downing 13enemy aircraft in May; he received the Pour le mrite inJune. Richthofen was also gladdened to hear that Schferhad shot down his 30th victory, a DH4 bomber. The nextday, however, the Rittmeister received the stunning newsthat that his friend was dead. Schfer had fallen on June5 during a dogfight with FE2ds. Years later, LieutenantH.L. Satchell recalled bringing down the German ace.Schfer looped over the top of us and we stalled, andfell down on him as he was coming out of the loop,wrote Satchell. Both I and my observer, Lt. T.A. Med-ford-Lewis, had our guns going. We were about 50 yardsfrom him and I can still picture his black helmet and redplane. He made a serious mistake and it cost him hislife. Schfer had violated his masters warnings againstdoing tricks in the air. A saddened Richthofen canceledall appointments in his busy schedule to attend hisfriends funeral in Krefeld, Schfers hometown. When Richthofen returned to active duty in early June,

he quickly realized that the air war had changed. Hishappy band of fighters was broken. Adding to theRittmeisters concerns were the excellent new Allied air-

Manfred von Richthofen lands his Fokker DR1 triplane after another patrol over no-mans-land.

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craft now confronting Germanpilotsthe robust SE5a fighter, thesuperb Bristol two-seat fighter, andthe highly maneuverable Sopwith tri-plane and Camel fighters, the latterarmed with twin Vickers machineguns. Tactically, the Allies wereappearing over the front in massedformations of more than 50 aircraft.To counter this, German fighter unitswere equipped with new AlbatrosD.V and D.Va fighters, which weresupposed to be an improvement overthe D.III but still suffered from weaklower wings. They were outclassed bythe latest Allied planes.

On June 25, Richthofen shot downhis 56th opponent, a RE8, and wasofficially informed that he was commander ofJagdgeschwader I (JGI), a combat group comprising Jas-tas 4, 6, 10, and 11 and capable of putting 50 to 60 fight-ers in the air at one time. This reorganization placedenormous leadership and administrative strains onRichthofen and signaled how the massed nature of theground war was reflected in the air war. Like his boss, young Allmenrder continued to score

as well, shooting down his 30th opponent, a Nieuportfighter, on June 26. Now he was second only toRichthofen in kills. Eager for more victories, Allmen-rder was out again the next morning, flying low overthe linesthe near-fatal mistake that Richthofen hadmade weeks earlier. Suddenly, according to a letterRichthofen wrote to Allmenrders father, he was firedupon by an English plane that was at least 800 metersaway [a] tremendous distance. Other reports indicatedthat small-arms and antiaircraft fire was heard comingfrom the trenches. Karls machine, Richthofens lettercontinued, immediately made a left turn in the direc-tion of our lines: a sign that there was still a consciouspresence in the machine. His comrades noticed that heturned off the gas, and passed over in a glide. From thisglide, a vertical dive resulted, which did not cease. Themortally wounded aces airplane fell into no-mans-land;his body was recovered by German soldiers thatevening. I could not wish, Richthofen concluded, afiner death for myself than to fall in aerial combat; it isa consolation to know that Karl noticed nothing of his

end. Allmenrder was 21 years old.Richthofen and Wolff were now the

last of the original band of brothers.On July 2, Richthofen had Wolfftransferred back to Jasta 11 as its com-mander. This same day, the Rittmeisteravenged Allmenrders death by bring-ing down an RE8 for his 57th victory.He was out hunting again with Wolffand others on the morning of July 6.Carefully, Richthofen and his menstalked nine FE2ds patrolling over theGerman lines. The Rittmeister signaledthe attack. As he roared downward, hesaw Wolff already blazing away at theenemy. Calmly, with a hunters preci-sion, Richthofen selected his prey, let-ting him grow in his gunsights; theBritish observer was already nervously

firing at him, even though he was out of range. Biding histime, Richthofen had not even released the safety latcheson his guns. As his opponent banked to avoid him,Richthofen calmly maneuvered to stay behind. Suddenly,he recalled, I received a blow on my head! I was hit! Alucky shot had clipped a two-inch patch of skin and bonefrom his head. For a moment, he went on, my wholebody was completely paralyzed. My hands dropped to theside and my legs dangled in the fuselage. The worst partwas that the blow on the head affected my optic nerve andI was completely blinded.Richthofens plane plunged earthward. Through sheer

will power, he regained the use of his limbs and franticallygrabbed the joy stick. I must see! he recalled saying tohimself as his eyesight returned, although it was like look-ing through thick black glasses. He made a decent landingin a field, tried to climb out of the cockpit but tumbled outand lay on the ground in a daze. When he came to, hefound himself in St. Nicholas Hospital in Courtrai. Theace of aces had proven vulnerable at last.Wolff was now the last of the band still flying. He was

on a morning patrol again the day after Richthofen waswounded, shooting down a Sopwith triplane for his 33rdvictory. Four days later, flying to the east of Ypres, Wolffwas leading Jasta 11 over the lines when tracers rippedpast the German fighters and a squadron of 12 triplanesfrom the 10th Naval Squadron roared down on them. Ina letter to his girlfriend, Wolff humorously described whathappened next. I had my hand right where an English-

Manfred von Richthofen, with bandagedhead, poses with a nurse at St. NicholasHospital in Courtrai.

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man was shooting, he wrote. The bullet, being theharder component, went through the handthe wristbone was shot clean through. Wolff dove out of the dog-fight and returned to the airfield. Hours later he foundhimself lying alongside Richthofen in the hospital.Lothar and Wolff were still recovering in hospital when

Manfred returned to command on July 25, his woundunhealed, his head still bandaged, struggling withheadaches and depression. Although his unit was doingfine work, the fun was gone, the lines in his face harder.There is nothing left, Richthofen jotted down, of thelively, merry war as our deeds were called in the begin-ning. Richthofen was soon leading patrols, although itwas not until August 16 that he scored again, shootingdown a Nieuport 17. Somehow, it was different now. Iam in wretched spirits after every aerial battle, he wrote.But that no doubt is an after-effect of my head wound.The Rittmeister would often head straight for his quartersafter returning from patrol, explaining that he did notwant to see anyone or hear anything. Wolff understood these feelings. Promoted to Oberleut-

nant, he returned to the war on September 11, foreverchanged by his grim experiences. Unable to shoot downthe enemy as he had done during the heady days of the

spring, the frustrated pilot was killedin action flying a new Fokker triplanejust four days after rejoining his unit.Lothar received the depressing newswhile convalescing at home. Hismother observed his reaction: His lipsgrew hard; he sat the whole day andstared through the window at the darktrees in the garden.

Now all of Richthofens friends weredead. As the hero of the German peo-ple and commander of JGI, he still hada difficult task awaiting himto carryon. His sense of duty and his burningambition brought him back into theair, where he would reach an unheard-of 80 victories en route to becomingthe highest scoring ace of World WarI. Finally, the Red Baron fell on April21, 1918, a victim of fatigue,headaches, depression, and violating

his own rules against flying too low and too far overenemy lines. It was exactly one year after the glories ofApril 1917. He had not yet turned 26.Of the original six who had made up the band of broth-

ers, only Lothar von Richthofen survived the war, savedby his injuries. Wounded twice more, the 40-victory acewas recuperating in the hospital when he learned of hisbrothers death. Had I been there, he said sadly, itwould not have happened. Lothar met a flyers end whenhe was killed in a civilian aircraft accident in 1921.Manfred von Richthofen had molded and managed his

men superbly. From a group of badly trained, unmoti-vated young men, he shaped a band of brothers thatbecame textbook examples of boldness, courage, andskill. Thanks to their leaders immense talents, four of theband would be awarded the Pour le mrite. In their brief,violent careers, Festner, Schfer, Allmenrder, Wolff,Lothar, and Manfred accounted for a combined record of225 downed aircraft. It was an exhilarating time. Flyingand fighting for fame and Fatherland, the young Germanpilots in Jasta 11 were driven by the reckless belief thatthey were not going to die. They were wrong, but at leastthey died on their own terms, in the brilliant blue skiesabove the squalid gray trenches.

A replica of Manfred von Richthofens Fokker DR1, in which he recorded an unheard-of 80kills in World War I.

Oliver Thiele

Smoke and ash drifted across the shattered ground. Deadfaces peered up with lidless eyes from pools of stagnantwater. Black flying objects screeched downward, bringingterror and death to the soldiers huddled below, while onthe horizon the sky blazed red-orange with flame and theentire earth shook. This is the fictional world described in J.R.R. Tolkiens

immensely popular trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, butit was based on the awful reality of the Western Front inWorld War I. Perhaps no other war has produced suchan illustrious array of writers. Out of this fiery cata-clysm, names such as English writers Robert Graves,

Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, and Siegfried Sassoonto say nothing of such American writers as Ernest Hem-ingway, E.E. Cummings, and John Dos Passos, andGerman author Erich Maria Remarquehave beenetched into public perceptions of World War I-inspiredliterature. Ironically, Tolkien, perhaps the most famousand widely read writer to emerge from the conflict, is al-most never associated with it.Yet World War I had a major creative impact on Tolkien,

informing the universal themes that make his novels sovivid. Brooding evil arises out of the East, a grand allianceof forces forms in the West, and a war for the future of

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A YOUNG WRITER, J.R.R. TOLKIEN, WITNESSED THE WORST SINGLE DAY OF BRITISH MILI-TARY HISTORYWORLD WAR IS BATTLE OF THE SOMME.By OBrien Browne

A British soldier searches for a dead comrades identity disc after the disastrous attack at the Somme. Painting by Frank Crozier, who alsotook part in a similar British rout at Gallipoli. INSET: A reflective J.R.R. Tolkien in his study long after the war.

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A Hobbit on the Somme

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civilization takes place in a nightmarishlunar landscape filled with surgingarmies and killing machinesthe verythings Tolkien experienced firsthand inWorld War I. In particular, male friend-ship, fortified by the shared hardships ofwarfare, stands out in Tolkiens writings,and it jars modern readers to readTolkiens foreword to the second editionof The Lord of the Rings. By 1918, hewrites, all but one of my close friendswere dead.In 1889, Queen Victoria sat on the

British throne, dourly surveying hermighty empire, which spread out fromthe British Isles to India, Egypt, Aus-tralia, Canada, and much of the rest ofthe planet. Britains powerful navy pro-tected homeland and colony alike; hersmall professional army was battle hard-ened from fierce colonial wars. This wasthe world into which John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wasborn in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892. Three yearslater, his mother brought him and his brother to Englandto escape the harsh African climate. Shortly afterward,the family was crushed to learn that Tolkiens father haddied of rheumatic fever. They moved to Sarehole, just out-side the grim industrial city of Birmingham, whereTolkiens mother gave him an excellent education at home.Her death in 1904 was another body blow to the youngboy. The Tolkien children were raised by an aunt and afamily friend. At school, Tolkiens linguistic gifts blossomed, and he

excelled at Latin and ancient Greek, before devouringGerman, Gothic, Welsh, Finnish, and other languages.Tolkien was a member of his schools cadet corps, ridingwith a territorial cavalry regiment in 1912. He made bestfriends with Christopher Wiseman, Geoffrey BacheSmith, and Robert Gilson, and together they founded theTea Club of the Barrovian Society, or TCBS, named aftertheir meeting place, the Barrow Store. It was an idealistic,irreverent, and pretentious little group. The witty aes-thetic Gilson dreamed of becoming a renowned architect;Wiseman, sensitive and talented, wished to be a musi-cian; literature-loving G.B. Smith longed to be a poet;and Tolkien, dreamy, ambitious, and hardworking, wrotetales of elves, dwarfs, and heroic supermen, inventing hisown private languages for them.

Upon graduation, Tolkien was acceptedinto Oxford University, where he ma-jored in Old English and Germanic lan-guages while developing a relationshipwith Edith Bratt, his childhood sweet-heart. Against the background of ro-mance and ivy-covered university walls,Tolkien observed the slowly escalatingtensions among the nations of Europe,which finally exploded into all-out warin 1914 after the assassination of theAustrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Although many European men enthu-

siastically dashed to the colors of their re-spective nations to participate in a warthat was to be over by Christmas, othersgreeted the conflict with indifference orrepulsion. For his part, Tolkien decidedto complete his studies and then joinup, a primarily financial choice.Tolkien had always been desperately

poor, and his only chance for survival after the war wasto find a job in academia. After struggling so hard to betterhimself, Tolkien did not welcome the war, which symbol-ized for him the collapse of all my world. Still, aftergraduating with a first-class degree in 1915, he preparedto enlist in the British Army.Tolkiens friends in the TCBS had already reached the

same conclusion. Gilson had joined in November1915, going into the Cambridgeshire Battalion, later tobe transferred to the 11th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment asa second lieutenant. Smith followed his friend a monthlater, the young poet being accep t ed in to the Ox-fordsh i r e and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, al-though he would later be transferred to the 19thBattalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, also as a second lieutenant.Like Tolkien, Wiseman opted to enlist later, going into theRoyal Navy in summer 1915 to serve on the battleshipHMS Superb. Although it was a hard decision for theyoung men, in reality there was little choice but to volun-teer. In those days, Tolkien later recalled, chapsjoined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleftto be in. In 1915, the war was not going well for Great Britain

and its allies. As Tolkien and his friends went throughboot camp, the character of the war transformed, becom-ing more protracted and deadly than anybody had fore-seen. The Lancashire Fusiliers, for instance, had taken

J.R.R. Tolkien as a signal officer in the11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.

WORLD WAR I 13

part in a bloody but failed landing against well-en-trenched Turkish forces at Gallipoli. On the WesternFront, British forces had suffered appalling losses atNeuve Chapelle while Russians and Austrians battled itout in the Carpathian Mountains. On the home front, aGerman submarine campaign was strangling muchneeded food and weapon supplies. And in April 1915, anew horror appeared: along a four-mile stretch of theYpres Salient in Belgium, the Germans struck combinedFrench, Algerian, and Canadian divisions with a terriblenew weapon168 tons of chlorine, the worlds first poi-son gas attack. That autumn, Great Britain suffered50,000 casualties in the Battle of Loos.At this bleak hour, Tolkien and the three other members

of the TCBS gathered one last time to discuss literatureand the future. On June 28, the 23-year-old Tolkien en-listed in the Lancashire Fusiliers, no doubt desiring to beclose to G.B. Smith but also choosing the unit because itwas full of Oxford men. This was typical of British Armyrecruiting at the timeyoung men joined up en masse bytown, school, or trade, organized into regiments sportingsuch quaint names such as the Tyneside Commercials orthe Manchester Pals; G.B. Smiths battalion was knownas the 3rd Salford Pals. The idea was that units made upof friends, relatives, and colleagues would be more cohe-sive and motivated on the battlefield. The tragic corollaryto this thinking was that when the fighting was particu-larly intense, such close-knit groups would also fall enmasse, wiping out entire school classes or neighborhoods

in the space of a few bloody moments.Because of his language expertise, Tolkien was trained

in Yorkshire as a signals officer, responsible for battalioncommunications with headquarters. He learned mapreading, Morse code, message sending via carrier pigeon,and field telephone operation. He memorized the art ofstation call signstactical voice communications with let-ters or digits representing companies, platoons, and sec-tionsand also how to use signal flags and discs, flares,lamps, and heliographs as well as runners, soldiers whocarried hand-written notes to headquarters under fire. Like all new soldiers, Tolkien found boot camp dull,

Army bureaucracy intolerable, and most of his command-ing officers insipid. War multiplies the stupidity by 3,he wrote. But in training camp, a more subtle transfor-mation was occurring within him. Great Britains first vol-unteer army had thrown together men from all walks oflife and all social classes, and Tolkien developed a deepsympathy and feeling for the tommy, especially the plainsoldier from the agricultural counties. In socially strati-fied prewar England, Tolkien the Oxford man would nor-mally never have had anything to do with suchcommoners. On June 2, 1916, Tolkien received his embarkation or-

ders. Now married to Edith Bratt, he visited her for thelast time, harboring little hope that he would ever see heragain. As he later remembered, Junior officers werebeing killed off a dozen a minute. Parting from my wifethen was like death.

British infantry trudges through the rain toward new lines at Guillemont during the 1916 Somme campaign.

WORLD WAR I 14

One by one, Tolkien and his friends went off to battle.While Wiseman experienced a comparatively clean warin the Navy, seeing sporadic action, Tolkien, Gilson, andSmith entered a war zone of gothic horrors for whichnothing in their comfortably sheltered young lives hadprepared them. Moving up into the front lines, they wit-nessed the genius of their enlightened epoch being usedto kill masses of men. The earth of northern France wasripped up and broken, oozing mud from countless shellholes, the rotting bodies of dead men and horses litteringthe ground, grotesquely entwined with the hulks of rust-ing guns, smashed wagons, and barbed wire. The trencheswere torn up by shell blasts, rat infested and mud filled,and adorned with hunks of putrid flesh and smashedequipment.

Tolkien disembarked on June 6, 1916, at taples,from where he and the 11th Battalion, LancashireFusiliers, under the command of Lt. Col. Laurence Bird,were transported by train to the great British communi-cation and supply center at Amiens and billeted near thefront lines. The battalion was transferred to 74th Brigade,25th Division for an upcoming offensive on the SommeRiver. Tolkien was assigned to A Company.Neither he nor his men were aware of it, but they were

about to participate in the greatest attack in the historyof the British Army, the Big Push that Army plannershad designed to break through the Germans lines in therolling, chalky countryside near the Somme. After a mas-sive artillery barrage, the Germans would be either dazedor dead, and the British Army would simply stroll over

no-mans-land, occupy the trenches, and roll up the restof the enemys forces before breaking out into openground. The war could be brought to a sudden and deci-sive close. That, at any rate, was the plan.Because the vast majority of the men were green,

Tolkien and his fellow officers were instructed to leadtheir troops into battle in parade fashionlong, even linesmarching against the Germans in waves, their bayonetedrifles held at the slope, tilted slightly forward. For aweek before the attack, 1,500 British guns had pulverizedthe German positions to soften them up and cut the densewire entanglements through which the attacking Britishwere to weave. Zero hour was set for 7:30 AM, July 1,1916. Some 200 battalions, containing 100,000 Britishtroops, would go over the top. Gilsons and Smiths unitswere among those moved up to take part in the initial at-tack; Tolkiens unit was held in reserve. The morning of the attack was a poets morning of

golden sunshine and wildflowers swaying gently in a faintbreeze. It had rained the night before, and freshness waseverywhere. Suddenly, at 7:28 AM, a massive heap of dirt,German soldiers, and trees suddenly lifted into the air asBritish sappers blew mines under the German trenches, inone place scooping out a 90-foot-deep crater in the earth.This was followed by an eerie silence. Then, all along theline, the shrill sound of whistles trilled as British officerssignaled their men to attack. The Army slowly surged upjumping-off ladders and began walking slowly toward theenemy lines. Gilson had blown his whistle and led his men over the

top. Their target was the enemy trenches near the village

LEFT: Troops of the 11th Battalion wait in the trenches at Arras, France. The battalion was typically hard hit by casualties. RIGHT: A German5.9-inch naval gun, removed from a battleship, prepares to launch a gas bombardment. Note the gas masks on the gunners.

WORLD WAR I 15

of La Boisselle. As Gilson and the 11th Suffolk advanced,they soon realized to their horror that the wire beforethem had not been cut by the artillery fire and that theGermans, well-protected in deep dugouts, had survivedthe massive bombardment. The Germans waited for theadvancing British to come into range, then opened upwith machine guns, small arms, and artillery fire. Beforethe leading wave had advanced 100 yards, men begandropping everywhere. A wounded company commanderwrote: My very last memory of the attack is the sight ofGilson in front of me and [another officer] on my right,both moving as if on parade, and both a minute or twolater to be mortally hit. The first of Tolkiens friends hadfallen. In a few moments, the 11th Suffolk had suffered691 casualties. My chief impression, Tolkien wrote toSmith, reflecting on Gilsons death, is that something hasgone crack.

Smith, an intelligence officer in the 19th Battalion, Lan-cashire Fusiliers, was also in action at the Somme. On July4, he and his men attacked the Leipzig Salient, a stronglyfortified section of the German line on Thiepval Ridge.Once again, the attack was repulsed with heavy losses.Smith survived, writing in a very nonpoetic manner in hisbattle report, Owing to hostile MG [machine-gun] firethe advance was made by short rushes. Casualties wereheavy.After Smith and his battered men were pulled out of

the line for leave, he ran into Tolkien in the village ofBouzincourt, and the two old friends talked about theirexperiences.Luckily for him, Tolkien had not taken part on the dis-

astrous opening day of the battle, when a staggering60,000 British soldiers fell, 20,000 of them killed out-right. Held in reserve, his unit watched the lines ofBritish wounded and German prisoners stream past.When elements of the 11th were thrown into the fight-ing, Tolkien was kept back to act as communications of-ficer for the battalion. On July 14, he slogged throughthe battered remains of the village of La Boisselle, he andhis men hauling signal flares, lamps, and rolls of tele-phone wire to maintain communication with headquar-ters. The 11th attacked German trenches aroundOvillers and the fighting was fierce. Tolkiens companycommander was killed, just one of the 267 casualties the11th suffered in two weeks of fighting. Tolkien wasmade battalion signal officer in command of severalnoncommissioned officers and privates.

Throughout July and August, the 11th was yanked inand out of the line several times. In late summer it wasengaged in hard fighting at Thiepval Wood, especially asection of the German line known as the Schwaben Re-doubt. Tolkien, with eight runners under his command,was assigned again to battalion headquarters. While thebattle stormed about him, Tolkien had to ensure that vitalbattlefield information went out to his superiors while si-multaneously coping with runners being wounded orkilled and telephone lines being severed by hostile gunfire. Tolkien kept up with his writing as well as he could under

the circumstances. He recalled working on some of his sto-ries in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts fullof blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents,even some down in dugouts under shell fire. But such oc-casions were rare. You might scribble something on theback of an envelope and shove it in your back pocket, helater wrote, but thats all. You couldnt write. Youd becrouching down among flies and filth.The war continued. In late October, Tolkien and his

men were involved in bloody fighting to take ReginaTrench, located a mere 200 yards from the British lines.Tolkien was stationed at battalion headquarters at ZollernRedoubt. The attack began at precisely 12:18 PM with anartillery barrage, before waves of British soldiers rushedtoward the German trench. This time the artillery fire waseffective enough to catch the Germans by surprise, andmany were killed, wounded, or captured. One of Tolkienssignalers was hit while carrying a pigeon basket; he joined160 other men who were casualties, among them manyofficers knocked out while crossing no-mans-land. ForTolkien and the 11th, this was the last fighting of the Bat-tle of the Somme before they were pulled out of line for amuch needed rest.After surviving four hellish months in one of the wars

deadliest battles, Tolkien succumbed to the most humblebut ubiquitous enemy of alllice. With a fever of 103degrees, he was sent back to Great Britain in early No-vember, diagnosed with trench fever, a disease akin totyphus that was spread by infected lice. A vicious, debil-itating, sometimes deadly disease, trench fever neverthe-less was considered a blighty wound, a nonfatalwound that ensured that the victim would be sent backto Old Blightysoldier slang for Britainto recover.Such wounded men were congratulated by their enviouscomrades; hearing about Tolkiens condition, G.B. Smithimmediately wrote: Stay a long time in England. I ambeyond measure delighted.

WORLD WAR I 16

Tolkien spent the rest of the war in Harrogate Sanato-rium and other Army facilities. In September 1918 he wasdeemed incapable of returning to active service. Back at thefront, Tolkien was sorely missed. Although he often dis-missed his war service with typical English self-deprecation,Tolkien was considered a good officer. On leave in 1917,Wiseman visited the convalescing Tolkien, telling his friendthat he hoped Tolkien would not be sent back to the war.It is you and I now, Wiseman had written to him earlier.Throughout 1917 and 1918, Tolkien was struck by recur-ring bouts of trench fever and was in and out of the hospi-tal. Whenever he was well enough, he continued to fulfillhis duties, being promoted to full lieutenant. He also foundtime to write an unpublished elegiac piece on Gilson andSmith, and worked on his stories and languagesMeanwhile, his surviving friends were still at war. As

Tolkien lay feverishly in bed, G.B. Smith and his men weresettling down in the tiny village of Souastre, behind thefront lines. Smiths stay was uneventful until in late No-vember 1916, when he was hit in the arm and buttock byshell fragments. At first, it was believed he received hisown blighty wound. But by the first week of December,Smith was dead, killed by gangrene from the foul battle-field soil that infected his wounds. After the wars end in 1918, Tolkien worked as an asso-

ciate professor before he became a full professor of Anglo-Saxon languages at Oxford University. He continued to

work on his novels, beginning with The Hobbit in 1937.Although he denied that World War I had any influence onhis subsequent writing, warfare permeates Tolkiens Mid-dle-Earth just as it permeated Europe in the first half of the20th century. No writer can divorce himself from the firesof his own experienceif he did, he would have nothingto write about. Contradicting himself later, Tolkien admit-ted that his stories had been quickened to full life by war.Tolkien and his three friends are reflected in the four

HobbitsFrodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippinin the wildlypopular trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbits longjourney from the verdant fields of the Shire to the barren,evil land of Mordor neatly mirrors Tolkien and hisfriends journey from green England to the ruinedstretches of northern France. Endlessly marching, theyleave the West to battle a dark power in the East, muchas real-life British soldiers did. The characteristics ofTolkiens friends appear in the Hobbits personalities. Thefun-loving G.B. Smith, for instance, serves as the modelfor Pippin. Sampson Gamgee, a well-known Edwardiandoctor who invented Gamgee Tissue used in surgery, lenthis name to Tolkiens character Sam Gamgee, who himselfwas a composite of the men he had fought beside. MySam Gamgee, Tolkien remembered, is indeed a reflec-tion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen Iknew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superiorto myself.

German infantry advance over a newly captured British trench during the last German offensive in the spring of 1918.

WORLD WAR I 17

A vast array of Tolkiens imagery could have been lifteddirectly from a World War I battlefield guide. There arethe Dead Marshes, for example, a place where the deadlay underneath a noxious film of stagnant water, andthe Noman-lands arid and lifeless, choked with ashand crawling muds, sickly white and grey and pockedwith great holes. Hobbits Frodo and Sam take cover incraters much like shell holes, and a foul sump of oilymany-coloured ooze lay at its bottom. Mordors fumesrecall the Germans use of mustard gas, while the whiteand gray mud is similar to the deadly sucking muck ofthe Somme, where the chalky ground had been pulver-ized by artillery barrages. The Dead Marshes, Tolkienfreely admitted, and the approaches to the Morannonowe something to Northern France after the Battle of theSomme.Among the great attractions of Tolkiens Middle-Earth

are the realistic landscape descriptions and detailed mapshe created for his imagined lands, reflecting the skills hehad learned in map-reading and drawing courses atArmy signalers school. Much of Tolkiens worldtheHobbit holes, trolls caves, underground Dwarf and Elfkingdomsmirrors the subterranean existence he expe-rienced on the front lines in France, living in fetidtrenches and deep dugouts.Tolkiens love of huge and heroic battles, such as the

fal l of Gondolin in The Silmarillion, the Battle ofthe Five Armies in The Hobbit, or the great war epic inThe Lord of the Rings, have their origins in the real-lifeBattle of the Somme. Tolkien always denied, however,that the Orcs, a cruel race, represented German soldiers.He wrote to his son in 1941: I have spent most of mylife studying Germanic matters (in the general sense thatincludes England and Scandinavia). There is a great dealmore force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine inthe Germanic ideal.

Tolkiens details reveal his military training: the skillwith which Sam makes a smokeless fire; how the men ofGondor, like army engineers, build bridges and defensiveworks; and the Hobbits backpacks, much like a soldierskit of rolled blankets, cooking pans, spoon and fork, tin-derbox, and a small store of salt, show an accuracy thatany soldier would appreciate. And just as Tolkienstrench fever recurred in debilitating waves, so too doesFrodo suffer from painful fits long after the wars of Mid-dle-Earth have drawn to a close, leaving him lying proneon his bed. I am wounded, he tells Sam, wounded;it will never really heala sentiment many physicallyor emotionally scarred soldiers from any war canshare. Significantly, the destruction of the Dark Lordsempire in The Return of the King is powerfully reflectedin reality as World War I swept away several greatkingdomsCzarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire,Imperial Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The impact of the war on Tolkiens works was obvious

to those who knew him best. Tolkiens close friend andfellow Oxford scholar, C.S. Lewis, author of the Chron-icles of Narnia books and a veteran himself, recognizedthe war in Tolkiens writing. The conflict that dominatesThe Lord of the Rings, Lewis pointed out, has the veryquality of the war my generation knew. It is all here: theendless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of thefront the lively, vivid friendships. Finally, in 1944,Tolkien admitted the effect of the war on himself, writingto his son Christopher, then serving in the Royal AirForce, I hope that in after days the experience of menand things, if painful, will prove useful. It did to me. Paul Fussells influential The Great War and Modern

Memory argues that the romantic epic suffered a fatalwound in the stupid and senseless First World War.Tolkien would have disagreed. In stark contrast to the dis-illusionment and antiwar sentiment of the postwar period,Tolkien unabashedly kept alive the tradition of war as a

Perhaps staged after the battle, this photo claims to show the 11thBattalion in action at Polygon Wood in September 1917. Tolkienserved as a signal officer.

WORLD WAR I 18

noble and romantic ideal. He not only rejected mod-ernism, but revived the heroic epic in English literature.The romantic epic lives on with vigor and dash in Tolkienscavalry charges, his beautiful princesses, and shimmeringenchanted forests. Since his death in 1973, millions ofTolkiens books have continued to sell around the world,and he is easily the most unique, influential, and widelyread writer to emerge from the inferno of World War I. Athree-movie trilogy of his works directed by Peter Jacksonconcluded by sweeping the Academy Awards in 2004.

But such creativity had its costs. Like many former sol-diers, Tolkien downplayed, suppressed, and even deniedthe effects of the war on him, yet they stayed with himall his life. In 1940, writing to his son Michael who hadvolunteered to fight in World War II, Tolkien hinted atthe things he had lost in the First World War. I waspitched into it all, just when I was full of stuff to write,and of things to learn, he said, and never picked it allup again. He and Christopher Wisemanthe only sur-

vivors from the TCBSremained lifelong friends, meet-ing whenever they could to remember their friends inbetter times. Tolkien experienced pain all his lifethe early deaths

of his parents, financial hardship, the war. Like many peo-ple, he retreated into his mind, and there he found an en-chanted land of heroes, beauty, and great deeds. Still, thememories remained. I can see clearly now in my mindseye, Tolkien recalled, the old trenches and the squalidhouses and the long roads of Artois, and I would visitthem again if I could. He never did, except in his books. The war changed Tolkien, as it changed everyone. It in-

jected loss and sadness into his writing, and made his de-scriptions more poignant because they were more real.Mordor could not have existed had Tolkien not experi-enced it firsthand on the Somme. But the war also taughthim to value positive things as wellpity, beauty, hero-ism, loyalty, and the meaning of friendshipthemes thatrun throughout all of his works and still reflect the livesand aspirations of millions of readers today.

Aerial shot of the denuded Somme battlefield. The ruined wastes exactly match Tolkiens descriptions of the evil land of Mordor in The Lordof the Rings.

History is full of great men and great deeds. All American schoolchildren know the story of George Washington crossingthe Delaware River in the dead of winter during the Revolutionary War. Yet how many are told of Washingtons less suc-cessful exploits in the French and Indian War? While George S. Patton was no George Washington, he nevertheless wasone of the most controversial and popular commanders in American history. After World War II, children heard the sagaof Old Blood and Guts and how he led the swift-moving Third Army across western Europe in pursuit of the crumblingNazi Army. But Pattons military achievements did not begin and end in World War II. Instead, they started in WorldWar I. And without his experience in the Great War, Patton might never have learned the fine art of command, of how

WORLD WAR I 19

FIERY YOUNG OFFICER GEORGE S. PATTON RODE INTO WORLD WAR I AT THE HEAD OF THEU.S. ARMYS BRAND-NEW TANK CORPS. IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF A STORIED CAREER.By John Mikolsevek

George S. Patton at the Tank Corps School near Langres, France, July 15, 1918.

Blood & Guts, Grease & Glory

WORLD WAR I 20

to combine soldiers and tanks into one irresistible, mightyphalanxa skill that served the Allies well in the nextwar.When the United States declared war on Germany and

the Central Powers on April 6, 1917, Patton was servingon the staff of General John J. Pershing, his mentor andidol. As a soldier and commander, Pershing was every-thing the 31-year-old Patton wanted to be. Strong-jawed,muscular, and imposing, Pershing garnered respect justby walking into a room. A tough disciplinarian, hedemanded the most from his staff and soldiers; his aideslived in fear of his wrath. Patton began to mimic Persh-ing in word and deed. Already known as a loud-mouthedmartinet, Patton, during his time with Pershing, refinedhis ideas and beliefs on military protocol. Strict aboutdiscipline, he insisted on perfect military protocol. A for-mal salute became known derisively among the men asa Georgie Patton.After accompanying Pershing on his punitive expedition

against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in 1916, Pat-ton joined the generals personal staff, where he used hiswife Beatrices vast fortune, his own political connections,and a growing relationship between his sister Nita andPershing to cement his ties to the quick-rising general.After the United States declared war, Patton followed Per-shing to Europe. Along with 60 other officers and 128War Department clerks, civilians, and enlisted men, Patton left New York City on May 28 aboard the Britishsteamer HMS Baltic.During the voyage, Patton kept him-

self in shape, collected money for war orphans, andworked on his French. While participating in the Stock-holm Olympics in 1912, where he finished fifth in the pen-tathlon, Patton had fallen in love with French culture andlanguage, and although far from fluent in French, hebecame an instructor on the voyage over. Even Pershingfrequented his lessons.

On June 8, Baltic docked at Liverpool to wild celebration,including the playing of The Star Spangled Banner bythe Royal Welch Fusiliers. At last the Americans hadarrived. After landing, Pattons first assignment was tolead 67 troops to their quarters in the Tower of London.While not particularly thrilled with the assignment, Pattonknew that almost every officer back home would tradejobs with him. Although still far from the front, he wascloser to it in London than he would have been in Wash-ington, D.C. For the next few days, Patton kept busysocializing, drinking, and fruitlessly ordering his troopsaround. After a week of celebrating, Pershing and his staffleft for France. Arriving in Paris on June 13, Patton finallysaw his first glimpse of the war, several train loads ofBritish wounded; they did not look very happy. Hebelieved that it was only a matter of time until he had hisown crack at fighting. Once again without specific duties, Patton functioned

basically as the commander of the headquarters troops.The job entailed commanding guards on duty, makingsure that there were enough chauffeurs for the automo-

LEFT: Colonel Samuel D. Rockenbach, chief of the American Tank Corps. RIGHT: Skipper and gunner in a whippet tank north of Verdun.

WORLD WAR I 21

biles and that the cars were running perfectly. Patton com-plained to his wife that personally I have not a great dealto do. I would trade jobs with almost anyone for any-thing. Freely utilizing his wifes wealth, he purchased a12-cylinder, five-passenger Packard automobile worth$4,386the equivalent of more than $50,000 todayand endeavored to be seen everywhere. The fancy new carturned the heads of many superior officers, who some-times wondered how a young captain could afford sucha vehicle.On July 20, Patton traveled with Pershing to meet with

the British commander in chief, Field Marshal Sir DouglasHaig. Prior to departure, Patton installed a license plateon the front of their automobile that read, U.S. No. 1.During the meeting, Pershing impressed Haig, who never-theless judged Pershings staff to be rather unspectacular.But Haig liked Patton, writing in his diary after the meetingthat the A.D.C. [aide-de-camp] is a fire-eater and longsfor the fray. For Patton, there could be no greater praise. Despite the praise from Haig, Pattons disgust with his

monotonous job continued to grow, as more of his WestPoint classmates were promoted ahead of him. Pattonsoon began to look for other jobs. By late July, for thefirst time, he had a serious conversation about tanks andtheir role in the war. Trained as a cavalryman and there-fore appreciative of mobile warfare and aggressive tactics,Patton seemed less than enthusiastic about tanks, writing,The tank is not worth a damn. He stuck with his staffjob, but after following Pershings move to Chaumont onSeptember 1, he grew more frustrated, reporting himselfto be nothing but [a] hired flunky. I shall be glad to getback to the line again and will try to do so in the spring.These damn French are bothering us with a lot of detailswhich have nothing to do with any- thing. I have a hardtime keeping my patience.Patton began to discuss with his wife the possibility of

joining the tank corps. There is a lot of talk about tankshere now and I am interested as I can see no future to mypresent job, he wrote. The casualties in the tanks arehigh, that is lots of them get smashed, but the people inthem are pretty safe as we can be in this war. It will be along long time yet before we have any [tanks] so dont getworried. I love you too much to try to get killed but alsotoo much to be willing to sit on my tail and do nothing.By early October, Patton met and discussed with

Colonel LeRoy Eltinge the role of tanks. Eltinge believedPatton should join them. On October 3, Patton submittedan application to the Tank Service (later called Tank

Corps). In the letter, he wrote of his cavalry background,his mechanical ability, and his fluency in French that madehim the right man for the job. Showing his usual flair forself-promotion, Patton described his experience duringPershings expedition into Mexico, when he had led asmall group of men on a raid that took the lives of threeMexican banditos, including Pancho Villas chief lieu-tenant, Julio Cardenas. During the raid, Patton noted, hehad used an automobile to help in the surprise attack,adding, I believe that I am the only American who hasever made an attack in a motor vehicle. While waiting for an answer, Patton entered the hospital

with a case of jaundice, but he was soon healthy and readyfor his new duty. On November 10, he was officially cho-sen for the Tank Corps and was ordered to prepare aschool for light tanks. Orders in hand, Patton wrote hislast diary entry as a staff officer: This is [my] last day asstaff officer. Now I rise or fall on my own.Pattons first assignment in the Tank Corps was to learn

as much about the tank as possible. In order to begin theAmerican Expeditionary Force Light Tank School, Patton,along with 28-year-old Lieutenant Elgin Braine, wasordered to visit the French tank training center at Cham-lieu for two weeks, followed by one week at a tank factoryat Bilancourt. Braine, a reserve officer, was originallyassigned to the 1st Infantry Division, but was transferredto serve under Patton because of his mechanical and tech-nical expertise. During their weeks studying French lighttanks, Patton and Braine made four suggestions that wereeventually adopted. These included a self-starter, improve-ments in the fuel tank to protect against leaks, an inter-changeable mount that allowed the tank to carry a 37mmcannon or machine gun, and a steel panel to separate thecrew from the engine. While at Chamlieu, Patton drovehis first tank, a French Renault. His first impression ofdriving a tank was that it was easy to control; he thoughtanyone who could drive a car could operate a tank. In typ-ical Patton fashion, he amused himself by knocking overtrees with his new toy.After three weeks of intense study, Patton and Braine

began the process of creating the Light Tank School.Before this could happen, the Tank Corps first had todecide which tanks to use. Following a fact-finding mis-sion, the War Department settled on the Mark VII as thenations heavy tank of choice. The Mark VII, a closemodel of the British heavy tank, weighed a massive 43tons, had an 11-man crew, and a dizzying maximum speedof 6.5 miles per hour. For the light tank, the Americans

WORLD WAR I 22

chose to copy the French Renault. The U.S. modelweighed 6.5 tons, with a maximum speed of 5.5 miles perhour and a two-man crew to operate it: a gunner, usuallya sergeant, and a driver, usually a corporal. Each tank wasequipped with a 37mm cannon or a French Hotchkiss8mm machine gun. Communicating inside the tanksproved difficult. Completely closed in, with little lightseeping through, early tankers devised a primitive buteffective way to communicate. Unable to talk because ofthe noisy engines, the gunner would kick the driver in theback of the head to go forward, a kick on his head to stop,and a kick on either right or left shoulder to go left orright. Prior to the use of radio communication, this wasthe best the tankers could do.With heavy and light tanks selected, the Tank Corps

began to organize and produce its own tanks. Unfortu-nately for the Americans, manufacturers at home were illprepared for the large task aheadonly 26 ever arrivedin Europe. To supply the AEF with the tanks it needed,the U.S. government reached an agreement with AlliedCommander in Chief Marshal Ferdinand Foch for thetransfer of existing light and heavy tanks to the Ameri-cans.

With the tanks on order, the Tank Corps had to growinto a fully operational branch of the AEF. Colonel SamuelD. Rockenbach was formally appointed chief of the TankCorps on December 22. Rockenbach, a graduate of Vir-

ginia Military Institute, was 22 years older than Pattonand his opposite in almost every way. A stoic, even-tem-pered figure, Rockenbach lacked a sense of humor andwas chosen not for his great mind but for his work ethic.At first, Patton and Rockenbachs relationship was rocky,and Pattons first comments on Rockenbach wereextremely critical. Col. R. is the most contrary old cussI ever worked with, he wrote. As soon as you suggestanything he opposed but after about an hours argumentcomes round and proposes the same thing himself. So inthe long run I get my way, but at a great waste of breath.It is good discipline for me for I have to keep my temper.As the Tank Corps prepared to begin training, Patton

wrote a paper about light tanks. The 58-page report was,he bragged, the basis of the U.S. Tank Corps. I think itsthe best Technical Paper I ever wrote. The paper dealtwith the mechanical structure of the tank, the organiza-tion of tank units, the tactics of tank forces, and methodsof instruction and drill. Patton, while neither a great writernor a revolutionary thinker, correctly believed that mobil-ity was the most important factor in a tank. Throughmobility, he said, the tank could attack quickly, and withits increased speed and maneuverability, the tank wouldface less fire and be less vulnerable to enemy attacks. The most insightful aspect of Pattons paper dealt with

tactics and training. While a firm believer in the weaponspower, he also believed that tanks should function as anaid for infantry. The main tactical value of a tank was to

American tanks move into battle line in theArgonne Forest on September 26, 1918.

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help the infantry advance by running over barbed wire,preventing the enemy from manning trench defenses,shielding infantry from enemy machine-gun fire, neutral-izing enemy strongholds, preventing counterattacks, andseizing the initiative and attacking beyond the final objec-tive. While most tanks in World War I were inserted piece-meal, Patton correctly believed that tanks should beemployed en masse. Finding the land on which to train tankers proved to be

difficult. For the training center, Patton chose Bourg, asmall village five miles south of Langres. The ground waslevel and perfect for tank training, and a lone railroadtrack was beneficial in getting troops and eventually tanksto the center. At first, the French refused to allow the AEFaccess to the land. This infuriated Patton, who felt thatthe French were acting more like enemies than allies. Weare more or less held up now by the French who seem toput every obstacle in the way of our getting the groundwe want for Tank center, he groused. You would thinkthey were doing us a great favor to let us fight in theirdamn country. Displaying great diplomatic patience, Pat-ton was able to secure the land, and by January the tankschool was becoming a reality.The next month, Patton learned of his promotion to

major. He immediately pinned two golden oak leaves onhis shoulders signifying his rank. Unlike most officers dur-ing this time, Patton wore his rank proudly and neverfeared the Germans penchant for shooting officers. Soon,he had the tank school up and running. With over 200men in training at Bourg, Patton provided the best learn-ing environment he could for his troops. Kept busyaround the clock, a typical day for soldiers in the tankschool began at 8:20 for morning drills, followed by close-order drills, exercises on saluting at 8:35, then calisthenicsand fitness drills at 10:05, instruction in guard duty andmilitary courtesy at 10:45, followed by foot drill at 11:20.After recess and lunch, officers were required to receivepistol instruction at 1 PM, followed by machine-gun andfoot drill at 1:50 and theory and operation classes from2:50 to 4. The rest of the day, the soldiers were expectedto keep the training center in shipshape order.

In March, Patton and Rockenbach spent a week in Eng-land attempting to get some modifications for their tanks.I argued in favor of four speeds, Patton recalled, butwas ruled an ass. Following the trip, Rockenbach madehis first inspection of the tank school and was extremelyimpressed. After the visit, Patton was in rare form, giving

a speech on discipline. Lack of discipline in war meansdeath or defeat, which is worse than death, he warned.The prize for this war is the greatest of all prizesfree-dom. It is by discipline alone that all your efforts, all yourpatriotism, shall not have been in vain. Without it hero-ism is futile. You will die for nothing. With discipline youare irresistible.On March 19, Patton received word that he had been

promoted to lieutenant colonel, and he was further elatedto hear that 10 Renault tanks were on their way to Bourg.Following a few weeks of training with actual tanks, heand his troops put on their first demonstration on April22. The demonstration went extremely well, and Pattonnoted, The show came off all right except that it wasraining hard and very cold so that one got stuck in a shellhole but I had a reserve one ready and every thing wenton fine. To celebrate the schools success, six days laterPatton organized the 1st Light Tank Battalion, with him-self as battalion commander.While happy with the tank schools progress, Patton

grew bored with the safety of rear duty and longed for aglimpse of the front. I am getting ashamed of myselfwhen I think of all the fine fighting and how little I havehad to do with, he told his wife. On May 21, he finallyhad a chance to travel to the front. Traveling with aFrench major named La Favre, Patton once got within200 yards of the German line. Willing to risk his life fora bit of fun, La Favre turned sarcastically toward the Ger-man line and exposed his bottom to enemy fire as headjusted his leggings. Patton, not to be outdone, took offhis helmet, lit a cigarette, and began to smoke. Luckilyfor both La Favre and Patton, German sharpshooters dis-dained to fire on the two show-offs. Returning from his trip, Patton reorganized the tank

school and formed a second battalion. As the equivalentof a regimental commander, he appointed a chief of staff,adjutant, reconnaissance officer and supply officer. Heplaced Captain Joseph Viner in command of the 1st Bat-talion, also named the 344th Tank Battalion, and CaptainSereno Brett in command of the 2nd Battalion, also namedthe 345th Tank Battalion. In June, Patton accepted a spotat the Army General Staff College in Langres. While busywith the tank school and not really interested in staff duty,he decided to take the class because most general officershad taken it. On August 20, while still in class, Pattonreceived an urgent message: You will report at once tothe Chief of Tank Corps accompanied by your Reconnais-sance officer and equipped for field service. For Patton,

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it was a dream come true. For the first time in his life, hewould lead large numbers of men into battle.By the late summer of 1918, the AEF had grown large

enough to participate fully in the war. Although divisionshad been pushed into battle to stop the German summeroffensive, the St. Mihiel attack would be the first majorengagement the AEF would participate in as a whole.Located 20 miles southeast of Verdun, the town of St.Mihiel had fallen into German hands in 1914. Four yearslater, the Germans still held on to 150 square miles ofFrench territory. While cutting off the salient was impor-tant, the real prize was the ancient fortress of Metz, 30 milesbeyond St. Mihiel. The original plan called for an all-outattack on St. Mihiel, with 15 American divisions and fourFrench divisions moving against the flanks of the salient. Unfortunately, French and British fear caused a change

in the plan. Supported by Foch, Haig believed that a com-plete breakthrough of the St. Mihiel salient was risky andunnecessary. Instead of pushing forward with a break-through, the armies would stop and prepare for the majorengagement against the Hindenburg Line. The new plancalled for the forces to free the railroad through St. Mihielto Verdun and to establish a base for further operations.After cutting off the salient, the AEF would reorganizeand swing north to the Meuse-Argonne Hindenburg Line.Patton set out to see the terrain on which his beloved

tanks would fight. During the last week of August, Pattonand some French soldiers explored the section designatedfor the Tank Corps. Patton found the ground soft, but hedecided that it was suitable for tank use. With this knowl-edge in hand, he set about devising his own plan for histanks. The plan called for Pattons 1st Tank Brigade tosupport the 1st and 42nd Divisions, which were locatedalmost directly in the center of IV Corps. Meanwhile, theAEF received 225 light tanks from the French. Out of the225 light tanks, Patton got 144 of them and planned toput them all to use. Before going into battle, he gaveanother grandiloquent speech. American tanks do notsurrender, he roared. As long as one tank is able tomove it must go forward. Its presence will save the livesof hundreds of infantry and kill many Germans. Finally,this is our big chance. Make it worthwhile.The day of attack arrived. On September 12, 550,000

doughboys and 3.3 million artillery rounds launched theirattack on the St. Mihiel salient. Patton wrote in his diary,When the shelling first [started] I had some doubts aboutthe advisability of sticking my head over the parapet, butit is just like taking a cold bath, once you get in its all

right. And I soon got out on the parapet. By 9:15, Pattonwas growing weary of staying behind the lines. The excite-ment of the battle and the urge to prove his courage weretoo much for him to ignore. He decided to leave his com-mand post and see for himself what was going on.Patton moved on foot toward the action and immedi-

ately saw the wrath of war as the dead lay scattered acrossthe field. As for his tanks, he came upon a few stuck inthe mud and trenches, but in general the tanks were per-forming well. Patton eventually met up with some Frenchtankers under his command around the town of St. Baus-sant, and he also encountered Brig. Gen. DouglasMacArthur, commander of the 84th Brigade. The twoconversed on a hill as bullets whizzed by. I joined himand the creeping barrage came along toward us, Pattonrecalled. We stood and talked but neither was muchinterested in what the other said as we could not get ourminds off the shells. One well-placed artillery round onthat cold, rainy, September day could well have changedthe course of World War II. After talking with MacArthur, Patton moved on toward

Pulling a tank out of a ditch during the American attack on the Ger-man line at the St. Mihiel salient.

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the action. In Essey, he met some American soldiers whowere afraid to cross a bridge a French soldier had toldthem was mined. This made me mad, Patton said, soI led them through on foot but there was no danger as theBosch [was] shelling the next town. After crossing thebridge, he hitched a ride on a nearby tank. A few milesout of town, while still on the top of the tank, Pattonnoticed paint chips beginning to fly off the tankhecouldnt hear anything over the noiseand immediatelyjumped off the vehicle into a shell hole. Unfortunately forPatton, the tank crew did not notice his hurried departureand went on, leaving him in a wide-open field withinfantry troops still 600 yards behind. Stuck in the shellhole, Patton again pressed his luck. The bright thoughtoccurred to me that I could move across the front in anoblique fashion and not appear to run from the Germansyet at the same time get back, he recalled. Finally Idecided that I could get back obliquely. So I started listen-ing for the machine guns with all my ears. As soon as them.g.s opened I would lay down and beat the bullets eachtime. Some time I will figure the speed of sounds and bul-lets and see if I was right. It is the only use I know of thatmath has ever been to me.After his narrow escape, Patton rejoined the infantry

and began organizing an attack of the town of Beney.Around 3 PM, exhausted and content with the progressionof the battle, he sat down for his first meal, only to findthat a mischievous German POW had replaced the foodin his hamper sack with rocks. He made do with somecrackers taken from a dead German. Following the suc-cessful attack on Beney, both the 1st and 2nd Tank Bat-talions settled in for the night. The next day, Patton andhis tanks moved forward against little German resistance.On September 14, his forces pushed aside German resist-ance and captured the town of Jonville. For the Allies, the battle of St. Mihiel was a tremendous

success. More than 16,000 Germans were captured, alongwith 450 guns; and more than 7,000 Germans were killed,wounded, or missing. Only a few hundred Americandeaths were reported. Of Pattons 174 tanks engaged inthe battle, three were destroyed, 22 were ditched, and 14broke down. With only five killed in action and 19wounded, Pattons tank forces had done extremely well.The performance of the tanks, while far from perfect,proved to doubters that tanks were an important andpowerful weapon, not just a laboring machine.

Patton believed that he and his forces had done well but

could do better. Personally, Patton had shown greatcourage under fire and tremendous leadership qualities.Rockenbach, however, believed Pattons conduct duringthe battle was less than exemplary. As a tank brigade com-mander, he felt that Pattons duty was at headquarters,not running around in a field chasing tanks. In Rocken-bachs reprimand of Pattons conduct, he listed threepoints: 1. The five light tanks of a platoon had to worktogether and not be allowed to be split up. 2. When a tankbrigade was allotted to a corps, the commander was toremain at the corps headquarters or be in close telephoniccommunications with it. 3. I wish you would especiallyimpress on your men that they are fighting [with] tanks,they are not infantry, and any man who abandons his tankwill in the future be tried. Pattons personal leadershipduring the battle endeared him to his soldiers. WhileRockenbach considered Pattons wandering off to thefront line a weakness, others considered it a strength.George Patton was always on the front lines, never inthe rear with the Red Cross, wrote Captain Viner. Thatwas one of the secrets to his greatness.With the St. Mihiel salient closed, the AEF immediately

readied itself for the next move, the Meuse-Argonne offen-sive. For that attack, 10 divisions planned to attack in thefirst wave, while eight others waited in reserve. Collec-tively, the AEF faced 18 well-trained German divisions.Following an artillery bombardment, the American forceswere to attack a 20-mile-wide, 13-mile-long area.Throughout the area were countless German defense for-tifications, dugouts, and other obstacles. Patton devised aplan for a concentrated tank thrust through the enemydefenses. The 1st Tank Brigade was ordered to supportthe 28th and 35th Divisions of I Corps as they attackedfrom the west. The two units would break out of the lineand advance as far as they could. The attack started on September 26 as the artillery bom-

bardment broke through the heavy fog. Around 6 AM, Pat-ton seemingly disregarded Rockenbachs advice and rep-rimand and left his command post to see how his tankswere performing. Once again traveling on foot, Patton fol-lowed tank tracks on the Clermont-Neuvilly-Boureuilles-Varennes road, and after a few kilometers met up withsome of his tanks. Almost immediately German artilleryshells hit and were followed by machine-gun fire. Afterordering everyone to hit the dirt, Patton ordered all groundtroops toward a railroad cut. Once in the safety of the cut, Patton waited for the firing

to end. While waiting for the attack to subside, more and

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more infantry troops began running from the front, seekingprotection in the cut. With the attack dying down, Pattonnoticed tanks stopped before a large trench. Seizing a lullin the German bombardment, he organized the infantry-men and marched them to the trench. As they approachedthe trench, Patton ordered all to hit the dirt again, asmachine-gun bullets flew over their heads. After the fire died down again, Patton immediately

ordered the men to help get the tanks across the trench,and the men began to tear down the trench walls. TheGermans began another barrage, and machine-gun fireburst out from the front. Unmoved by the firing, Pattonordered his troops to hold their ground and continue dig-ging. While some continued to dig, others fled back to therailroad cut. Patton, angry at their lack of courage, con-tinued to dig and even hit a few soldiers over the headwith a shovel to keep them working. With the fire increas-ing and more troops falling on the side of him, he pushedforward, yelling, To hell with them, they cant hit me!Finally the tanks advanced past the trenches, and Patton

readied himself and his motley group of soldiers toadvance. Waving his big walking stick over his head, hetried to rally the troops and shouted, Lets go get them!Whos with me? Caught in the moment, 100 soldiersjumped to their feet and ran down the hill with Patton.German machine-gun fire increased fantastically, causing

Patton and his soldiers to hit the dirt after only 50 yards.With machine-gun fire growing stronger by the minute,Patton had a sudden vision: I felt a great desire to run, Iwas trembling with fear when suddenly I thought of myprogenitors and seemed to see them in a cloud over theGerman lines looking at me. I became calm at once andsaying aloud, It is time for another Patton to die. [I]called for volunteers and went forward to what I honestlybelieved to be certain death. Six men went with me; fivewere killed.Patton quickly picked himself up, waved his walking

stick, and shouted to the six men following him, Lets go,lets go! As the other men quickly fell, Pattons orderly,Private First Class Joseph T. Angelo, wondered what thelunatic was trying to prove, armed with only a walkingstick. Forced to take cover with Angelo in a shell hole, Pat-ton once again tried to advance. A few seconds later, he felta shock of a bullet enter his leg. Struggling to move, Pattonmanaged to crawl back in the shell hole with Angelo.Angelo managed to bandage his wound, and the twoawaited help. After a few hours, the fire abated and Patton,still conscious, was placed on a stretcher and taken to themedic tent. Injured and suffering from massive blood loss, Patton

ordered the medics to take him to the 35th Division head-quarters so he could give his report of the front. After

An American tank moves to the front past Germanprisoners carrying their wounded to the rear onthe first morning of the attack at St. Mihiel.

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reporting to the headquarters, Patton was sent to HospitalNumber 11 for immediate surgery. The next morning heawoke, dazed but otherwise feeling rather good. The bullethad entered his left thigh and exited two inches to the leftof his rectum. Patton wrote home to tell his wife that hewas missing half my bottom but otherwise all right.Once again, Pattons tanks proved their worth. Overall

the two battles, St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne offen-sive cost the AEF 117,000 casualities, but they inflicted100,000 casualties on the enemy while 26,000 prisoners,874 cannons, and 3,000 machine guns were captured. Thetwo battles helped push the Germans to the brink ofdefeat. For Patton, however, the war was over.A few days after being wounded, Patton was proud to

read stories of his death-defying exploits. The headlineof one story read, Col. Patton, Hero of Tanks, Hit byBulletCrawled into Shell Hole and Directed Monstersin Argonne Battle. While thrilled with what he had doneso far, Patton was slightly depressed, writing to his wife,I feel terribly to have missed all the fighting. Boredwith hospital life and frustrated by not being able to fight,he was cheered by another promotionthis time tocolonel. To his immense gratification, he was alsoawarded both the Distinguished Service Medal and Dis-tinguished Service Cross, and he wore them with pridefor the remainder of his life.

The war ended while Patton was still recovering, and henoted almost sadly in his diary: Peace was signed andLangres was very excited. Many flags. Got rid of mybandage. After getting out of the hospital and writinghis numerous reports, Patton returned to his tanks, butwithout the war his job was boring, and he was saddenedas many of his soldiers left for home. He remained inFrance for months after the war, and he prepared to leavewith his brigade around March. Patton left aboard the SSPatria on March 1 and arrived in New York with muchfanfare on March 17, 1919. Swamped by numerous news-paper reporters, Patton was quoted in the New YorkEvening Mail as saying, The tank is only used in extremecases of stubborn resistance. They are the natural answerto the machine gun, and as far as warfare is concerned,

have come to stay just as much as the airplanes have.The war was over, the Allies had won, and Patton ha