This country is at war with Germany. We shall go on to the end. I remember the sheets of

plane which came up and almost blinded us for my guns.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the World War II podcast. I'm Agnes Wallace.

George S. Patton Jr. starred as an Olympic athlete in the 1912 Stockholm Games

in 1916 under John J. Pershing. Patton joined the Mexican expedition against the

paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco Panchovia when the U.S. entered the

First World War. Patton joined the new Tank Corps and commanded the U.S. Tank School in France,

leading tanks into combat he'll be wounded near the end of the war.

But Patton is best remembered for his exploits and the battlefields of World War II.

And this is what we're looking at in this episode from Morocco through Sicily to Dede.

Joining me is Kevin Heamel. Kevin has worked as a historian for the U.S. Army and is currently

doing work for the Arlington National Cemetery. He's also a tour guide for Stephen Ambrose

Historical Tours and is the author of Patton's Photographs War as he saw it and his new book

is Patton's War and American Generals Combat Leadership Volume 1 November 1942 to July 1944.

So let's get started. The Patton family. Did he have a military background? Was he

seeped in the Army? I would say yes. So his grandfather was killed during the Civil War.

His grandfather was a colonel and then his father went to VMI Virginia Military Institute,

like the grandfather, but never really served in the Army. He became a lawyer.

The family moved out to California but when George was little the father would have old

Confederate generals or officers come to visit and they would tell him grand stories of the

Confederacy and fighting in the Civil War. So he grew up with a lot of these war stories in his

head and his father would also read ancient combat stories, you know, Phoenicians, Romans,

...