Patton and His Pistols

Book excerpt: Intrigued by hints of “the bigger man” behind the war personality of Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., the Curator of History of the West Point Museum and a former “Army wife” studied and compared innumerable legends and stories about him. The resulting profile is the unvarnished Patton, as the public saw him and as his friends and soldiers knew him. Based solidly on contemporary sources, many of them never before tapped by historians, Patton’s exploited in Mexico, in France in 1918, and during World War II, are strung together by kernels of truth often more startling than the fiction which has surrounded them. One of America’s most famous and controversial generals is depicted through his attitude toward his famous hand guns and uniforms, and the manner in which he reacted to war and to peace. Four pistols are featured in the book, because four pistols were featured in his ife. Sixteen pages of pertinent illustrations, many published for the first time…including the only known photograph of Patton carrying two pistols…accompany the documented narrative. The pistol expert will find detailed appendixes on General Patton’s favorite weapons and their accouterments. Patton and His Pistols is a book for everyone interested in Patton the leader and Patton the man.