George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army

Patton urged his soldiers to do their duty regardless of personal fear, and he exhorted them to aggressiveness and constant offensive action.

Patton's job had been to train the Third Army to prepare it for the upcoming Allied invasion of France, where it would join in the breakout into Brittany seven weeks after the amphibious landing at Normandy.

[1][2] By 1944, Patton had been established as a highly effective and successful leader, noted for his ability to inspire his men with charismatic speeches, which he delivered from memory because of a lifelong trouble with reading.

[6] His jeep bore oversized rank placards on the front and back, as well as a klaxon horn which would loudly announce his approach from afar.

[7] Patton was an effective combat commander, having rehabilitated II Corps during the North African campaign and then led the Seventh United States Army through the Invasion of Sicily during 1943, at times personally appearing to his troops in the middle of battle in hopes of inspiring them.

[8] Patton's army had beaten General Bernard Montgomery to Messina which gained him considerable fame,[9] although the infamous slapping incident sidelined his career for several months thereafter.

[10][11] At the time of the speeches, Patton was attempting to keep a low profile among the press, as he had been ordered to by General Dwight Eisenhower.

[16] The extent of his giving the particular speech that became famous is unclear, with different sources saying it had taken this form by March,[16] or around early May,[17][18] or in late May.

[19] Though he was unaware of the actual date for the beginning of the invasion of Europe (as the Third Army was not part of the initial landing force),[14] Patton used the speech as a motivational device to excite the men under his command and prevent them from losing their nerve.

[20] Patton delivered the speech without notes, and so though it was substantially the same at each occurrence, the order of some of its parts varied.

[21] One notable difference occurred in the speech he delivered on 31 May 1944, while addressing the U.S. 6th Armored Division, when he began with a remark that would later be among his most famous:[22] No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.

[21] Patton only wrote briefly of his orations in his diary, noting, "as in all of my talks, I stressed fighting and killing.

When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers.

But the real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real battle than they do about fucking.

What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch?

Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.

One of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were moving toward Tunis.

Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?'

No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say 'Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named George Patton!'

The general's strong reputation caused considerable excitement among his men, and they listened intently, in absolute silence, as he spoke.

As one officer recounted of the end of the speech, "The men instinctively sensed the fact and the telling mark that they themselves would play in world history because of it, for they were being told as much right now.

Deep sincerity and seriousness lay behind the General's colorful words, and the men well knew it, but they loved the way he put it as only he could do it.

[27] In response to criticisms of his coarse language, Patton wrote to a family member: "When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty.

It may not sound nice to a bunch of little old ladies, at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember.

"[21] Under Patton, the Third Army landed in Normandy during July 1944 and would go on to play an integral role in the last months of the war in Europe, closing the Falaise pocket in mid-August,[28] and playing the key role in relieving the Siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December, a feat regarded as one of the most notable achievements in the war.

Author Terry Brighton called it "the greatest motivational speech of the war and perhaps of all time, exceeding (in its morale boosting effect if not as literature) the words Shakespeare gave King Henry V at Agincourt".

Scott's iteration omitted much of the middle of the speech relating to Patton's anecdotes about Sicily and Libya, as well as his remarks about the importance of every soldier to the war effort.

[31] In contrast to Patton's humorous approach, Scott delivered the speech in an entirely serious, low and gruff tone.

[32] Convicted spy Robert Hanssen was identified by the FBI from his repeated use of Patton's phrase about "the purple-pissing Japanese".