Patton's Prayer

In early December 1944 General George S. Patton's 3rd Army was stalled in front of the Siegfried Line along the French - German border.  Patton was a master of combined arms operations and he knew he needed tactical air support from the Army Air Forces before he could breach the Siegfried Line and push on towards the Rhine River.

But the weather was not cooperating.  The winter of 1944 was one of the worst on record for central Europe.  Thick cloud decks and heavy fog were keeping Allied aircraft grounded all across France and the Low Countries.  Patton was frustrated, impatient and angry.  He saw German resistance crumbling before him yet he knew he couldn't push forward into the German homeland without adequate air cover.  The 3rd Army and its supporting Air Force ground attack squadrons were a deadly team.  Ground-based artillery often had trouble keeping up with the 3rd Army's advanced forces, but the Air Force's growing fleet of attack aircraft like the rugged and deadly P-47 Thurderbolt could range ahead of the forward ground forces, striking military strong points, attacking enemy convoys and in general wreaking havoc and helping to open lines of advance for Pattons armored formations.

In the second week of December Patton's frustration hit a boiling point.  Patton was a man of deep religious faith and he absolutely believed that God was on the side of the Allies.  The General decided it was time to remind the Good Lord just who's side he was supporting.  On December 8th Patton put out an order directing all 3rd Army chaplains to pray for good weather.  At the same time he called for his staff chaplain, Colonel James O'Neill.

I quote from Patton's published diary of WWII, 'War As I Knew It':

General Patton: "Chaplain, I want you to publish a prayer for good weather.  I'm tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as the Germans.  See if we can't get God to work on our side."

Chaplain O'Neill:  "Sir, it's going to take a pretty thick rug for that kind of praying."

General Patton:  "I don't care if it takes the flying carpet, I want the praying done."

Chaplain O'Neill:  "Yes, sir.  May I say, General, that it usually isn't a customary thing among men of my profession to pray for clear weather to kill fellow men."

General Patton:  "Chaplain, are you teaching me theology or are you the Chaplain of the Third Army?  I want a prayer."

Chaplain O'Neill:  "Yes, sir."

What Chaplain O'Neill came up with is one of the classic military prayers:

"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend.  Grand us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen".

After the war the chaplain, Monsignor James O'Neill (by that time a retired Brigadier General) wrote down his version of the story.  It helps clarify some of the dates surrounding the event.  In the classic movie 'Patton' starring George C. Scott we are led to believe that Patton orders the prayer in reaction to 3rd Army's difficulty reaching the Ardennes as they advanced to relieve American forces trapped during the Battle of the Bulge.  The truth is that Patton ordered this prayer at least a week before the Germans launched their offensive into the Ardennes.

Patton directed that the prayer, along with his Christmas greeting to the Soldiers of the 3rd Army, be printed and distributed just before Christmas.  The printing job was immense.  Virtually every Soldier in the 3rd Army was to receive a copy so hundreds of thousands of copies needed to be printed, and printed fast.  The job was beyond the capability of the printing services available within the 3rd Army Adjutant General's office.  Chaplain O'Neill discussed the requirement with the 3rd Army Engineer and the decision was made to have the 664th Engineer Topographic Battalion, with its multiple large format offset presses, execute the print mission.

Patton's prayer, printed on the back side of his Christmas
greeting to the Soldiers of 3rd Army

Patton's Christmas greeting (front side)

By December 14th 1944 the prayer was distributed throughout 3rd Army.  On December 16th the German Army launched operation 'Wacht am Rhein' ('Watch on the Rhine') or as we refer to it today, the Battle of the Bulge.  Hitler's plan was to attack west through the Ardennes region in Belgium, capture the port of Antwerp, split the Allied armies in two and force the Americans and British to accept a separate peace. Within 24 hours of being notified of the German offensive Patton turned the entire 3rd Army 90 degrees and raced north to relieve the trapped forces.  Patton smelled blood; the Germans had stuck their neck out and he intended to cut it off.  But he still had to contend with the weather.

For seven days the American forces trapped in the Ardennes pocket struggled to hold back the German onslaught, but were denied close air support due to the foul weather. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, on December 23rd the weather cleared.  Allied aircraft could range freely over the Ardennes and they extracted a fearsome toll on the Germans.  At the same time 3rd Army forces smashed into the southern flank of the German pocket, shattering and all but destroying the enemy forces before it.  The German Army never recovered from the Battle of the Bulge and 'Wacht am Rhein' was the last offensive ever mounted by Hitler's military.

Patton was convinced that the prayer, as applied by all the 3rd Army Soldiers who received a copy, was instrumental in changing the weather in the Allies favor.  In Patton's mind it was confirmation that God was on his side and on the side of the 3rd US Army.  For his part in composing the prayer Chaplain O'Neill was personally awarded the Bronze Star medal by Patton.

The story of Patton's prayer is important to me for two reasons.  First, the images of the card you see above are those of an original card issued to my uncle, Captain Andy Harbison.  Andy was a battery commander in the 176th Field Artillery Battalion which was operating in General Support of 3rd Army.  He signed the card and sent it home to my aunt, Dorothy (Dottie) Harbison in Buffalo, NY.

This extract from the 176th's field log highlights the battalion's involvement in the Battle of the Bulge.

The second reason is the 664th Engineer Topographic Battalion's involvement in the printing of Patton's 1944 Christmas greeting and prayer.  While not a 'mapping' mission, it still represents a fascinating piece of US Army WWII topographic history.  Almost 39 years to the day after General Patton ordered these cards printed I reported for duty with the indirect successor of the 644th Engineer Topographic Battalion.  As a young Engineer captain I found myself assigned to the 649th Engineer Battalion (Topographic) in Schwetzingen, Germany.  The 649th provided topographic support - mapping, survey, terrain analysis and map distribution - to all US Army forces in the European theater. A tenuous connection perhaps, but I like to think that I am part of the legacy of units that helped the US Army achieve victory in WWII.

So, like General Patton, let me wish you all a holiday greeting in the firm belief that the Good Lord is on our side.

Merry Christmas!

Brian

Book Of The Month for February 2011 - "The Candy Bombers"

Oh my gosh, I've been negligent!

I just realized that I never did a Book of the Month for January, and today is the last day of February.  I hustled over to my book stacks and pulled a few good candidates off the shelves.  Plenty of fodder for future months!

This month's choice was a surprise book.  It's one I had never heard of and picked it up from the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble, thinking I'd give it a read when all else had been devoured.  I got it home and started glancing at the opening chapters and realized I needed to put this book at the head of the reading list.

"The Candy Bombers, The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour" by Andrei Cherny is a must-read for anyone interested in early post-war Europe and early Cold War history.  In fact, the drama and situations Cherny outlines regarding immediate post-war Germany and our more recent history at 'peace enforcement' post-war Iraq share startling parallels.

I had always thought that America ended the war in Europe with a clear vision of just what to do with this conquered country.  Cherny makes it clear that America stumbled into her post-war role in Germany, moving hesitantly towards the realization that we bore not just a huge responsibility in getting this wrecked nation back on its feet, but that unless America and her post-war allies, the British and French,  took decisive steps the Soviets would have their way with Berlin and ultimately the entire German nation.

Cherny's story pivots around two key players in post-war Germany; General Lucius Clay and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.

Clay was Harry Truman's very last choice for the post of military governor of Germany.  A number of seemingly more suitable civilian candidates turned the president down flat when offered the position - the job and all it implied was viewed as political suicide.  Out of frustration Truman told the Pentagon to find a general officer who could be ordered to take the job.  They shoved Lucius Clay through the door to the Oval Office and a few minutes later he came out the effective overlord of post-war Germany.

As it turned out, Lucius Clay was perfect for the job.  An extremely talented Army Corps of Engineer officer with extensive wartime project and program management experience, Clay had the intelligence, experience, education, political savvy and powers of observation that were precisely what the ruler of post-war Germany needed to not just set the defeated nation on the course to reconstruction but to stare down the Russians in what were effectively the opening gambits of the Cold War.  Cherny does a great job of tracing Clay's metamorphosis from a believer in the good intentions of the post-war Soviet Union to a ram-rod believer in the Soviet Union's evil intent towards Germany and all of Eastern Europe.  Clay arrived in Germany in 1946 believing in and determined to abide by the the Allied agreements on the partitioning and control of Germany and Berlin.  In a very short time he realized the Russians had long since stopped abiding by wartime agreements and were charting their own course for domination in Eastern Europe.  Clay's observations often put him at odds with Truman administration officials who still viewed the Soviets through the lens of wartime cooperation and good will.

Clay found an able, if somewhat unstable ally in James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy who was about to become Truman's first Secretary of Defense.  Forrestal was a self-made man, a multi-millionaire investor and Democrat who was driven and passionate about national defense.  Forrestal was also nobody's fool, and he quickly discerned that the Soviets were now the emerging global enemy - an enemy that needed to be stared down wherever they tried to force their hand.

And the first place the Soviets tried to force their hand was in Berlin.  I won't go into the details of mechanics of the Berlin Airlift.  The book tells the story quite well.  The Airlift is not just a simple story of the movement of supplies to keep a city alive, it is the story of a defenseless nation watching as their former conquers marshaled all the technology of war to beat back a looming menace and set the conditions for the rise of a free and democratic Germany.

This book demonstrates that America is a force for good in this world.  It's a lesson far too many of today's  politicians need to learn and understand.