Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

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MORGUE

U.S. ARMY 130TH STATION HOSPITAL

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY

DECEMBER 21, 1945

7:00 P.M.

George Patton’s body is wheeled down to a makeshift morgue in the hospital basement. The room was a horse stall back in the days when this building was a German cavalry barracks. It might have made more sense simply to keep Patton in Room 110, where he died, but the humiliation of his body being stored in a stall is nothing compared to the grisly spectacle that will unfold if a photograph of the dead general’s body is splashed across front pages of newspapers worldwide. Hiding Patton in the basement is the best way to avoid the horde of journalists that has descended upon this tiny military hospital. Sergeant Meeks makes the concealment complete by bringing Patton’s personal four-star flag to the hospital, where he shields the general’s body by draping the flag over his corpse.

There will be no autopsy, at the demand of Beatrice Patton. The doctors quietly insist, but she will not bend on this issue. Beatrice cannot bear the thought of her beloved Georgie being carved up. Instead, she mourns him by making plans for Patton’s funeral. There are many issues that need to be confronted immediately. For instance, the hospital has no morticians, and thus no one capable of preparing the body for burial. There are also no caskets, so one will have to be flown in from London. Finally, there is the matter of where George Patton will be laid to rest.

Beatrice wants him buried at West Point, where he can be surrounded by soldiers for eternity.

The army says no. Of all the thousands of Americans who have died on foreign soil during the Second World War, not a single man has been shipped home for burial, due to the cost. Vast cemeteries in Europe and Asia now hold the American dead. As distinguished as Patton might be, allowing him to be buried anyplace other than Europe would set a dangerous precedent.

“Of course he must be buried here,” Beatrice Patton says when she is informed of this policy. “I know that George would want to lie beside the men of his army who have fallen.”

Christmas is just days away. The decision is made to bury Patton before the holiday, rather than wait until afterward. He is laid to rest at the American Military Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg. Neither Gen. Dwight Eisenhower nor President Harry Truman attends. One German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich, will write eloquently about their former enemy’s burial: “In spite of the pouring rain, thousands lined the streets from the central railroad station along the tracks to the cemetery, in order to render this last homage to the dead general. Hundreds of people walked from the capital to attend the burial ceremonies. Representatives of nine countries and highest-ranking officers of the American troops stationed in Europe followed the coffin … While the gun carriage with the coffin was on its way from the railroad station to the cemetery, a French battery fired a seventeen-round volley of salute. During the burial, a military band played the Third Army March. After a brief religious service, the coffin was lowered into the grave.”



Pallbearers carrying Patton’s casket in Luxembourg

Patton once wrote, “I certainly think it is worth going into the army just to get a military funeral. I would like to get killed in a great victory and then have my body born [sic] between the ranks of my defeated enemy, escorted by my own regiment, and have my spirit come down and revel in hearing what people thought of me.”

George Patton did not suffer the death he once longed for. But his body has been borne through the streets of a defeated Germany, and on this day he has had his military funeral.