By Alex Kershaw.
New York: Dutton-Penguin Random House, 2024.
ISBN 978-0-593-18377-9. Photographs. Maps. Bibliography. Notes. Index.
Pp. 345. $32.00.
One may muse, “not another book about General Patton!” What more is there to say about his military exploits in World War II? To each soldier in combat there is more than leadership, more than action on the battlefield; there is a spiritual element. General George S. Patton was no different. Alex Kershaw’s Pattons’s Prayer expertly weaves the military leadership and successes of Patton with his deep faith. In a conversation with his chaplain, James H. O’Neill, Patton once stated, “I am a strong believer in Prayer. There are three ways that men get what they want—by planning, by working, and by praying” (p. 19).
The book opens in November 1944 with General Patton, Commander of Third Army, pushing east toward Germany. It was believed the war with Germany would be over by Christmas. Then the weather changed; the Allies’ advance stalled sixty miles from the German border. The Lorraine Campaign was bringing heartache and frustration. “Above all, Patton cursed the weather” (p. 7). He was “stuck in the mud.” In early December, the weather worsened further; Patton decided to muster divine intervention. On 8 December, Patton called his Chief of Chaplains for the Third Army, Chaplain O’Neill, on the phone and asked, “Do you have a good prayer for weather? We must do something about those rains if we are to win the war” (p. 16). O’Neill created his own prayer: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of they great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we had to content. Grant 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” (p. 17). Patton was pleased; 250,000 copies were printed and distributed within forty-eight hours to all the soldiers in Third Army.
Author Alex Kershaw paints a picture of Patton’s faith throughout the book. He describes how Patton never doubted God was on his side, and that he relied on prayer and drew strength from his faith. To those who knew him well, his thoughts indicated that his life was dominated by a feeling of dependence on God. As Kershaw states, “He was an unusual mixture of a profane and highly religious man” (p. 75).
The Battle of the Bulge opened on 16 December 1944, and it became the greatest ever fought, in terms of number of U.S. troops involved, in American military history. On 23 December, the prayer was answered. Chaplain O’Neill was brought to see Patton. “General Patton had prayed for fair weather for Battle. He got it” (p. 106). Did the prayer written by Chaplain O’Neill make a difference? After the Battle of the Bulge ended, a prominent clergyman, Daniel Poliny, who worked for several newspapers, interviewed Third Army soldiers. Everywhere he went, “…he found men in Patton’s Third Army who ‘believed—firmly believed—that God’ had answered Patton’s prayer” (p. 205).
On 22 March 1945, Third Army soldiers crossed the Rhine before British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Patton’s rival. In his diary, Patton wrote, “I am grateful to the Lord for the great blessings he has heaped on me and the Third Army, not only in the success which He had granted us, but in the weather which He is now providing” (p. 227). Kershaw shows that Patton’s life was defined by courage, victory, and faith. He prayed every day; wrote in his diary messages to God; cited God in orders; and he thanked God. He attended services when he could. He had faith; he had confidence.
Patton’s Prayer is a fast read and will be enjoyed by people of faith, as well as anyone interested in World War II history and General Patton. Alex Kershaw deftly shows Patton as a man who led from the front, and a man who historians generally agree was one of the greatest military leaders produced by the United States.
Colonel James H. Youngquist, AUS-Ret.
Suntree, Florida