Where did George S. Patton die?

George S. Patton Jr. (Nov 11, 1885 – Dec 21, 1945) and his Chief of Staff, Major General Hobart Gay, decided to go pheasant hunting for a day. With his driver PFC Horace Woodring at the wheel, Patton and Gay in the back seat, the car was just east of Mannheim. The car was driving relatively slowly as the road was rough where railroad tracks crossed. A truck pulled from a supply yard and Patton’s car struck it on the right front. Patton was thrown forward and hit his head. Patton was transported to the 130th Station Army hospital at Heidelberg.

He had broken his nose and two vertebrae in his neck. He lingered in the hospital for several days as his wife Beatrice traveled to Germany to be with him. A Neurosurgeon was brought in, but he died after 12 days, officially recorded from "pulmonary edema and heart failure", probably from quadriplegic paralysis, or which could mean he caught a pneumonia-like infection in the hospital, something the Army might want to cover-up, but not uncommon.

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17 Comments

Thomas Stewart

There is a big conspiracy theory around his death, and there is a ton of evidence to support that the accident was a failed assassination attempt. Patton had made many enemies, he had openly blamed the allied high command for extending the length of the war and costing thousands of unnecessary deaths, He openly stated that Eisenhower was using the war to set himself up to run for political office, He made it clear to everyone that he wanted to rearm the German army and attack the Soviets and get rid of the communist threat before it got any bigger. There was only one General that the Germans, the Soviets, and the Allied armies all feared and that was Patton. He could not be controlled and he knew way too much. He had resigned from the military, this was not the same as retirement because he could not be gagged and he was not a man to stay silent. He had made it clear that he wasn't just going to talk he was going to shout it from the rooftops. He was not a man that you wanted back home doing interviews, spreading his insider knowledge, or god forbid writing a book. He had to be silenced. He was a great General, he could read a battle like a book, he was right with all his predictions. He had survived the accident, he was recovering when he should have died, they were going to bring him back to USA, and he was going to tell all. Imagine what the world would be like today if he had.

T.j. O'Connor

Thomas Stewart, doesn't seem like the assassination attempt failed to me

teacherchicky

Gery Tillmanns, old blood AND guts not am.

teacherchicky

Laurie Johnson Gonzalez, that was the Korean War!

teacherchicky

I don't know about the conspiracy theory but it does make sense because it's difficult for me to believe that this decorated General who had survived many WWII battles recently, just happened to go out pheasant hunting and is driving slowly and carefully down a road and "gently" collides with a military truck; gently hits it and HE dies! I never read what happened to the soldier(s) he was riding with but something sounds off!

timwhitestevens

Thomas Stewart, I agree totally with what you said. It is horrible that he died, probably by assassination, right after World War II, in which he played such a big part in winning for the allies.

Lawanta

Should've gone with my gut - knew it was the result of a car crash, just wasn't sure where.

Laurie Johnson Gonzalez

4077 MASH? Really? Some people actually picked that.

Kevin Mournighan

Knew he died overseas and the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was from the show MASH.

billyboy915

trudyroach, While the use of a double adverb both ending in "ly" is ugly and considered bad form, the usage is not exactly, technically wrong. To your point, the line could have been written another way in order to make it more pleasing to the ear. There are other grammatical mistakes that bother me more in this ill-written explanation. Besides being a run on sentence, the final sentence makes it sounds as if the neurosurgeon died after 12 days. It was also unnecessary to capitalize neurosurgeon.