“The Generals: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, and the Winning of World War II”
Author: Winston Groom
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Pages: 512
Price: $30.00 (Hardcover)
“The Generals,” Groom’s tenth volume of military history, tells the stories of George Patton, George Marshall and Douglas MacArthur.
It was only two years ago that Winston Groom published “The Aviators,” the story of three pioneers: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle and Charles Lindberg.
Whereas “The Aviators” was in part a tale of engineering, technological advances in aviation, metallurgy, aircraft design, engines, fuel, navigation, as well as courage, “The Generals” is more personal, and focuses on the powers of leadership, the genius, obsession, charisma and personal bravery of these three talented, ambitious and truly unusual men.
Patton was possibly the most eccentric. He was the richest officer in the U.S. Army, Groom writes, in peacetime traveled with a string of polo ponies and, when he felt like it, bought himself a new Packard or a new sailing yacht. Once, when posted to Hawaii, he sailed there with his family, although he had very little experience at sea and navigated by the stars.
Athletic, Patton excelled at track and field, fencing, equestrian sports and participated in the fifth Olympiad in the pentathlon.
With a strong spiritual streak, Patton had visions—at the front in WWI, in the clouds above the German lines, appeared “a panorama of his heroic ancestors who had died in American wars from the Revolution to the Civil War. They spoke to him in soothing tones….” He believed in reincarnation and claimed to remember fighting with the Roman Legions in Gaul and in North Africa.
Although steeped in history, Patton was forward-looking enough in 1917 to see the future in tank warfare, becoming commander of the First U. S. Tank Brigade.
In WWII Patton would advocate and demonstrate his theory of relentless armored attack, especially in the race across France and into Germany. It was only Eisenhower’s orders and a lack of fuel that kept Patton from invading Germany well ahead of everyone else.
He had doubtless been a brave legionnaire when serving under Caesar. He was just as courageous in the twentieth century. In WWI Colonel Patton exposed himself to enemy fire, rallying his troops and, determined to exhibit bravery, was once shot in the thigh: not bulletproof, but nearly.
Douglas MacArthur likewise was in a long line of military heroes. First in his class of 93 cadets at West Point, MacArthur distinguished himself in the war with Mexico and in his first six months in France won the Distinguished Service Cross and three silver stars. General MacArthur exposed himself often to enemy fire and apparently WAS bulletproof.
Biographers seem to agree that MacArthur was America’s greatest military genius: handsome, learned, courteous, charming as well as a most “arrogant,… abrasive, flamboyant, imperious…baffling…exasperating…” man-at-arms.
MacArthur became “almost legendary” for his idiosyncratic uniforms—in WWI he wore “a gray turtleneck sweater and a long drooping scarf knitted by his mother.” He carried a riding crop—there was no horse—and “neither wore a helmet nor carried a pistol.”
In WWII in the Pacific, on the long road back to the Philippines, MacArthur, in charge of the Army, believed in bypassing many Japanese-held islands and was privately critical of the Navy’s use of the Marines in bloody battles on places such as Tarawa. He thought several of those could have been passed by, left isolated.
George C. Marshall graduated from Virginia Military Institute as first captain, the highest cadet rank, craved glory and command and would certainly have been as great a battlefield hero as the others had he not, unfortunately, shown a genius for organization, detail, management. He had the skills to move huge numbers of men and their equipment to where they were needed, and the ability to control outsized personalities like MacArthur and Patton and Pershing and get along with political leaders like Roosevelt. Marshall would serve as Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Special Ambassador to China, and win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
As chief of staff Marshall deserves the credit for creating a wartime army after Pearl Harbor, managing the defeat of the Axis Powers and then having the wisdom to insist on his Marshall Plan, to bring Europe back to life. Marshall commanded the men who commanded at the front.
This book is not all war. Groom discusses his subjects’ ancestors, childhoods, their cadet careers at West Point and VMI , their domestic lives, wives, lovers and children, their peacetime frustrations, political positions, intellectual pursuits, and hobbies.
The writing is unbelievably smooth. Groom has developed the skill to digest huge amounts of material and lay it out in prose as readable as the most accessible popular novel. Anyone might enjoy this book but male readers especially would be delighted to get one in their stocking.
This review was originally broadcast on Alabama Public Radio. Don Noble is host of the Alabama Public Television literary interview show “Bookmark” and the editor of “A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama.”
