DOWNEY--As allied and Iraqi armies maneuvered like pieces on a sandy chessboard two years ago, the desert tacticians on both sides probably didn’t know the man they tried to copy, the greatest general of armored maneuver the world has ever known, grew up here in Downey.
George S. Patton, Jr., the "Blood and Guts" general who threw fear into the hearts of the Nazi war machine and outmaneuvered Erwin Rommel in World War II, summered in his youthful years here.
He even practiced generalship by marching young conscripts from the local sandlots up and down the dusty roads.
Wallace McKellar, a lifetime Downey resident, wrote down his early memories of the general. They are kept today in the Downey Historical Society office in Apollo Park.
"My family was very friendly with the family of General George S. Patton, Jr.," wrote McKellar.
He noted both his own and Patton’s family were pioneers in the area. Patton’s mother was the daughter of Don Benito Wilson for whom Mr. Wilson was named.
"George was not altogether a favorite with us kids, however. He was some 10 to 15 years older than we were and our annoyance of him began when he became a student at West Point. He was a born soldier and thought soldiering was great for kids. On his visits home from the Academy he would see a bunch of us playing sandlot baseball or something and right away he would recruit us into his army. He had an authoritative way about him and we didn’t know how to refuse.
"So he would practice his military drills on us-marching us this way and that way in the hot sun. For 10-year-olds this was a lot of discipline we didn’t appreciate at the time."
Little did the dusty children (probably all longing to go AWOL as young Patton drilled them) know they were being hounded by a budding military genius.
George Patton wasn’t even the first of his line to gain fame locally. His father, George, Sr., was a well-known district attorney in Los Angeles and established the Patton Ranch on the San Gabriel River in Downey.
John Vincent of the Downey Historical Society said he feels sure Patton Road was named for the Patton family.
Critics claim Patton was perhaps a little crazy. Several biographers and the Oscar-winning movie made of his life note his alleged belief in reincarnation and his penchant for reminiscing over ancient battlefields in North Africa where he claimed he had fought in previous lives, centuries ago.
But if you need a military genius, you take him as you find him. Patton had grown up with a classical education including the tales of Hannibal and Alexander and Caesar. He knew five great-uncles and a grandfather, all of whom fought and were wounded or killed in the Civil War.
He personally had heard Rudyard Kipling talk of the thin red line of the British infantry, and he had personally listened to John Singleton Mosby, the Confederate Gray Ghost, talk tactics.
Patton was the fighting man’s general. He hated the enemy, loved his men, and moved his Third Army to rescue U. S. Infantry pinned down at the Battle of the Bulge. In doing so he moved a modern army faster and farther than anyone ever before or since. And he successfully smashed Hitler’s last major offensive.
The most singular aspect of Patton was that he won.
When World War II ended he begged to be allowed to advance eastward against the Russians. He made his commander, Dwight David Eisenhower, extremely nervous. And he upset the political leaders back home in the U. S. as well.
He was injured in an auto accident Dec. 9, in Mannheim, Germany, and died Dec. 21, 1945. He was buried there.
He often told friends he ached to be the commander of the last great battle in the last great war.
He really had no place or ease in peacetime.
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