George S. Patton, Jr. (1885—1945) graduated from West Point in 1909, and later competed for the United States in the pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. He commanded a tank brigade in the First World War, where he became an enthusiastic advocate of mechanized forces, and by 1942, Patton was a lieutenant general, commanding multiple divisions in North Africa against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

Patton was a strict disciplinarian but also vain and colorful, wearing ivory-handled pistols on his hips and designing flashy uniforms. On the battlefield, Patton was an aggressive, fearless combat leader, who drove his forces relentlessly and relieved any subordinate who could not meet the pace he demanded.

Patton achieved extraordinary triumphs on the battlefield but was also a polarizing figure off of it. He slapped two enlisted soldiers in Sicily for perceived cowardice, igniting an uproar among critics, and made a series of provocative, politically charged claims in public that undermined the Allied coalition.

His battlefield success continued, pushing Hitler’s armies across France and Belgium, and leading his famed US Third Army into Germany. When the war ended, Patton was appointed military governor of Bavaria, but his outspoken support of former Nazis serving in the occupation government became a final straw for his superiors, resulting in his dismissal. In December 1945, a tragic automobile accident in Manheim, Germany left Patton with a fractured neck, and he died less than two weeks later, just 60 years old.