patton hollywood or history
... El Guettar. He is then promoted to Lieutenant General, and given command of the Seventh Army, which he leads in the invasion of Sicily. Over Patton’s objections, Eisenhower, the Commander of the Allied Forces, assigns Montgomery, leader of the British Army, the task of capturing Messina. This leads the egotistical and cocky Patton to change direction and capture Palerno, then race and beat Montgomery to Messina, a real slap in the face of Eisenhower and Montgomery. On the way to Messina Patton is inspecting a hospital, where he finds a soldier sitting in the corner crying. Patton asks the man why he is in the hospital, and the man says that his nerves are shot and he can’t go on. Patton slaps the soldier, shouting “get this man out on the front lines.” He then starts to pull his gun. When the doctors rush the soldier out of the tent Patton yells after them that the man should be shot. When word of this incident gets out to Patton’s superiors, he is demoted, and denied the opportunity to participate in the Normandy invasion. After the invasion, he is sent to Normandy and given command of the U.S. Third Army, which he then leads on a breakout rush across Europe. Despite Montgomery’s preferential treatment and massive buildup of troops, Patton crosses the Rhine River one day before the British. Following this triumph, Patton is promoted to Four-Star General, thus ending the film. Despite its overall accuracy, the movie has several minor, but glaring errors. For instance, in all of the battle scenes, Americans are seen using M-48 Patton tanks, which were designed by General Patton himself after World War II (Patton (1970) n/pg). The movie also depicts German soldiers, in Africa, wearing gray uniforms, when Hitler actually had designed specific desert camouflage uniforms, for them (Movie Nitpick Number: 30266 n/pg). Finally most of the field artillery pieces used in the movie are post war, Italian, Model 56 Pack Howitzers. The correct weapon for the time period would have been, American 105mm M2 Light Howitzers (Movie Nitpick Number: 43506 n/pg). Most people would not notice these technical details. Some other, less t...