George S. Patton, Jr. Memorial

George S. Patton, Jr., descended from a distinguished pioneer family and the son of San Marino’s first mayor, was born and raised on the family ranch adjacent to what is now the Huntington Library and became one of the most brilliant, decisive, and aggressive military commanders in American history. After attending primary schools in Pasadena and overcoming dyslexia, he studied at Virginia Military Institute and then entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1909. In the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, he excelled in the pentathlon as a member of the U.S. team. Early in his Army career he served as aide to General John J. Pershing during the 1916 Mexican Punitive Expedition. In World War I, he was wounded while leading a combat tank corps advance with reckless courage. In World War II, as commander of the Western Task Force and Seventh Army, he led his troops to victory in North Africa and Sicily, and then, as commander of the Third Army, advanced through France to ultimate victory in Germany. At the war’s end he was assigned command of the Fifteenth Army and charged with compiling the military history of the U.S. forces from D-Day to Allied victory. Dedicated, devout, profane, flamboyant, and sometimes controversial, he was regarded as a man for his time and a true American hero, and at his own request was buried alongside fallen comrades in the American Military Cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg.

San Marino, California · United States