QUOTE OF THE DAY
George S. Patton’s Christmas Message to Troops at the Battle of the Bulge
He gave every soldier under his command a wallet-sized card that said the same thing
By the winter of 1944, Germany had all but lost World War II. But Adolf Hitler made a last bid for victory by attacking U.S. Army divisions in the snowy and forested Ardennes Mountains of Belgium in mid-December. By Christmas, the American soldiers had been fighting for more than a week in weather so cold that frozen bodies were stacked like firewood.
Gen. George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army, gave this Christmas message on a wallet-sized card to every serviceman under his command:
“To each officer and soldier … I wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God’s blessing rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day.”
As quoted by Martin Blumenson in The Patton Papers: 1940–1945 (Houghton Mifflin, 1974). In 2003 Replica Books published an updated edition of The Patton Papers under the bylines of Blumenson and Patton.
