Many conflicting and some untrue stories have been printed about
General George S. Patton and
the Third Army Prayer. Some have had the tinge of blasphemy and
disrespect for the Deity. Even
in "War As I Knew It" by General Patton, the footnote on the
Prayer by Colonel Paul D. Harkins, Patton's Deputy Chief of Staff,
while containing the elements of a funny story about the General and
his Chaplain, is not the true account of the prayer incident or its
sequence.
As the Chief Chaplain of the Third Army throughout the five
campaigns on the Staff of General Patton, I should have some
knowledge of the event because at the direction of General Patton, I
composed the now world famous Prayer, and wrote Training Letter No.
5, which constitutes an integral, but untold part, of the prayer
story. These Incidents, narrated in sequence, should serve to
enhance the memory of the man himself, and cause him to be enshrined
by generations to come as one of the greatest of our soldiers. He
had all the traits of military leadership, fortified by genuine
trust in God, intense love of country, and high faith In the
American soldier.
He had no use for half-measures. He wrote this line a few days
before his death: "Anyone in any walk of life who is content
with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition."
He was true to the principles of his religion, Episcopalian, and was
regular in Church attendance and practices, unless duty made his
presence impossible.
The incident of the now famous Patton Prayer commenced with a
telephone call to the Third Army Chaplain on the morning of December
8, 1944, when the Third Army Headquarters were located in the
Caserne Molifor in Nancy, France: "This is General Patton; do
you have a good prayer for weather? We must do something about those
rains if we are to win the war." My reply was that I know
where to look for such a prayer, that I would locate, and report
within the hour. As I hung up the telephone receiver, about eleven
in the morning, I looked out on the steadily falling rain,
"immoderate" I would call it -- the same rain that had plagued
Patton's Army throughout the Moselle and Saar Campaigns from
September until now, December 8. The few prayer books at hand
contained no formal prayer on weather that might prove acceptable to
the Army Commander. Keeping his immediate objective in mind, I typed
an original and an improved copy on a 5" x 3" filing card:
Almighty and
most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great
goodness,
to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend.
Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as
soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may
advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and
wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men
and nations.
I pondered the question, What use would General Patton make of the
prayer? Surely not for private devotion. If he intended it for
circulation to chaplains or others, with Christmas not far removed,
it might he proper to type the Army Commander's Christmas Greetings
on the reverse side. This
would please the recipient, and anything that pleased the men I knew
would please him:
To each officer and soldier in
the Third United States Army, 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 blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas
Day. G.S. Patton, Jr, Lieutenant General, Commanding, Third
United States Army.
This done, I donned my heavy trench
coat, crossed the quadrangle of the old French military barracks,
and reported to General Patton. He read the prayer copy, returned it
to me with a very casual directive, "Have 250,000 copies
printed and see to it that every man in the Third Army gets one."
The size of the order amazed me; this was certainly doing something
about the weather in a big way. But I said nothing but the usual,
"Very well, Sir!" Recovering, I invited his attention to
the reverse side containing the Christmas Greeting, with his name
and rank typed. "Very good," he said, with a smile of
approval. "If the General would sign the card, it would add a
personal touch that I am sure the men would like."
He took his place at his desk, signed
the card, returned it to me and then Said: "Chaplain, sit down
for a moment; I want to talk to you about this business of prayer."
He rubbed his face in his hands, was silent for a moment, then rose
and walked over to the high window, and stood there with his back
toward me as he looked out on the falling rain. As usual, he was
dressed stunningly, and his six-foot-two powerfully built physique
made an unforgettable silhouette against the great window. The
General Patton I saw there was the Army Commander to whom the
welfare of the men under him was a matter of Personal responsibility
. Even in the heat of combat he could take time out to direct new
methods to prevent trench feet, to see to it that dry socks went
forward daily with the rations to troops on the line, to kneel in
the mud administering morphine and caring for a wounded soldier
until the ambulance Came. What was coming now?
"Chaplain, how much praying is being done in the Third Army?"
was his question. I parried: "Does the General mean by
chaplains, or by the men?" "By everybody," he replied.
To this I countered: "I am afraid to admit it, but I do not
believe that much praying is going on. When there Is fighting,
everyone prays, but now with this constant rain -- when things are
quiet, dangerously quiet, men just sit and wait for things to
happen. Prayer out here is difficult. Both chaplains and men are
removed from a special building with a steeple. Prayer to most of
them is a formal, ritualized affair, involving special posture and a
liturgical setting. I do not believe that much praying is being
done."
The General left the window, and again seated himself at his desk,
leaned back in his swivel chair, toying with a long lead pencil
between his index fingers.
"Chaplain, I am a strong believer in Prayer. There are three
ways that men get what they want; by planning, by working, and by
Praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning, or
thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out:
that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is
always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory, success or
failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it
actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks; I call it
God. God has His part, or margin in everything, That's where prayer
comes in. Up to now, in the Third Army, God has been very good
to us. We have never retreated; we have suffered no defeats, no
famine, no epidemics. This is because a lot of people back home are
praying for us. We were lucky in Africa, in Sicily, and in Italy.
Simply because people prayed. But we have to pray for ourselves,
too. A good soldier is not made merely by making him think and work.
There is something in every soldier that goes deeper than thinking
or working -- it's his 'guts'. It is something that he has
built in there: it is a world of truth and power that is higher than
himself. Great living is not all output of thought and work. A man
has to have intake as well. I don't know what you call it, but I
call it Religion, Prayer, or God."
He talked about Gideon in the Bible, said that men should pray no
matter where they were, in church or out of it, that if they did not
pray, sooner or later they would "crack up." To all this I commented
agreement, that one of the major training objectives of my office
was to help soldiers recover and make their lives effective in this
third realm, prayer. It would do no harm to re-impress this training
on chaplains. We had about 486 chaplains in the Third Army at that
time, representing 32 denominations. Once the Third Army had become
operational, my mode of contact with the chaplains had been chiefly
through Training Letters issued from time to time to the Chaplains
in the four corps and the 22 to 26 divisions comprising the Third
Army. Each treated of a variety of subjects of corrective or
training value to a chaplain working with troops in the field.
[Patton continued:]
"I wish you would put out a Training Letter on this subject of
Prayer to all the chaplains; write about nothing else, just the
importance of prayer. Let me see it before you send it. We've got to
get not only the chaplains but every man in the Third Army to pray.
We must ask God to stop these rains. These rains are that margin
that hold defeat or victory. If we all pray, it will be like what
Dr. Carrel said... [the allusion was to a press quote
some days previously when Dr. Alexis Carrel, one of the foremost
scientists, described prayer as "one
of the most powerful forms of energy man can generate"]...
it will be like plugging in on a current whose source is in Heaven.
I believe that prayer completes that circuit. It is power."
With that the General arose from his chair, a sign that the
interview was ended. I returned to my field desk, typed Training
Letter No. 5 while the "copy" was "hot," touching on some or all of
the General's reverie on Prayer, and after staff processing,
presented it to General Patton on the next day. The General read it
and without change directed that it be circulated not only to the
486 chaplains, but to every organization commander down to and
including the regimental level. Three thousand two hundred copies
were distributed to every unit in the Third Army over my signature
as Third Army Chaplain. Strictly speaking, it was the Army
Commander's letter, not mine. Due to the fact that the order came
directly from General Patton, distribution was completed on December
11 and 12 in advance of its date line, December 14, 1944. Titled "Training
Letter No. 5," with the salutary "Chaplains of the Third Army,"
the letter continued: "At this stage of the operations I would
call upon the chaplains and the men of the Third United States Army
to focus their attention on the importance of prayer.
"Our glorious march from the Normandy Beach across France to
where we stand, before and beyond the Siegfried Line, with the
wreckage of the German Army behind us should convince the most
skeptical soldier that God has ridden with our banner. Pestilence
and famine have not touched us. We have continued in unity of
purpose. We have had no quitters; and our leadership has been
masterful. The Third Army has no roster of Retreats. None of
Defeats. We have no memory of a lost battle to hand on to our
children from this great campaign.
"But we are not stopping at the Siegfried Line. Tough days may be
ahead of us before we eat our rations in the Chancellery of the
Deutsches Reich.
"As chaplains it is our business to pray. We preach its importance.
We urge its practice. But the time is now to intensify our faith in
prayer, not alone with ourselves, but with every believing man,
Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or Christian in the ranks of the Third
United States Army.
"Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if
the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more
battles than prayers. 'Hands lifted up,' said Bosuet, 'smash more
battalions than hands that strike.' Gideon of Bible fame was least
in his father's house. He came from Israel's smallest tribe. But he
was a mighty man of valor. His strength lay not in his military
might, but in his recognition of God's proper claims upon his life.
He reduced his Army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred men
lest the people of Israel would think that their valor had saved
them. We have no intention to reduce our vast striking force. But we
must urge, instruct, and indoctrinate every fighting man to pray as
well as fight. In Gideon's day, and in our own, spiritually alert
minorities carry the burdens and bring the victories.
"Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere.
Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others.
Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate
rains, for good weather for Battle. Pray for the defeat of our
wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose good is oppression.
Pray for victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for Peace.
"We must march together, all out for God. The soldier who 'cracks
up' does not need sympathy or comfort as much as he needs strength.
We are not trying to make the best of these days. It is our job to
make the most of them. Now is not the time to follow God from 'afar
off.' This Army needs the assurance and the faith that God is with
us. With prayer, we cannot fail.
"Be assured that this message on prayer has the approval, the
encouragement, and the enthusiastic support of the Third United
States Army Commander.
"With every good wish to each of you for a very Happy Christmas, and
my personal congratulations for your splendid and courageous work
since landing on the beach, I am," etc., etc., signed The
Third Army Commander.
The timing of the Prayer story is important: let us rearrange the
dates: the "Prayer Conference" with General Patton was 8 December;
the 664th Engineer Topographical Company, at the order of Colonel
David H. Tulley, C.E., Assistant to the Third Army Engineer, working
night and day reproduced 250,000 copies of the Prayer Card; the
Adjutant General, Colonel Robert S. Cummings, supervised the
distribution of both the Prayer Cards and Training Letter No. 5 to
reach the troops by December 12-14. The breakthrough was on December
16 in the First Army Zone when the Germans crept out of the Schnee
Eifel Forest in the midst of heavy rains, thick fogs, and swirling
ground mists that muffled sound, blotted out the sun, and reduced
visibility to a few yards. The few divisions on the Luxembourg
frontier were surprised and brushed aside. They found it hard to
fight an enemy they could neither see nor hear. For three days it
looked to the jubilant Nazis as if their desperate gamble would
succeed. They had achieved compete surprise. Their Sixth Panzer
Army, rejuvenated in secret after its debacle in France, seared
through the Ardennes like a hot knife through butter. The First
Army's VIII Corps was holding this area with three infantry
divisions (one of them new and in the line only a few days) thinly
disposed over an 88-mile front and with one armored division far to
the rear, in reserve. The VIII Corps had been in the sector for
months. It was considered a semi-rest area and outside of a little
patrolling was wholly an inactive position.
When the blow struck the VIII Corps fought with imperishable
heroism. The Germans were slowed down but the Corps was too
shattered to stop them with its remnants. Meanwhile, to the north,
the Fifth Panzer Army was slugging through another powerful prong
along the vulnerable boundary between the VIII and VI Corps. Had the
bad weather continued there is no telling how far the Germans might
have advanced. On the 19th of December, the Third Army turned from
East to North to meet the attack. As General Patton rushed his
divisions north from the Saar Valley to the relief of the
beleaguered Bastogne, the prayer was answered. On December 20, to
the consternation of the Germans and the delight of the American
forecasters who were equally surprised at the turn-about-the rains
and the fogs ceased. For the better part of a week came bright clear
skies and perfect flying weather. Our planes came over by tens,
hundreds, and thousands. They knocked out hundreds of tanks, killed
thousands of enemy troops in the Bastogne salient, and harried the
enemy as he valiantly tried to bring up reinforcements. The 101st
Airborne, with the 4th, 9th, and 10th Armored Divisions, which saved
Bastogne, and other divisions which assisted so valiantly in driving
the Germans home, will testify to the great support rendered by our
air forces. General Patton prayed for fair weather for Battle. He
got it.
It was late in January of 1945 when I saw the Army Commander again.
This was in the city of Luxembourg. He stood directly in front of
me, smiled: "Well, Padre, our prayers worked. I knew they
would." Then he cracked me on the side of my steel helmet
with his riding crop. That was his way of saying, "Well done."
(This article appeared as a government document in 1950. At the time
it appeared in the Review of the News, Msgr. O'Neill was a retired
Brigadier General living in Pueblo, Colorado.)
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