Alexander McCarrell Patch Jr. (1889 - 1945)

Born 23 Nov 1889 in Fort Huachuca, Cochise, Arizona Territory, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Julia Adrienne (Littell) Patch — married 20 Nov 1915 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Died 21 Nov 1945 at age 55 in Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Bexar, Texas, United States

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Biography

Alexander McCarrell Patch, Jr., was born at Fort Huachuca, Arizona Territory, on 23 November, 1889. His father, Captain Alexander McCarrell Patch, Sr., was an 1877 graduate of The United States Military Academy at West Point. His mother was Annie Brownlee Moore, daughter of Pennsylvania U. S. Representative William S. Moore.

Patch, known as “Sandy,” was the youngest child. His elder brother, Joseph Dorst Patch, born in 1885, rose to the rank of major general in the U. S. Army, and he commanded a division in World War II. Joseph, known as Dorst, had a twin sister, Elsie, who died in infancy. William Moore Patch was born in 1887, and Lida Wint Patch Gordon was born in 1888.

Captain Alexander Patch, Sr., was a cavalry officer at Fort Huachuca. In 1879, after an accident with a horse, Patch had his right leg amputated below the knee, forcing his retirement. He and his family continued to reside on post, and he operated the post’s trader store. Eventually, the Patches moved back east to Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Alexander, Jr., attended schools and excelled in athletics.

Patch attended Lehigh University for one year. In 1909, he entered the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. He was an undistinguished student, graduating in the lower half of his class in 1913. After commissioning as a second lieutenant, Patch was posted with the 18th Infantry Regiment at Texas City, Texas, and in Arizona. He was involved in border service during the years of difficulties with Mexico. He was under fire from Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s troops in November, 1915. In 1914, Patch was disciplined for fighting with an enlisted man, but, due to his assessed value to the Army, his career was not affected by the incident. He was promoted to first lieutenant in July, 1916.

Lieutenant Patch married Julia Adrienne Littell in Washington, D. C., on November 20, 1915. They are the parents of Alexander McCarrell Patch III and Julia Ann Patch Diehl.

The United States declared war on Germany in April, 1917. Patch was promoted to captain in May, 1917. He was sent to France, as was his brother, Joseph, who was decorated for bravery. Alexander Patch also showed his mettle in battle from May to October, 1918. He was honored with an invitation to attend the British and French GHQ Machine Gun School, and his exceptional performance netted him an invitation to be an instructor in the prestigious school. In January, 1918, Patch contracted pneumonia, and he was hospitalized. Pneumonia was to be a recurring illness for him. Patch was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel in October, 1918. He commanded a battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment.

After the Armistice of November 11, 1918, Patch reverted to his permanent rank of captain, but he was promoted to major in July, 1920. Patch undertook his post-war duties with his usual dedication. He was director of the machine gun school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Later, he was officer in charge of the supply branch of the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (R.O.T.C.). Patch spent three different periods as a professor of military science at Staunton Military Academy, in Staunton, Virginia (mostly from 1920-1924, 1925-1928, and 1932-1936). One notable graduate of Staunton was Senator, and U.S. Air Force Reserve General Barry Goldwater. He admired and praised General Patch, and he wrote of him in his autobiography. Besides teaching duties at Staunton, Patch received further education in the Army’s advanced educational schools. He graduated from the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1922, from 1924-1925, he attended the U. S. Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was a distinguished graduate, and he graduated from the U. S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1932.

Patch’s other duties during the inter-war years included command of the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, at Fort Washington, Maryland, from 1928-1931, command of the R.O.T.C. battalion at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1934, member of the Infantry Board at Fort Benning from 1936-1939, and senior instructor for the Alabama National Guard from 1939-1940. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1935. Patch was known as a tough taskmaster with high standards, but central to his method of command was fairness and care for troops under his command.

As World War II approached, Patch was promoted to colonel, and he was given command of the 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in November, 1940. In August, 1941, Patch was promoted to brigadier general. On August 15th, he took over command of the U. S. Army Infantry Replacement Center at Camp Croft, near Spartanburg, South Carolina. He replaced General Oscar Griswold, who would also distinguish himself in World War II.

Camp Croft was only six months old when Patch took command. As a training facility, recruits flooded in to be prepared for the expected entry of the United States into World War II. When the Japanese attacked the U. S. on December 7, 1941, Patch was prepared, and his command staff began organizing troop rosters for war. He was well-known to Army chief of staff General George Catlett Marshall, and Patch was slated for one of the first commands of the war.

In early January, 1942, Patch was called to Washington for a new assignment. He was to command the forces defending French New Caledonia, in the Pacific. His aide-de-camp and commander of his headquarters company at Camp Croft, Second Lieutenant Harry L. Hawke, was ordered to meet Patch at the Pentagon on January 4, 1942. Lt. Hawke spent most of December, 1941, assembling troop rosters in preparation for Patch’s coming divisional command. Lt. Hawke’s train was derailed in an accident on the night of January 3rd, crushing and nearly killing the young officer, and necessitating the amputation of his right leg, just below the knee (just as happened to Patch’s father). Given the report, Patch announced to the press that he would “fly any amount of men to Pittston [Pennsylvania] to give blood transfusions, if necessary.” This was a prime example of Patch’s high priority for the welfare of those under his command. Patch also set down a top secret order directing that no married officers were to be sent into combat under his command. He did not want to make war widows. The order was declassified in 1971.

Task Force 6814 was quickly put together, and troops shipped out for New Caledonia. Patch began his travel by air, but contracted pneumonia, and he was hospitalized in Trinidad. He quickly recovered. Soon, he was in the Pacific. On March 10, 1942, Patch was promoted to major general. On New Caledonia, he took command of American and New Caledonian troops, combining them into a single division. The division was given the nickname, “Americal Division,” by Patch from “American New Caledonian Division,” to reflect its multinational configuration. Later, it was designated as the 23rd Infantry Division, but was commonly called the Americal Division.

With New Caledonia, secure, Patch was ordered to send units of the Americal Division to relieve the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal. He sent the 164th Regiment in early October, 1942. Admiral William F. Halsey was named Supreme Allied Commander, South Pacific Area, and he concluded that the 1st Marine Division was worn out and needed replacement by the Americal Division.

General Patch took command of the island December 6, 1942, when the First Marine Division Headquarters was withdrawn. Elements of the XIV Corps arrived but during most of the action the Americal Division staff functioned in a dual capacity. At that time, word was received that the 25th Division and the 6th Marines were enroute. In January, Patch was made XIV Corps commander. By February, 1943, with Patch putting continual pressure on the enemy, the Japanese were driven from the island, and the Battle of Guadalcanal was over.

Patch was a commander who put a priority on keeping casualties low, and even these on Guadalcanal he considered too high. In its first combat engagement, the Americal Division had conducted itself creditably, as did the whole of the XIV Corps. Major General Patch was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Patch was not given the real credit he deserved for finishing the Battle of Guadalcanal. General Archibald A. Vandergrift was given much more credit and far more press.

Command in the Pacific took a toll on Patch. Ill health brought Patch back to the United States, and after recovery, he was put in command of the IV Corps at Fort Lewis, Washington, in March 1943. He commanded the IV Corps until his next summons from Marshall came in January, 1944.

In early 1944, Patch was moved to the European Theater by General Marshall, where he took command of the staff planning for Operation Anvil, later renamed Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. His staff was split between Algiers and Palermo, in Sicily, and it was assembled from the remaining headquarters of the Seventh U. S. Army, which had been commanded by General George S. Patton, but was temporarily under the command of General Mark Clark at the beginning of 1944. On March 2, 1944, Patch officially took command of the Seventh Army, and on July 4, he moved his base to Naples. Patch found himself in the middle of a bitter political dispute. The British were strongly opposed to the invasion of southern France, believing that it would have little impact on the battle in the north, and it would waste the potential benefits of the summer campaign in Italy. The British alternative would have been to invade the Balkans, on the one hand, because it would threaten the Germans from behind their lines, and on the other hand, it would stop the Communist Russians from occupying the area. The Americans were determined not to get involved in the Balkans, and wanted to secure Marseilles and the southern French ports. As a result, Patch did not know what units he would have in Seventh Army until after the fall of Rome on June 4th, and The Normandy invasion on June 6th. Preparations continued for the invasion of southern France throughout July and August. Patch was promoted to lieutenant general on August 7, 1944.

Patch’s new command was a combined French and American Force, comprised of the U. S. VI Corps (commanded by General Lucian Truscott) and the French II Corps. During the initial invasion Patch also had operational control over General Delattre de Tassigny’s French Army B, which committed the French 1st Corps to the invasion. Once a bridgehead was secured, General Jacob Devers 6th Army Group would become operational, and Delattre’s force would become part of that army group as the 1st French Army.

Operation Dragoon was launched on August 15, 1944. The German forces in southern France were not strong enough to hold back the invading army, and were soon given permission to withdraw to stronger fortifications. The original plan had been for Operation Dragoon to take place at about the same time as Operation Overlord, so that the Germans would be unable to move troops north to Normandy, but by the time the landings actually took place the Allies had already broken out from the Normandy hedgerows, and were attempting to trap the retreating Germans in the Falaise Pocket. Later in the summer, the dash across France took place.

Devers’ Sixth Army Group became operational on September 15th, at Lyons, leaving Patch in command of his Seventh Army. After the landings and securing major bridgeheads, Patch’s forces advanced up the Rhone Valley, helping to liberate all of southern France as they went. They soon joined up with the troops advancing east from Normandy, going into the Allied line to the right of Patton’s Third Army. The boundary between the armies thus also formed the boundary between Devers’ 6th Army Group in the south and General Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group in the north. Patch and Patton coordinated their attacks to advance through the Vosges Mountains. Patch was able to breach the Vosges passes, which were thought to be impenetrable. He continued pushing the German Army backward. The Seventh Army’s offensive in the fall of 1944 must be considered a masterpiece of offensive strategy. It was Patch who reached the Rhine River first, but, for reasons never adequately explained, was denied permission to cross the Rhine and attack the German heartland.

The most difficult time for Patch was the death of his son, Captain Alexander M. Patch III, on October 22, 1944. Captain Patch, known as “Mac,” was killed in action in northern France, just after returning to duty from a bullet wound received in combat. General Patch’s grief was compounded by the fact that he could not comfort his wife in person, but only by letter. Patch decided to have Mac buried in the American military cemetery at Epinal several days later.

In December, 1944, the Germans launched a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest, known as Operation Nordwind, sending British and American forces reeling. The Second Battle of the Ardennes, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge, was a setback for General Eisenhower and the British Army in northern France. General Patch’s offensive was halted, so his forces could assist while 12th Army Group counterattacked. In January, 1945, Patch’s forces took over much of the area that had been held by Patton’s troops, to allow them to pivot north to attack into the southern flank of the German Army.

Early in 1945 Patch’s army was again on the offensive. After he helped repel Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive of the war in the west, Patch then helped clear the Colmar Pocket, a German stronghold west of the Rhine. In mid-March 1945 Patch’s Seventh Army and the First French Army, on his right flank, launched Operation Undertone, breaking through the German defenses in the Palatinate, in Germany, and in Alsace-Lorraine. Seventh Army crossed the Rhine at multiple points. From there, Patch advanced into southern Germany, taking part in the move southeast toward the so-called National Redoubt, an area where the Germans claimed they would make a last stand. The Seventh Army conquered much territory in Austria late in the war. On 5 May 1944 General Hermann Foertsch surrendered on behalf of Army Group G, ending the fighting on the southern part of the western front.

After the end of the war in Europe, Patch was transferred back to the U. S., where he was given command of the 4th Army, which was based at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. While the war in the Pacific still raged, General Marshall planned for Patch to command IV Army in the invasion of Japan under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. The Japanese surrendered, and Patch continued his duties at Fort Sam Houston. However soon after taking up the post he was taken ill with pneumonia, and he died on November 21, 1945, two days short of his fifty-sixth birthday. Patch was buried at West Point. In 1954 he received a posthumous promotion to full General. Patch was a highly regarded commander, and one of the few senior officers to hold high rank in both the Pacific and European theaters. In February, 1945, Eisenhower ranked him as one of his most effective army commanders, putting him ahead of Lt. General Courtney Hodges and Lt. General William Simpson. General Alexander Patch has never received his due as one of the best commanders of World War II. He did not seek the limelight, and he put the needs of his subordinates first. His casualty rates were consistently low. He, like, General MacArthur, believed in defeating the enemy without wasting the lives of his troops.

Sources

• Patch, Alexander McCarrell, Jr. “201 File.” National Personnel Records Center, http://www.nara.gov/regional/stlouis.html, Military Personnel Records.

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M33G-ZDP : accessed 3 April 2021), Alex M Patch in household of Alexander Patch, Lebanon city Ward 2, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 125, sheet 3B, family 75, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,428.

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MG4K-Y6B : accessed 3 April 2021), Alexander M Patch Jr. in household of Alexander M Patch, Lebanon Ward 2, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 148, sheet 13A, family 166a, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1362; FHL microfilm 1,375,375.

"District of Columbia Marriages, 1830-1921", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F717-PXW : 11 January 2020), Alexander W. Patch, 1915.

"District of Columbia Marriages, 1811-1950," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9B-B7ZS : 9 March 2021), Alexander W Patch and Julia A Littell, 20 Nov 1915; citing p. 71838, Records Office, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,051,918.

"United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNGS-DDM : 1 February 2021), Alexander M Patch in entry for Isaac W Littell, 1920.

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X345-6WG : accessed 3 April 2021), Alexander M Patch, Piscataway, Prince George's, Maryland, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 13, sheet 6B, line 94, family 41, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 877; FHL microfilm 2,340,612.

"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V1P5-FKN : 5 January 2021), A M Patch, Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 51-59, sheet 11A, line 27, family 320, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 69.

"Texas Death Index, 1903-2000," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VZ6Q-77B : 24 May 2014), Alexander M. Patch, 21 Nov 1945; from "Texas, Death Index, 1903-2000," database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2006); citing certificate number 46831, Bexar, Texas, Texas Department of Health, State Vital Statistics Unit, Austin.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 03 April 2021), memorial page for Alexander McCarrell Patch (23 Nov 1889–21 Nov 1945), Find a Grave Memorial no. 3645, citing United States Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, Orange County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave.

Published Sources:

Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2013.

Cronin, Francis D. Under the Southern Cross: The Saga of the Americal Division. Washington, D. C.: Combat Forces Press, 1951.

Eisenhower, David. Eisenhower At War: 1943-1945. New York: Wings Books, 1991. (reprint of 1986 edition).

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1948.

Goldwater, Barry M., with Jack Casserly. Goldwater. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

Jeffers, H. Paul. Command of Honor: General Lucian Truscott’s Path to Victory in World War II. New York: New American Library Caliber, 2008.

Jordan, John R. General Patch and the Mighty Seventh: A Soldier's View. Lighthouse Point, Florida: Lighthouse Books, 1995.

Matloff, Maurice, General Editor. American Military History. Army Historical Series. Washington, D. C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U. S. Army, revised edition, 1973.

Miller, Berwyn L., Lt. Col., U. S. Army, Retired. Interview by Author, 21 July 1983. Patch, Alexander McCarrell, Jr. Leadership. Washington, D. C.: Army War College Library, 1944.

Patch, Captain Alexander. “Machine Guns.” The Infantry Journal Reader. Col. Joseph I. Greene, ed. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Doran, & Company, 1944, pp. 140-141.

Smith, Jean Edward. Eisenhower in War and Peace. New York: Random House, 2012.

Strobridge, Truman R., and Bernard C. Nalty. “From the South Pacific to the Brenner Pass: General Alexander Patch.” Military Review. (Vol. 61, June, 1981), pp. 41-48.

Pfannes, Charles E., and Victor A. Salamone. Great Commanders of World War II, Volume III: The Americans. New York: Zebra Books, 1981.

Truscott, Lucian King, Jr. Command Missions. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1954.

U. S. Seventh Army. Official Diary. 3 vols. Office of the Secretary to the General Staff, U. S. Seventh Army, 10 January 1944 - 2 June 1945.

Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1981.

Wyant, William K. Sandy Patch: A Biography of Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991.

“4 Efforts made to Halt Train Before Fatal Wreck.” (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) The Wilkes-Barre Record. Tuesday, 6 January 1942.