Patton's Prayer
A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II
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- ¥710
発行者による作品情報
From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War
General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. Rain had plagued the troops daily since September, turning roads into rivers of muck, slowing trucks and tanks to a crawl. A thick ceiling of clouds had grounded American warplanes, allowing the Germans to reinforce. The sprint to Berlin had become a muddy, bloody stalemate, costing thousands of American lives.
Patton seethed, desperate for some change, any change, in the weather. A devout Christian, he telephoned his head chaplain. “Do you have a good prayer for the weather?” he asked. The resulting prayer was soon printed and distributed to the 250,000 men under Patton’s command. “Pray when driving,” the men were told. “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 victory. . . . Pray for Peace.”
Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy were lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
George Patton was "an unusual mixture of a profane and highly religious man," writes bestseller Kershaw (Against All Odds) in this perceptive biography, which focuses on the general's leadership during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. With nearly three months of rainy weather hindering his eastward advancement, Patton, better known among his soldiers for his wisecracks and vulgarity than for his faith, ordered his chaplain to write a special prayer for the troops that requested clear skies ("We humbly beseech Thee... to restrain these immoderate rains"). Two days before Christmas, after 250,000 copies had been printed and dispersed, the weather lifted ("What a glorious day for killing Germans!" Patton noted in his diary), allowing the Americans to drive their armored battalions into Belgium and, over the coming months, onward into Germany. Kershaw presents the prayer as a skeleton key to Patton's mercurial personality, going on to trace how he was ruled by a profound sense of honor complemented by a rough pragmatism. For example, Patton went from having "enormous contempt" for Nazis to publicly opposing Eisenhower's de-Nazification plans, arguing that most former Nazis weren't genuine party extremists. Such character analysis is undertaken with a light touch; for the most part, Kershaw's novelistic rendering of Patton's exploits amuses with its punchy dialogue and propulsive action. WWII buffs will want to check this out.
