George S. Patton Jr.
[California], ca. 1909, 1911
Photographs of George S. Patton as a West Point Cadet and as a Newlywed. Type I
Photograph

GEORGE S. PATTON JR., Photographs, ca. 1908, 1911. 2 pp., 3.25" x 3.25"; 3.5" x 5.75". Residue on verso from previous mounting; very good.

George S. Patton Jr. sought an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point at the age of seventeen. He also applied to several universities with military cadet programs. Like his grandfather and his father before him, he attended the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) from 1903 to 1904, where he struggled with reading and writing but performed well in inspections and military drills. While he was attending VMI, California Senator Thomas R. Bard nominated him for appointment to West Point. In his first year at West Point, he performed well in the military routine but struggled academically. He was cadet sergeant major during his junior year and cadet adjutant during his senior year. He joined the football team, but injuries to his arm (including one evident in this picture) kept him off the field. Instead, he focused on fencing and track and field, specializing in the modern pentathlon, which took him to the 1912 Summer Olympics in Sweden.

Patton graduated in June 1909, finishing 46 out of 103 cadets, and received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Cavalry branch of the U.S. Army. On May 26, 1910, he married Beatrice Banning Ayer (1886-1953), the daughter of a prominent Boston industrialist. The second picture is of the two of them in October 1911 under an outdoor arbor.

George S. Patton Jr. (1885-1945) was born in California and educated at the Virginia Military Institute (like his father and grandfather) and the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1909. An avid horseback rider, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the cavalry. In 1910, he married Beatrice Banning Ayer (1886-1953), the daughter of a wealthy Boston businessman. He competed in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, in the modern pentathlon, where he finished fifth behind four Swedes. He then traveled to France, where he learned fencing techniques. Returning to the United States, he redesigned cavalry saber combat doctrine and designed a new sword. In 1915 and 1916, Patton participated in the Pancho Villa Expedition in Mexico as Commander John J. Pershing's aide. In the spring of 1917, he accompanied Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, to Europe. Patton took an interest in tanks and was soon training crews to operate them. By 1918, he was in command of a tank brigade. After World War I, he served in various army posts and began to develop the methods of mechanized warfare. At the beginning of World War II, Patton worked to develop and train armored divisions in the army. In the summer of 1942, he commanded the Western Task Force in the Allied invasion of French North Africa. He commanded the Seventh U.S. Army in the successful invasion of Sicily in July 1943. After the Normandy invasion of June 1944, Patton's Third Army sailed to France and formed on the extreme right of Allied land forces. Through speed and aggressive offensive action, the Third Army continuously pressed retreating German forces until it ran out of fuel near Metz in northeastern France at the end of August. When the German army counterattacked in the battle of the Bulge in mid-December 1944, Patton's ability to reposition six full divisions to relieve besieged Allied forces in Bastogne was one of the most remarkable achievements of the war. As the Germans retreated, Patton's Third Army advanced, killing, wounding, or capturing 240,000 German soldiers in seven weeks before crossing the Rhine on March 22. After the end of the war in Europe, Patton hoped for a command in the Pacific but after a visit to the United States returned to Europe for occupation duty in Bavaria. In December 1945, the car in which he was riding collided with an American army truck at low speed, but Patton hit his head on a glass partition, breaking his neck and paralyzing him. He died twelve days later at a hospital in Germany. He was buried among some of his men of the Third Army in an American cemetery in Luxembourg.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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3.25" x 3.25"; 3.5" x 5.75"