I Marched with Patton

I gave up reading after 43 pages because of the author’s disjointed & rambling account of his service. In those few pages, I found a number of historical inaccuracies plus a number of incidents that a combat veteran would find hard to believe, such a saluting a sergeant, which is not done as he is not an officer, & never in a combat zone which can get that person shot by a sniper! Also, the traffic jam incident suspiciously resembles the one portrayed in the Patton movie, leading one to question whether it really happened. Plus, Patton, Bradley, & Eisenhower just happen to drive by stuffed into one jeep, really??!! I had hoped to read a realistic account of the life of a soldier in the Third Army as my father fought with that unit but was sadly disappointed.

First thanks to Mr. Sisson for his service. Second, this is a horribly done book that is obviously the product of a ghost writer stringing together a few disjointed recollections. The historical errors are glaring and the dialog is obviously manufactured to bring Patton in to the story. For example, the book relates Sissons purported visit to the Musee dOrsay during leave in 1945 despite the fact that the Museum wasnt even planned until 1973. He also claims to have left Paris for police academy training in Berlin on VE Day May 1945 despite the fact that the US Army did not take over its zone in Berlin until July 1945. The saluting of sergeants and other enlisted men is also ridiculous. The book also has him fighting at St Lo on December 25 , 1945 despite the fact that 3rd Army was fighting on the South shoulder of the Bulge at the time. The dialogue is forced and phony with characters miraculously appearing at various points to relay Pattons views on tactics, Nazis, and the Russians – all of which appear to be taken directly from George C. Scotts lines in the movie. Another annoyances are placing Belgian towns in France, relating well known anecdotes of German atrocities as if they had been witnessed by Sisson, referring to Patton as a second father even though Sisson only saw him drive by twice in a jeep, misspelling the names of German generals, and on. My grandfather was a Bulge veteran who just passed at age 96 and he would have found this book a sick joke. The dialogue is beyond phony does anyone really think that soldiers in combat stopped to discuss in detail what Patton must be thinking and how he outsmarted the Germans? Or that they reflected on being pawns in the game of life in words that could have come out of the mouth of Mongo in Blazing Saddles? Are we really supposed to believe that the first thing on the Russians’ minds when he met them in Berlin was whether Patton liked Russians? Or that his German assistant in their first romantic dinner together told him all about how the Germans feared Patton? Bottom line is that there are dozens of great soldier memoirs out there and this one is by far the worst.

I bought this book thinking I would be reading a true account of a soldiers life during WWII. Instead, this book is filled with absurdities, highly improbable events, and historical inaccuracies. Supposedly these are some of the things that occurred in this firsthand account:
Page 96 he soundly slept while a 75-millimeter artillery shell came crashing through the roof of a house he was staying at, landing unexploded next to his bed.
Page 223 while fleeing Russian fire, he drove a jeep off the road, and directly through the inside (yes inside) of a wrecked and burned-out building crashing through a brick wall to finally escape. The jeep was fully operational after this, and his passenger was unhurt.
Page 200 a trip to Paris, he was rewarded this trip partly based on his display of quick reflexes for flinging an ax (just happened to be next to his chair) at a tree where he left his rifle deliberately exposed to German prisoners he was supposed to be guarding. Once in Paris (he flew there despite the war), and saw the Musee dOrsay display of modern art (this museum didnt open until 1986). While staying in Paris for this brief amount of time, he was able to get his mail forwarded from his post at Munich!
Page 51 – Numerous mentions of minus 70-degree temperatures. This would be an all-time record low for most places outside of Antarctica.
Page 36 – He crossed the English Channel to France on Christmas Day 1944. By then the battle front was on the German border several hundred miles away. France had been liberated. He talks about setting up guns, taking artillery fire, and dealing with hedgerows near Saint-Lo, a battle that was long over.
These is just the most obvious stuff. Im sure people who are familiar with the time period and army life in general would pick up much more. While I understand in a book of this nature dialog and scenery have to be created and made interesting, there are just so many unrealistic events going on that it makes me wonder whether the entire thing is just a fabrication. I have read other stories about WWII infantry men and prisoners of war, that were well researched and accurate with interesting and believable dialog.
Im sure Mr. Sisson served honorably as did millions other Americans who fought in the second world war. Ill bet most of them would be embarrassed to have such a book written about them in this manner and have it called a firsthand account. If Mr. Wise really wants to write an action thriller novel, then do so, but please dont take advantage of a 95-year-old war veteran.

The whole Patton speach delivered when the Third Army was about to invade Germany makes great reading. Every GI was a small cog in a massive undertaking, not everyone was the gunner in the lead Pershing tank leading the column into Cologne. Frank and his buddies laid critical communication wire from front line atrillery spotters to the fire controller at the guns, they rarely ever saw a living German soldier although they took a lot of German fire on their exposed positions. It takes a while to appreciate this book is a first hand account of everyday events rather than an action based saga, and this is the best part of the book. Frank found his true ability to give orders under pressure both during the war and as a Berlin MP in the year after. Not spoiling the book, the last few chapters are truely sad. Frank genuinely deserves the right to say that “I was with that s.o.b. Patton in Germany”

If you want to read a historically accurate account of Patton’s involvement in the war this is not the book to buy. I “marched with Patton” is misleading

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