I Marched with Patton: A Firsthand Account of World War II Alongside One of the U.S. Army's Greatest Generals

by Frank Sisson, Robert L. Wise

Overview

"Poignant . . . Well worth the read." —Wall Street Journal

In December 1944, Frank Sisson deployed to Europe as part of General George S. Patton’s famed Third Army. Over the next six months, as the war in Europe raged, Sisson would participate in many of World War II’s most consequential events, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Dachau. Now 95 years old, Frank shares his remarkable story of life under General Patton for the first time.

Frank Sisson grew up in rural Oklahoma during the Great Depression. His father died when Frank was young, and so in 1944, at age eighteen, Frank, like so many other young men across America, enlisted in the Army and was deployed to France. At a traffic intersection one day, Frank caught his first glimpse of the man who would control the next six months of Frank’s deployment, and whose lessons, and spirit, would shape the rest of Frank’s life. General Patton could be erratic and short-tempered—but he was also a brilliant military tactician and cared deeply for the men who served under him, a credo that gave Frank and his fellow soldiers solace as they faced death every day. In this gritty, intimate account, Frank reveals what life on the ground was really like in the closing days of World War II.

After the war, Frank continued to serve in the army as a military police inspector in Berlin. When he finally returned home, he attended college and built a career in business. Like many members of the Greatest Generation, he was often reluctant to share his stories of the war, in all their glory, and terror. He was content to live and work in the nation he had fought to protect, an embodiment of the American Dream.

Patton, on the other hand, would not live to see the postwar world he helped create. In December 1945, less than a year after the conclusion of the war, he tragically died following a car accident. Now, seventy-five years later, Frank Sisson’s remarkable reminiscences provide a fresh, unique look at Patton’s leadership, the final days of World War II and its direct aftermath, and the experience of combat on the front lines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063019478
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/20/2020
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,170,360
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Frank Sisson was born in 1925. In 1944, he deployed to France with the 667th Field Artillery. As a sergeant, he participated in much of the most significant fighting of the later war, including the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he served as a military police inspector in Berlin. He lives in Oklahoma City.

ROBERT L. WISE is the author of 34 books, including five which cover the World War II period.

Table of Contents

Maps viii

Coauthor's Note xii

1 Meet the Man 1

2 Ever Hear of Weleetka? 7

3 Hard Decisions 12

4 The Big Turnaround 16

5 Coming Back-In Time to Leave 19

6 Jumping Off 26

7 Uncovering the Facts 31

8 Crossing 36

9 The War 41

10 Meet General Patton 47

11 Winter Sets In 51

12 The Killing Machine 56

13 Paris Survives 61

14 Disaster Looms 67

15 The Battle Begins 73

16 The Sky Turns Black 78

17 Tensions Explode 83

18 Rolling On-Regardless! 89

19 Staying Warm-And Alive 97

20 Outmaneuvering the Enemy 101

21 Rapid Rampage 108

22 Crossing the Rhine 112

23 Letters from Home 119

24 The Soviets 125

25 On the Road 131

26 Rabbits 137

27 Gruesome Discoveries 142

28 Marching On 148

29 Closing In 155

30 Obstinate 161

31 Munich 1945 166

32 Catching Our Breath 172

33 R&R 177

34 Roughing It 182

35 The Russians 188

36 Change 195

37 Paris 200

38 Celebration 206

39 A New Wind Blowing 211

40 Police Inspector on Duty 215

41 On the Beat 221

42 Running the Streets 225

43 Berlin at Night 231

44 A Little Marriage Counseling on the Side 236

45 Left to Die 245

46 The Curtain Falls 252

47 All Good Things Come To … 257

48 Going Home 263

49 Waking Up 268

Epilogue A New Side to the War 274

Acknowledgments 279

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

08/17/2020

WWII veteran Sisson recounts his wartime experiences in this spirited yet familiar memoir. A farm boy from Weleetka, Okla., Sisson dropped out of high school to help support his family after his father’s death. Drafted when he turned 18, Sisson shipped off to Europe in 1944 as a member of the Tenth Armored Division in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. His job was to string communication wires between observation points and the artillery, and to repair the wires when they were cut by German soldiers. Most of the book’s anecdotes about Patton are well-worn and add little to his legend. Still, Sisson narrates his battlefield observations and close scrapes with death in aerial assaults and artillery shelling with verve, and renders his dialogues with fellow soldiers in charmingly folksy vernacular (“When Patton took the command,” a Texan soldier tells Sisson, “he started the Third Army kicking them German’s asses like slapping fleas on a dog. Them Nazis didn’t know what hit ’em”). In the book’s most intriguing sections, Sisson details his experiences as a military police investigator in Berlin after the war and his return home to the U.S. WWII buffs will welcome this comforting snapshot of the Greatest Generation in action. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

09/11/2020

Frank Sisson was 19 when he landed in Normandy in 1944, headed for the climactic Battle of the Bulge. At 94, he related his experiences to coauthor Wise. He'd dropped out of school in Weleetka, OK, at 16 to support his mother and siblings. His perspective on life was wholly local; when he moved west to weld ships for Kaiser, it was his first foray outside his state. Two years later, he lay shivering in the Bastogne corridor, under near constant enemy fire during Europe's worst winter in years. The book's title misleads—Sisson was a grunt soldier in a mammoth army. He saw Patton and revered him, but didn't work directly for him. He was a U.S. hero, who put his life at stake repeatedly, leading a six-man unit stringing wire to advance observation posts so the guns behind knew where to shoot. Sisson's reminiscences of his own experiences read true, but the rest of this memoir does not; Wise inserts information that soldiers that far down the decision chain wouldn't have known, and Sisson's story didn't need this gussying up. VERDICT Of modest value as a war memoir. —David Keymer, Cleveland

Library Journal

2020-08-18
A 94-year-old World War II veteran tells his story.

Raised in Depression-era rural Oklahoma, Sisson enlisted in 1943 at age 18, sailed to Europe in 1944, served through the final, freezing winter, and fought into Germany. His unit finished the war in Munich, where he witnessed the horrors of the nearby concentration camp at Dachau: “Death hung in the air like a maleficent fog. We stopped, and the men got out. We could see barracks and buildings. Barbed wire lined the perimeters. On the far side of the camp stood a blackened brick chimney. The crematorium, I realized with horror.” After Germany’s surrender, the Army transferred him to the military police, where he served in the occupation of Berlin for nearly a year, which included a long, apparently platonic relationship with his female interpreter before returning home to enjoy a long and prosperous life. This is not the first as-told-to memoir from an elderly veteran by the prolific Wise. Like 82 Days on Okinawa, which Wise wrote with veteran Art Shaw, he produces an unashamedly novelistic narrative with plenty of action and long stretches of “reconstructed” dialogue that resemble an old Hollywood film and—like the movies—get some details wrong. Most readers of World War II memoirs know something of the war’s history, but Wise takes nothing for granted, so he portrays Sisson as an omniscient observer, privy to the thoughts of the higher command and actions of other armies. At times in the text he encounters another soldier who helpfully proceeds to describe the current state of the fighting, including events on the Russian front and politics at home. In his defense, it’s unlikely that Sisson’s recollections from 75 years ago could fill out an entire 300-page book. What survives is a convincing story of an innocent young man who experienced a vicious war and then a year of adventures in postwar Berlin.

Some parts require grains of salt, but this is a believable portrait of a soldier present at the defeat of the Reich.

Kirkus Reviews

"Poignant. ... Well worth the read. ... A firsthand account of the turmoil and destruction in France in December 1944 and later, on the road to Germany. ... [Sisson] has an eloquence that belies the fact that he left school at 15 to support his family." — Wall Street Journal

"Vivid. ... Compelling. ... Not many military veterans in 2020 can look you straight in the eye and say 'I marched with Patton'—but Frank Sisson can." — Newsmax

From the Publisher

"Poignant. ... Well worth the read. ... A firsthand account of the turmoil and destruction in France in December 1944 and later, on the road to Germany. ... [Sisson] has an eloquence that belies the fact that he left school at 15 to support his family."

Wall Street Journal

"Vivid. ... Compelling. ... Not many military veterans in 2020 can look you straight in the eye and say 'I marched with Patton'—but Frank Sisson can."

Newsmax

"Poignant. ... Well worth the read. ... A firsthand account of the turmoil and destruction in France in December 1944 and later, on the road to Germany. ... [Sisson] has an eloquence that belies the fact that he left school at 15 to support his family."

Wall Street Journal