Structure

Killing Patton covers that last months of World War II, from October 1944 through May 1945 and then Patton’s life post war until his death in December 1945. The first sections describe the battles that Patton led as commander of the U.S. Third Army. Patton led the battle for the fort at Driant and the battles as he pushed onward into Germany eventually able to cross the Rhine.

The story of the war is interwoven with the behind-the-scenes squabbles and political maneuvering of the military leaders and commanders of both the Allied and Axis powers. Patton’s overbearing personality and tendency to tell it like it saw it, got him trouble time after time and kept him from achieving even higher positions than what he had.

The author contrasts the story of the last throes of the war with the political hurdles that Patton had to circumvent at...