Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United States)

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 219. Chapters: George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, Thomas Blamey, Lewis H. Brereton, Ferdinand Marcos, Joseph Stilwell, John J. Pershing, Curtis LeMay, Audie Murphy, Billy Mitchell, Alvin C. York, Wendell Fertig, Kenneth Walker, James M. Gavin, George Andrew Davis, Jr., William F. Dean, Eddie Rickenbacker, Edmund Herring, Gabby Gabreski, Robert L. Eichelberger, George Kenney, Four Chaplains, Puerto Rican recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Chuck Yeager, Chesty Puller, James Jabara, Alexander Haig, Leif J. Sverdrup. Excerpt: World War I World War II George Smith Patton, Jr. (November 11, 1885 - December 21, 1945) was an officer in the United States Army best known for his leadership as a general during World War II. He also developed a reputation for eccentricity and for sometimes-controversial gruff outspokenness-such as during his profanity-laced speech to his expeditionary troops. He was on the U.S. 1912 Olympic pentathlon team and also designed the U.S. Cavalry's last combat saber: the "Patton Saber" (the M-1913). In 1916 he led the first-ever U.S. motorized-vehicle attack during the Pancho Villa Expedition. In World War I, he was the first officer assigned to the new United States Tank Corps and saw action in France. In World War II, he commanded corps and armies in North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. In 1944, Patton assumed command of the U.S. Third Army, which under his leadership advanced farther, captured more enemy prisoners, and liberated more territory in less time than any other army in history. A German field marshal speaking to American reporters called Patton "your best" (general). Patton's grandfather, Confederate Colonel George Smith Patton, died in the Battle of Opequon in 1864.George Smith Patton Jr. was born in San Gabriel, California in 1885, to George Smith Patton Sr. (1856-1927) and his wife Ruth Wilson (1861-1928), daughter of Benjamin Davis Wilson. Although he was actually the third George Smith Patton after his grandfather, he was called Junior. The Pattons were an affluent family of Scots-Irish and English descent. As a boy, Patton read widely in the classics and military history. His father was a friend of John Singleton Mosby, the noted cavalry leader of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War who served first under J.E.B. Stuart and then as a guerrilla fighter. Patton grew up hearing Mosby's stories of his adventures, and longed to become a general himself. Patton came from a military family; ancestors even before his grand