NOW AND THEN WE HAVE TO SHOOT THE MULES

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



As was his routine, Commanding Officer, Lieutenant General George Smith Patton, Jr. reviewed the troops the night before the July 21 – 23, 1943 offensive into Palermo, Sicily. He stopped right in front of me where I stood in formation and asked me my name and home state.

“Martin Gavin from Ohio, Sir,” I answered.

He looked me over good with those penetrating eyes of his and asked, “Is your mother there in Ohio, Private Gavin?”

“Yes, Sir!” I replied.

“Well, give her my regards in your next letter home. And tell her you’re working for the best damn ass-kicker in this man’s army.”

“Yes, Sir!” I repeated. The jury was still out in my mind as to whether or not I held him in such high esteem. He was all flash and ego, and I couldn’t help wondering if he was in it to bring glory on himself rather than victory over a heinous enemy of his country. An incident a day later decided it for me.

I think he picked me out of the line because the two of us stood eye to eye, and from a distance, we resembled each other. Like Patton, I was tall and my hair and eyebrows and eyelashes had bleached white from the relentless sun in that part of the world. I suspect he also detected by the overoptimistic thrust of my chin the remnants of my stubborn naïveté about the realities of war. I still believed in my bones that the poor SOB next to me might get killed, but not me! I would see absolutely in the next three days up close and personal that war kills—maybe even me, and not just men.

Our charge from the bottom to the top of Sicily took us over its challenging natural terrain in a 200 miles thrust. We broke through the enemy’s immediate front and rolled him back, accomplished by our forward Infantry and supporting tanks. In the mountains southwest of Palermo, the enemy engaged us again, but we drove him back with artillery fire and tanks. The Germans had dug treacherous pits along the sides of the roads concealed by chicken wire and dirt. At the place of each pit, they had strung wire entanglements across the roads in the hope our tanks would drive around them and crash into the roadside pits. But we were on to the enemy’s tricks. We stuck to the road and blasted through the wire entanglements.

All of a sudden, our long column of vehicles and equipment came to an abrupt halt as we approached a bridge that was our only access across a mean river. “WHAT THE F%#%!” the roar of hundreds of men went out. Our commander’s was the loudest of them all. From behind the steering wheel of my half-track in my position near the front of the column, I saw that a cart driven by an old Sicilian man and towed by two mules was parked square in the middle of the narrow bridge. The mules were lowered to their arses, unmoving. Patton jumped down from his Jeep at the front of the column as simultaneously the old Sicilian climbed down from his cart. They met at the heads of the stubborn mules. “GET THESE G#%&$#% MULES OFF THIS BRIDGE!” Patton bawled, his buttermilk face purple with rage, his burly left arm thrusting in the air, and the walking stick in his hand tracing threatening circles at the Sicilian.

 

The Sicilian babbled in Italian and waved his arms wildly, his head swinging back and forth on his shoulders. He grabbed the hackamore of the mule closest to him and pulled with all his strength. He pushed; he pulled; he begged. The mules would not move. In a flash, just like the Cisco Kid, Patton pulled his Colt .45 from his right-hip holster, took aim and shot one mule and then the other dead-center of their foreheads. The mules plopped over on their sides, dead as doornails. Tears sprang to the old Sicilian’s eyes and he bawled like a baby, his shoulders pumping up and down pathetically. Patton put his revolver back in its holster and ordered a cadre of his men to roll the carcasses over the side of the bridge to the deep of the water below. And he wasn’t finished. To stop the old man’s protestations, Patton struck him on his body with his walking stick. The man cowered and turned back to his cart where it was pushed to the side of the road, out of our way.

The knuckles of my hands were white from gripping the steering wheel of the half-track. Strong emotions swept over me like a pounding tide—first shock, and then anger, anger over the loss the poor old Sicilian incurred. “How would he ever replace his mules, his major source of livelihood and transport?” I asked myself. But in only a few seconds I understood what had really happened. This was the very reason George S. Patton was our leader. The mules and their powerless owner at that moment were the enemy. They set up a life and death situation, because the barrier they created not only blocked our advance but made of us sitting ducks for the enemy that was around us everywhere.

It was a big lesson in life I learned that day. A decision had to be made. There was no time to hem and haw over it. Shooting the obstinate mules and sweeping them out of our way was the expedient recourse, and the war, all wars, if nothing else are slave to expediency. It was an act on Patton’s part that added to the controversy that dogged him, but he won my mind that day, if not my heart. My heart—well, it just didn’t want to come along. It wanted to stay down there, cuddled in its soft, sweet greenness. That’s why I was a lowly private and prayed to stay that way.

The hair on the back of my head stood up under my helmet and I hunched low over the steering wheel of my half-track. I wanted to abandon my vehicle and take cover in the nearby bushes. The half-track saved my legs and feet, but put me too high in the enemy’s line of fire. I didn’t want to think or feel anymore. I wanted to get moving again. I wanted to go home.

It was nearing dark as we approached Palermo on day three of our advance. Patton received word that the city had fallen to our forward troops, and he elected to go in. The hills on each side of the long road we traveled were burning. We entered the town and the street was lined thick on both sides with people who shouted, “Down with Mussolini! Long live America!” The flowers and lemons and watermelons tossed at the forward troops in symbols of welcome, littered the street. The governor had skipped town, but we went on to capture two generals, both of whom were added to the close to ten thousand prisoners who were bagged during the course of our march. The scuttlebutt was that when Patton inspected the harbor the following morning, a group of prisoners held in the POW compound there stood up, saluted, and then cheered him.©

Image: Patton in his Jeep conferring with U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lyle Bernard, CO, 30^th Infantry Regiment, a prominent figure in the second daring amphibious landing behind enemy lines on Sicily’s north coast – July 23, 1943.

Note: the above essay is a work of historical fiction based on actual events.

Recommended reading: “War as I Knew It” by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. and “Max Corvo, OSS Italy, 1942 – 1945” by Max Corvo.

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com.