Patton's "dumb bastard"

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Mar 24 20:49:17 UTC 2011


Fred wrote:
> Thanks to Garson and Sam and Jon and Victor for all the great information about the Patton/dumb bastard quote.  But no one seems to have noticed that in the Yale Book of Quotations I cite the Bureau of Aeronautics Navy Department News Letter, Jan. 1, 1943: "The greatest duty of a sailor / Is duty from worries and cares, / Not to die for his country, / Make our enemies die for theirs!"

Fred, the 1943 citation is valuable, and I did see it when I read the
material in the YBQ. The August 28, 1942 comical interchange was meant
to be complementary because it shows the notion of making "some other
chap die for his" (country) was present in the RAF as well as the U.S.
military in WW2 before the dates given for Patton's speech. This
echoes the 1917 and 1918 citations. I considered posting the YBQ 1943
cite to the list but thought, perhaps incorrectly, that others had
already seen it.

Garson

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