Patton and a race to the Yalu River

This is something i have always wondered. What would happen if Gen Patton had lived long enough to have an active role in the Korean war. In particular i am thinking the amphibious landing at Inchon, and how effective would he be having had success from North Africa to the Arden forest. Would his experience with Armour trump what MacArthur brought to the table?
 
MacArthur gets the Japanese occupation because, well, he was there and he had rank and he relatively familiar with the region. So, assuming that the Korean conflict breaks out on schedule, Macarthur is almost certainly going to wind up in overall command of the US/UN forces in the peninsula.

That being said, Patton seems like a bad choice for theatre command. Korea isn't terribly well suited for armored warfare, he probably isn't going to try Inchon or anything similar, he isn't a terribly good strategic thinker, and in all likelyhood he'll push just as hard towards the Yalu river/for bombing china.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
This is something i have always wondered. What would happen if Gen Patton had lived long enough to have an active role in the Korean war. In particular i am thinking the amphibious landing at Inchon, and how effective would he be having had success from North Africa to the Arden forest. Would his experience with Armour trump what MacArthur brought to the table?
Inchon was a pretty hairy operation. Everything that the US had ever learned said HELL NO! In the conference about the planned landing, and about the best that the Naval commander had to say about it was that it was (barely) possible.

I can't see Patton bucking that advice.

Korea is terrible tank country. Mountains to the east, rice paddys and terrible conditions. Winter is the only time that such operations are feasable. Of course Winter comes with it's own set of problems, especially in Korea.

Keep in mind though that MacArthur already had Walton Walker commanding Eighth Army. Walker had Third Armored under Patton in WWII.

Of course, I can't see Patton ever ignoring evidence that the Chinese were about to enter the war. That was MacArthur's greatest blunder as a theater commander. Still, without the Inchon landing, it takes much longer for the North Koreans to be driven to the Yalu River in the first place. It becomes a matter of slugging it out with the enemy, like Mark Clark's Fifth Army was forced to do in Italy.
 
You need a much earlier PoD, other than Patton's death, to get Patton a combat command in Korea. You would need to do the following:

1)Hand wave away Mac's ego, or hand wave away Mac's command of the theater.
2)Hand wave away Patton's propensity for foot in mouth syndrome. You would definitely need to have him avoid his anti-Soviet rant on an open phone line that finally got him sacked from 3rd Army, and you might even need to have him avoid the slapping incidents, if you want him to have a combat command after WW2.

Remember, at the time of Patton's death, he had been transferred to command 15th Army, a non-combat formation in charge of the history of the war. He never would have been promoted further, and to have him in a combat command role at the army level 5 years later borders on ASB, even without Macarthur in charge. With Mac in charge, you can forget about it.
 

Larrikin

Banned
You need a much earlier PoD, other than Patton's death, to get Patton a combat command in Korea. You would need to do the following:

1)Hand wave away Mac's ego, or hand wave away Mac's command of the theater.
2)Hand wave away Patton's propensity for foot in mouth syndrome. You would definitely need to have him avoid his anti-Soviet rant on an open phone line that finally got him sacked from 3rd Army, and you might even need to have him avoid the slapping incidents, if you want him to have a combat command after WW2.

Remember, at the time of Patton's death, he had been transferred to command 15th Army, a non-combat formation in charge of the history of the war. He never would have been promoted further, and to have him in a combat command role at the army level 5 years later borders on ASB, even without Macarthur in charge. With Mac in charge, you can forget about it.

Patton was also too old to have gotten a combat command in Korea. He would have been past retirement age for a combat general, and no way in hell was he going to get a spot at the Pentagon. He screwed up France in the last quarter of 44 enough that they would never, ever have given him a major combat command again anyway. A nice high profile job away from troops was the best he could get.
 

Larrikin

Banned

Continually disobeying orders to halt where he was in order to supply the 21st AG and US 1st Army. Continually getting into fights so that he would continue to get supplies. Screwed up the attack on Metz, Herman Balck commented "the bad and timid leadership of the Americans" was why he managed to hold Metz for nearly 3 months from when 3rd amount arrived to when they took it.

He was a butcher with the lives of his men, posturing to the contrary, his men said that "Ol Blood and Guts" meant their blood and his guts.
 
He was 60 when WW2 ended so wold have been 65 by 1950. While old guys get brought back in emergencies, they always get to retire first. I don't think he'd be someone they'd WANT to bring back.

Cat!
 
I'm going to both disagree and agree with what's been said so far. Patton lacks the seniority to be Supreme Allied Commander in Japan, but he does have enough experience and the correct rank to be commander of the Eighth Army, the Allied occupation force of Japan.

OTL, that role was filled in 1948 by Walton Walker, a tank commander in the same mold as Patton, and only four years younger. He was the commander of the UN forces in Korea after the decision was made to intervene, he fought at Pusan, then had his command divided by MacArthur as the UN forces drove toward the Yalu and eventual defeat.

IMHO, you could make a strong argument that Patton, with his star on the wane toward the end of the war and afterward, could be given command of Eighth Army as a way to shuffle him out of the way after 1945. It could even be played up as a great honor -- commanding the occupation troops of one of the defeated Axis powers.

You could take it in a couple of different directions afterward; I don't think Patton and MacArthur would work well together at all, but with two personalities that big, there's been enough documented about their lives that you could come up with some pretty strong sources to justify almost anything.

In terms of the war, I don't think Patton would've put up with MacArthur splitting Eighth Army, but I do think he would've driven straight to the Yalu and right into the Chinese attack, just as OTL. He might not have done so with the malicious neglect of MacArthur, but I fear that his aggressiveness, coupled with the way the U.S. ignored every warning sign that the Chinese were entering the war, would lead to a massive defeat.
 
My problem is that MacArthur would have had the clout to torpedo the assignment of a commander subordinate to his position. Patton would NOT have meshed well with the MacArthur PR machine, in that Patton didn't know how to shut up and give all the credit to someone else. MacArthur knew this, and easily had the prestige and power to block the assignment of Patton.

I can say this: Thank God we got Matt Ridgeway over there. He was one of the most outstanding American combat commanders of the WW2-Korea era.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
My problem is that MacArthur would have had the clout to torpedo the assignment of a commander subordinate to his position. Patton would NOT have meshed well with the MacArthur PR machine, in that Patton didn't know how to shut up and give all the credit to someone else. MacArthur knew this, and easily had the prestige and power to block the assignment of Patton.

I can say this: Thank God we got Matt Ridgeway over there. He was one of the most outstanding American combat commanders of the WW2-Korea era.
Maybe, maybe not. Remember, MacArthur was a genius at controlling the press, and press access. MacArthur and Patton knew each other from WWI. From everything I've seen, there was no rivalry. Patton's comments about MacArthur-- "Bravest son of a bitch I've ever seen." If anything, MacArthur would have appreciated a Patton over Walton Walker --at least Walton Walker at the beginning of the war-- Still, Mac had strange choices for Army Commanders, witness Walt Krueger for Sixth Army in WWII.

The question is whether or not somebody like Patton would have launched the Inchon invasion. While Patton believed in the deep strike, from everything I've seen of the man, he'd have seen Inchon as far too great a risk.

Absolutely agree about Ridgeway. His tactics are still standard US doctrine to this day, and by some accounts, the Chinese suffered over 1,000,000 KIA.

Considering that Ridgeway was coming from an Airborne perspective he was just the kind of aggressive general that Eighth Army needed.

As far as Patton being too old to be a theater commander, they need to remember that MacArthur was 70 years old when Korea started.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Patton was too too too too old by 1950. Remember that Walker, Van Fleet and Ridgeway were all Division commanders in WWII. Almost all of the Corps and Army level commanders of WWII had by then retired.

Why would you bring back Patton and a man who was no where near the best Army commander of WWII? And if any WWII commander was coming it would be Mark Clark as in OTL.
 
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