Third Army, Standard Operating Procedures, 1944
THIRD ARMY
STANDING OPERATING PROCEDURES, 1944
LTG GEORGE S. PATTON, JR.
ANNEX NO. 1
HEADQUARTERS
THIRD UNITED-STATES ARMY
APO 9563
U. S. ARMY
6 March 1944
SUBJECT: Letter of Instruction No. 1
TO: Corps, Division, and Separate Unit Commanders
1. GENERAL.
This letter will orient you, officers of the higher echelon, in the principles of
command, combat procedures and administration which obtain to this Army, and will guide
you in the conduct of your several commands.
2. COMMAND.
a. Leadership
(1) Full Duty
Each, in his appropriate sphere, will lead in person. Any commander who fails to obtain
his objective, and who is not dead or severely wounded, has not done his full duty.
(2) Visits to Front
The Commanding General or his Chief of Staff (never both at once) and one member of
each of the general staff sections, the signal, medical, ordnance, engineer, and
quartermaster sections should visit the front daily. To save duplication, the Chief of
Staff will designate the sector each is to visit.
The function of these staff officers is to observe, not to meddle. In addition to their
own specialty, they must observe and report anything of military importance. Remember that
praise is more valuable then blame. Remember too that your primary mission as a leader is
to see with your own eyes and be seen by troops while engaging in personal reconnaissance.
b. Execution
In carrying out a mission, the promulgation of the order represents not over 10 per
cent of your responsibility. The remaining 90 per cent consists in assuring by means of
personal supervision on the ground, by you and your staff, proper and vigorous execution.
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c. Staff Conferences
Daily, at the earliest possible moment that the G-2 and G-3 can get their maps posted,
a staff conference will be held, attended by the Commanding General, the Chief of Staff,
and all the general staff sections, the Surgeon, the Signal Officer, the Ordnance Officer,
the Engineer Officer and other special staff heads when called on. Also present at this at
this conference will be the staff officers described in paragraph 2a (2) above, who
visited the front on the previous day. Any person present with a statement to make will do
so briefly (n.b. if a staff inspector saw anything during his visit to the front requiring
immediate action, he would have reported the fact to the Chief of Staff immediately upon
his return). The Commanding General then gives his intentions, and the Chief of Staff
allocates the sectors for the days staff inspectors.
d. Rest Periods
Staff personnel, commissioned and enlisted, who do not rest, do not last. All sections
must run a duty roster and enforce compliance. The intensity of staff operations during
battle is periodic. At the Army and Corps levels the busiest times are from one to three
hours after daylight, and three to five hours after dark. In the lower echelons and in the
administration and supply staffs, the time of the periods is different but just as
definite. When the need arises, everyone must work all the time, but these emergencies are
not frequent: unfatigued men last longer and work better at high pressure.
e. Location of Command Posts
The farther forward the Command Posts are located, the less time is wasted in driving
to and from the front. The ideal situation would be for the Army Command Post to be within
one-half hour?s drive in a C&R car of the Division Command Post.
The driving time to the front from the Command Post of the lower units should be
correspondingly shorter.
Much time and wire is saved if Command Posts of higher units are at or near one of the
Command Posts of the next lower echelon.
All Command Posts of a division and higher units must have at least two echelons: the
forward one -- and that is the one referred to in this paragraph (e) -- should be kept as
small and mobile as possible with the minimum amount of radio traffic.
3. COMBAT PROCEDURE
a. Maps
We are too prone to believe that we acquire merit solely through the study of maps in
the safe seclusion of a Command Post. This is an error.
Maps are necessary in order to see the whole panorama of battle and to permit
intelligent planning.
Further, and this is very important, a study of the map will indicate where critical
situations exist or apt to develop, and so indicate where the commander should be.
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In the higher echelons, a layered map of the whole theater to a reasonable scale,
showing roads, railways, streams, and towns is more useful than a large scale map,
cluttered up with ground forms and a multiplicity of non-essential information.
b. Plans
Plans must be simple and flexible. Actually they only form a datum plane from which you
build as necessity directs or opportunity offers. They should be made by the people who
are going to execute them.
c. Reconnaissance
You can never have too much reconnaissance. Use every means available before, during,
and after battle. Reports must be facts, not opinion; negative as well as positive. Do not
believe intercepts blindly, crosscheck -- sometimes messages are sent out to be
intercepted.
Information is like eggs: the fresher the better.
d. Orders
(1) Formal Orders
Formal orders will be preceded by letters of instruction and by personal conferences.
In this way the whole purpose of the operation will be made clear, together with the
mission to be accomplished by each major unit. So that if during combat, communication
breaks down, each commander can and must so act as to attain the general objective. The
order itself will be short, accompanied by a sketch -- it tells what to do, not how. It is
really a memorandum and an assumption of responsibility by the issuing commander.
(2) Fragmentary Orders
After the initial order, you will seldom get another formal order, but you will get
many fragmentary orders in writing, or orally, by phone or personally.
Take down all oral orders and repeat them back. Have your juniors do the same to you.
Keep a diary with all orders and messages and the resulting action pasted in it in
sequence.
Keep your own orders short, get them out in time, issue them personally by voice when
you can. In battle it is always easier to for the senior to go up than it is for the
junior to come back for the issuance of orders.
A division should have twelve hours and better eighteen hours, between the physical
receipt of the order at the Division Headquarters and the time it is to be executed.
(3)Warning Orders
Warning orders are vital and must be issued in time. This requirement applies not only
to combat units but also to the Surgeon, the Signal Officer, the Quartermaster, the
Ordnance Officer, and the Engineer Officer, who must get warning orders promptly. They,
too, have plans to make and units to move. If they do not function they do not fight.
Orders, formal or otherwise, concerning units further down than the next echelon of
command are highly prejudicial.
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(4) Keep Troops informed
Use every means before and after combat to tell the troops what they are going to do
and what the have done.
4. ADMINISTRATION
a. Supply
(1) General
The onus of supply rests equally on the giver and taker.
Forward units must anticipate needs and ask for supplies in time, They must stand ready
to use all their means to help move supplies.
The supply services must get the things asked for to the right place at the right time.
They must do more: by reconnaissance they will anticipate demands and start the supplies
up before they are called for.
The DESPERATE DETERMINATION to succeed is just as vital to supply as it is to the
firing line.
(2) Replacements
Replacements are spare parts -- supplies. They must be anticipated in the rear.
An educated guess is just as accurate and far faster than compiled errors. During lulls,
you can balance the account. Keep your combat unit full. A company without riflemen is as
useless as a tank without gasoline.
(3) Hospitals
Evacuation or Field Hospitals must be kept close to the front.
Visit the wounded personally.
b. Decorations
Decorations are for the purpose of raising the fighting value of troops, therefore they
must be awarded promptly. Have a definite officer on your staff educated in writing
citations and see that they get through.
c. Discipline
There is only one kind of discipline -- PERFECT DISCIPLINE. If you do not enforce and
maintain discipline you are potential murderers. You must set the example.
5. RUMORS
Reports based upon information secured through reconnaissance conducted after dark
should be viewed with skepticism. The same thing applies to reports from walking wounded
and stragglers. These latter seek to justify themselves by painting alarming pictures.
It is risky and usually impossible to move reserves during darkness on every call for
help. Units cannot be wholly destroyed in a night attack. They must stick. Launch your
counter-attack after daylight and subsequent to adequate reconnaissance, and see that it
is coordinated.
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6. CONDITION
High physical condition is vital to victory.
There are more tired corps and division commanders than there are tired corps and
divisions.
Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Men in condition do not tire.
7. COURAGE
DO NOT TAKE COUNSEL OF YOUR FEARS.
/s/ G. S. Patton, Jr.
G. S. PATTON, JR.,
Lieut. General, U. S. Army,
Commanding
Courtesy of David Evans.
