On July 25, 1943, King Victor Emmanuel III, supported by leading Italian political figures, deposed dictator Benito Mussolini, and Italy began to negotiate peace terms with the Allies. (Italy would pull out of the Axis in September.) As German commanders planned to evacuate Sicily, Patton and Montgomery began squeezing Axis defenders into the island’s northeast corner. Eighth Army continued to probe German defenses at Catania while Canadian and British troops drove in a "left hook" around Etna’s western slope. To the north, the 1st and newly arrived 9th American Divisions advanced east from the island’s rugged center, while the 3rd Division attacked down the north coast road. "The mountains are the worst I have ever seen," Patton wrote on August 1. "It is a miracle that our men can get through them but we must keep up our steady pressure. The enemy simply can’t stand it, besides we must beat the Eighth Army to Messina."

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On August 3, Patton stopped by an army hospital outside Nicosia and chatted with several injured soldiers; "All were brave and cheerful," he noted. Then he encountered a 1st Division infantryman who seemed unhurt. Patton asked him what was wrong. "I guess I can’t take it," the soldier replied. Patton erupted. Cursing the soldier as a coward, he slapped him with his gloves and pushed him out of the tent. Such men, Patton wrote, "should be tried for cowardice and shot." A week later at another hospital Patton came across another "alleged nervous patient," a private in the 13th Field Artillery Brigade whose case was diagnosed as severe shell shock. Again Patton’s anger overcame him; again he slapped and cursed the soldier. "I can’t help it," he said, "but it makes my blood boil to think of a yellow bastard being babied." Patton didn’t realize the seriousness of what he had done, but the incidents would soon change his life and career.

Patton’s relentless push for Messina also took its toll on his relationship with Bradley, a straight-laced subordinate who deplored Patton’s use of profanity and flamboyant style of command. "He traveled in an entourage of command cars followed by a string of nattily uniformed staff officers," Bradley wrote. "His own vehicle was gaily decked with oversize stars and the insignia of his command. These exhibitions did not awe the troops as perhaps Patton believed. Instead, they offended the men as they trudged through the clouds of dust left in the wake of that procession." Where Patton was eager to outshine Montgomery, Bradley failed to see the point in capturing Palermo. "Certainly there was no glory in the capture of hills, docile peasants, and spiritless soldiers," he wrote. To Bradley, racing Montgomery to Messina was equally unnecessary, for "However rapidly we pushed into that city, we could not cut the enemy’s escape route across to Italy."

Yet Patton wanted more than a cheap victory over Montgomery. Despite galling BBC reports (soldiers called them Badly Biased Comments) "that the Seventh Army has been lucky to be in western Sicily eating grapes," the capture of Palermo had been a publicity coup for Patton’s army. The troops’ morale soared. The Americans’ non-stop marching and ability to operate tanks and other armored vehicles in rough terrain began to open the eyes of their Eighth Army counterparts. Capturing Messina promised more of the same.

As the final phase of the Sicily Campaign heated up, Patton drove his officers to push as hard as they could. Troina fell on August 6. To the south, British forces captured Adrano and–finally–Catania. Fighting a brilliant rearguard action, German army units crept back from their narrowing front toward the beaches of the Straits of Messina. There, German and Italian ships waited to ferry troops and equipment across the two-mile passage to the Italian mainland.

In an effort to by-pass enemy positions and speed up his advance, Patton authorized two amphibious landings along the north coast. On the night of August 7-8 Americans swept ashore virtually unopposed behind German lines at St. Agata. At the same time, troops from Truscott’s 3rd Division launched an attack on the high ridges inland and took 1,500 prisoners, bringing Seventh Army 12 miles closer to Messina. The second landing nearly proved a disaster. Truscott felt he would not have time to get his infantry up in time to support it, and wanted to postpone the attack for one day. Bradley agreed. But Patton was having none of it. Messina lay around the corner, and this wasn’t the time to slow down. Early on August 11 elements of Truscott’s 30th Infantry regiment went ashore at Brolo, 12 miles behind a German front. The Americans were quickly pinned down on a hill just above town. Nearly 30 hours passed before the balance of Truscott’s troops could relieve them. Progress had again been made, but at a high price.

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