DZ Season 064 Part 34. End the War in 44 – Only Human – Patton 5 – Why Patton Was Right to Slap Those Two Soldiers.

One of the fellows under me was Orde Wingate!’ …. Rank-and-file British soldiers trained kibbutzniks in military tactics. The British militarised the Yishuv and the 'Jewish warrior — as a cultural and social model and as a fact of life — emerged during the Arab Rebellion.’ …. Wingate slapped and struck Jewish soldiers in his squads, who took this as a necessary part of their drill and called Wingate the 'insane one.’ British soldiers such as Corporal Howbrook serving with the S[pecial] N[ight] S[quad]s saw the eccentric Wingate treat the Jews 'almost like dirt ... the rank and file he could do anything with them. He could push them around and order them about. And they'd almost run like kittens, little puppies.’

So wrote Matthew Hughes in Britain’s Pacification of Palestine. Was it really OK then for Patton to have slapped two of his soldiers?

Tag words: Orde Wingate; Martin Creveld; Fighting Power; American Army; German Army; Psychiatric cases; mental health issues; Patton slapping; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; PTSD; Ethan Watters; Crazy Like Us; American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM; debility syndrome; Da Costa's syndrome; shell shock; trauma;