General Alexander McCarrell Patch (November 23, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was a senior United States Army officer who fought in both world wars, rising to rank of general. During World War II, he commanded U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific, and the Seventh Army on the Western Front in Europe.
With an invasion of Japan still an apparent likelihood, Patch returned to the U.S. in August 1945 to take charge of the Fourth Army headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He died three months later in November at age 55, his health having been ravaged during his time in the Pacific early in the war. "Sandy" Patch and Lucian Truscott were the only two U.S. Army officers on active service during World War II to command a division, corps, and field army.
A lieutenant general at the time of his passing, he was posthumously promoted to four-star general in July 1954.
Early life and military career
Born at Fort Huachuca, Arizona Territory, Patch was raised in Pennsylvania. His father, Captain Alexander M. Patch, was a former cavalryman in the United States Army and a graduate (1877) of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, and his mother was Annie Moore Patch, the daughter of Congressman William S. Moore of Pennsylvania.
Of German, Scottish, and Irish descent, Patch attended Lehigh University for a year, then received an appointment to West Point in 1909. His eldest brother Joseph Dorst Patch, commonly known as "Dorst", also enlisted in the army the same year. Originally interested in joining the cavalry, but realizing that it was becoming obsolete, he chose the Infantry Branch of the United States Army and was commissioned in 1913 on 12 June that year, ranked 75th in a graduating class of 93. Some of his classmates that became general officers were William R. Schmidt, Henry B. Lewis, Henry B. Cheadle, Paul Newgarden, Charles H. Corlett, Robert L. Spragins, Douglass T. Greene, Willis D. Crittenberger, William A. McCullogh, Robert M. Perkins, Carlos Brewer, Henry Balding Lewis, Geoffrey Keyes, Louis A. Craig, Lunsford E. Oliver, Richard U. Nicholas, Francis K. Newcomer.
Upon being commissioned, Patch's first assignment was with the 18th Infantry Regiment, then based in Texas City, Texas. He later saw action in the Pancho Villa Expedition into Mexico in 1916, and was later promoted to first lieutenant. In November that year he married Julia A. Littell, the daughter of an army general, whom Patch had met while he was a cadet at West Point.
In June 1917, two months after the American entry into World War I, Patch was promoted to the rank of captain and was, along with his brother Dorst, sent overseas with his regiment, which became part of the 1st Division, to join the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front where he remained until November. He then attended the British Army's Machine Gun School in England and commanded the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 1st Division until April 1918, when he then went on to direct the U.S. Army's Machine Gun School until October. Towards the end of 1918, returning to the 18th Infantry, he fought in the Second Battle of the Marne, the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse–Argonne offensive, the largest battle in the history of the United States Army. His leadership came to the attention of Colonel George C. Marshall, then a member of General John J. Pershing's staff. The war came to an end on November 11, 1918, at 11:00 am, by which time Patch was a lieutenant colonel, having been promoted to the rank a month before, and major the previous January. In February 1919, he reverted to the rank of captain and was a staff officer at AEF Headquarters.
Between the wars
After briefly serving on occupation duties, Patch returned to the United States in May 1919 and, as a professional soldier, chose to remain in the army during what would later be known as the interwar period. After four years at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., he spent the next few years as professor of military science and tactics at Staunton Military Academy, Virginia. He returned to this post twice in the interwar years, from 1925–28 and 1932–36. In 1922 he attended the Field Officer's Course at the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning. In 1924 he attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and graduated there with distinction a year later.