Patton's Prayer

By December 1944 the Allied drive toward Berlin had bogged down. Rain had fallen almost every day since September, turning roads to mud and slowing tanks and trucks to a crawl. Low cloud kept American aircraft on the ground, which gave the Germans time to reinforce. Thousands of American soldiers had already died in the stalemate, and General George Patton, a devout Christian, was desperate for the weather to turn.

His solution was unusual. Patton phoned his head chaplain and asked whether he had a good prayer for the weather. The prayer that resulted was printed and handed out to the 250,000 men under his command, who were told to pray while driving, while fighting, alone and together, by night and by day. They were to pray for an end to the rains, for good weather to fight in, for victory, and for peace.

Then the Germans struck. In the bitter cold and heavy snow of Belgium's Ardennes Forest, 200,000 enemy troops broke through thinly held American lines in the Battle of the Bulge and killed thousands of soldiers as they advanced on the crossroads town of Bastogne. The 101st Airborne had dug in there, but a fog that would not lift hid the enemy all around them. A hundred miles to the south along frozen roads, Patton needed his prayer answered quickly.

Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, tells this story of courage, endurance, and faith in the Second World War's most desperate winter.