A great story involving Ted Roosevelt relates to an encounter with the redoubtable General George S. Patton. Early in World War II Roosevelt was serving as Assistant Commander of the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, under Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen. The 1st Division was deployed in North Africa in Operation Torch during the early years of the United States' involvement in the war. Then Lt. General Patton was the commander of II Corps and therefore the immediate commanding officer of Allen and Roosevelt.
General George S. Patton
Major General Allen had established a policy that when a unit in the 1st Division encamped for more than one night, each soldier was required to dig his own slit trench, which was the name used to describe what we now think of as a foxhole. This policy applied to everyone, including Allen and Roosevelt, who had each dug his own slit trench near their tent encampment next to an oasis in the desert. This setup attracted frequent Luftwaffe strafing, during which Allen and Roosevelt could dive into their slit trenches for cover.
One night General Patton and his then deputy Major General Omar Bradley appeared at 1st Division headquarters in the middle of the night. Allen and Roosevelt came out of their tents to greet Patton, Roosevelt wearing his bathrobe. Patton had already developed an antipathy for the command style of Allen and by association, Roosevelt. The buttoned up, spit-and-polish Patton felt that the casual discipline imposed on 1st Division soldiers by Allen and Roosevelt was inappropriate, despite the extraordinary record compiled by the 1st Division in the North African campaign under their leadership. And this was not a fight against a bunch of ill-trained desert tribesmen, let us remember. The enemy at hand was no less than the vaunted German Afika Korps, led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the legendary "Desert Fox."
Major General Terry de la mesa Allen
At the conclusion of the visit Patton noticed the slit trenches near the encampment. Patton, who favored constant rapid movement of troops and apparently regarded slit trenches as a passive defense indicative of a lack of aggressiveness, asked Allen if the closest was his slit trench. Allen acknowledged that the slit trench was his. Patton walked over to Allen's slit trench and unzipped his pants. He proceeded to urinate in the trench. Zipping up his pants, Patton turned and looked at Allen and said "Now try to use it."
Bradley, who later said he was as shocked by this as Allen, wrote about this incident in his autobiography, wherein he said that Patton had basically labeled Allen a coward in front of his own men. Generals Allen and Roosevelt were always accompanied by two burly enlisted men as bodyguards. The guards were equipped with stripped-down Thompson submachine guns. As Allen and Roosevelt stood there aghast and speechless, the awkward silence of the night was broken by audible clicks from safeties being released on the guards' submachine guns.
Patton immediately got the message and hastily beat a retreat to his command car and hightailed it out of the area. In his autobiography, A Soldier's Story, Bradley later wondered "if this was indeed good leadership." Patton eventually succeeded in having Allen and Roosevelt relieved of command of the 1st Division, but only after letting them lead successful invasions of Sicily and Italy.
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