Thursday, August 10, 2023

Tuesday, August 10, 1943. The second slapping incident.

Patton slapped a second soldier, Pvt. Paul G. Bennet, as a military hospital in Sicily.  Bennet was in the hospital for shell shock and told Patton, upon his asking why Bennet was in the hospital, that It's my nerves... I can't stand the shelling anymore."

This incident would result in the story being broken to the press when a nurse told her boyfriend, who was a public affairs officer.

Bennet, who was also suffering from dehydration and a fever, was an Army volunteer, having entered the Army in 1939.  He remained in the Army as a career after the war and served again in the Korean War. He retired as a Sergeant First Class and died in 1973 at age 51.




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