Charles Kuhl
Encyclopedia
Charles Herman Kuhl was a American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 soldier who became the target of General George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...

's ire in a 1943 incident which made nationwide headlines in the United States during World War II.

Life and career

Kuhl was born the son of a Mishawaka, Indiana
Mishawaka, Indiana
Mishawaka is a city on the St. Joseph River and a Twin city of South Bend in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States. The population was 48,252 as of the 2010 Census...

 casketmaker, Herman F. Kuhl. Charles Kuhl worked as a carpet layer in South Bend
South Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...

 prior to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. During the war, Kuhl had served as a private for 8 months in Company L, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, when he was admitted to the 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry aid station for reported combat exhaustion.

At the aid station, Kuhl was initially diagnosed with "exhaustion," and his medical chart said "psychoneurosis anxiety state, moderately severe (soldier has been twice before in hospital within ten days. He can't take it at the front, evidently. He is repeatedly returned.)" Kuhl was transferred from the aid station to the Army's 15th Evacuation Hospital near Nicosia for further evaluation.

On a tour of the 15th Evacuation Hospital, Patton encountered Kuhl, who was sitting slouched on a stool midway through a tent ward filled with injured soldiers. Years later, Kuhl would recall that when General Patton entered the hospital tent, "all the soldiers jumped to attention except me. I was suffering from battle fatigue and just didn't know what to do." When Patton asked Kuhl where he was hurt, Kuhl shrugged and replied that he was 'nervous' rather than wounded, adding "I guess I can't take it." Patton slapped Kuhl across the chin with his gloves, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the tent entrance, shoving him out of the tent with a final kick to Kuhl's backside. Yelling "Don't admit this son-of-a-bitch", Patton demanded that Kuhl be sent back to the front at once, adding "You hear me, you gutless bastard? You're going back to the front." Following the incident, Kuhl was found to have both chronic dysentery and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

. Patton's actions may have been motivated in part by a report given him by Gen. Clarence R. Huebner
Clarence R. Huebner
Clarence Ralph Huebner was a Lieutenant General of the United States Army.-World War I:A farm boy from Bushton, Kansas who spent almost seven years serving from private to sergeant in the 18th Infantry, Huebner received a regular commission in November 1916...

, the commander of the 1st Infantry Division to which Kuhl belonged. Prior to visiting the 15th Evacuation Hospital, Patton had asked Huebner how things were going. Huebner replied, "The front lines seem to be thinning out. There seems to be a very large number of "malingerers" at the hospitals, feigning illness in order to avoid combat duty."

Word of Patton's actions soon spread to several Allied commanders in Sicily, who took no action in the matter. Initially, the incident was not reported by any of the news reporters in the theater. However, a group of war correspondents eventually decided that General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

 should be informed of the incident. They compiled a report on the Kuhl slapping and sent it to General Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior United States Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy...

, Eisenhower's chief of staff. When General Eisenhower learned of the matter, he ordered Patton to make amends, after which Patton formally apologized to the soldier "and to all those present at the time," The news reporters who had sent their report to Bedell Smith demanded that Patton be fired in exchange for killing the story, a demand which Eisenhower refused. Contrary to popular impression, Eisenhower never seriously considered removing Patton from duty in the ETO: "If this thing ever gets out, they'll be howling for Patton's scalp, and that will be the end of Georgie's service in this war. I simply cannot let that happen. Patton is indispensable to the war effort - one of the guarantors of our victory."

Kuhl wrote his parents about the incident, but asked them to "just forget about it." Kuhl's parents later stated that they had avoided mention of the matter "because they did not wish to make trouble for General Patton." Eventually the story of Kuhl's slapping was broken in the U.S.A. by muckraking newspaper columnist Drew Pearson
Drew Pearson (journalist)
Andrew Russell Pearson , known professionally as Drew Pearson, was one of the best-known American columnists of his day, noted for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," in which he attacked various public persons, sometimes with little or no objective proof for his...

 on his November 21, 1943 radio program. Pearson's version of the incident bore little relation to the actual event, and falsely claimed that General Patton would "not be used in important combat anymore." Allied Headquarters denied that Patton had received either an official reprimand or a relief from combat duty, but confirmed that Patton had slapped a soldier with his gloves. Demands for Patton to be recalled and sent home soon came from Congress as well as in newspaper articles and editorials across the country. However, public opinion was largely favorable to Patton, and Kuhl's father Herman even wrote his own congressman, stating that he forgave Patton for the incident and requesting that he not be disciplined. While Patton was later reassigned, he was not relieved and would continue to serve in the European theater, where he would later command the famous U.S. Third Army, which under his leadership advanced further and faster than any army in military history.

Kuhl was discharged from the Army as a private. Following the war, he returned to the Mishawaka area and obtained a job as a floor sweeper for Bendix Corporation
Bendix Corporation
The Bendix Corporation was an American manufacturing and engineering company which during various times in its 60 year existence made brake systems, aeronautical hydraulics, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers, and which licensed its name for...

 in South Bend, Indiana
South Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...

. Patton's encounter with Kuhl was later depicted in the 1970 film Patton
Patton (film)
Patton is a 1970 American biographical war film about U.S. General George S. Patton during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, and Karl Michael Vogler. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner from a script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H...

, where the slapped soldier was played by Tim Considine
Tim Considine
Timothy Daniel "Tim" Considine is a former American child actor and young adult actor who was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s...

. After the film was released, Kuhl was interviewed on the incident by news reporters. Kuhl related that "After [Patton] left, they took me in and admitted me in the hospital, and found out I had malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

," Kuhl noted, adding that when Patton apologized personally (at Patton's headquarters) "He said he didn't know that I was as sick as I was." Kuhl added that "I think at the time it happened, he was pretty well worn out himself."

Kuhl died in Mishawaka of a heart attack in 1971 at age 55.

External links

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