Alexander Patch

Alexander Patch

Birth name	Alexander McCarrell Patch
Nickname(s)	"Sandy"
Born	November 23, 1889 Fort Huachuca, Arizona, United States
Died	November 21, 1945 (aged 55) Fort Sam Houston, Texas, United States
Buried at	West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York, United States
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1913–1945
Rank	General
Unit	Infantry Branch
Commands held	3rd Machine Gun Battalion 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment 47th Infantry Regiment 23rd Infantry Division XIV Corps IV Corps Seventh Army Fourth Army
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal Navy Distinguished Service Medal Bronze Star

General Alexander McCarrell "Sandy" Patch (November 23, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was a senior United States Army officer, who fought in both World War I and World War II. During World War II he commanded U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal Campaign, and the U.S. Seventh Army on the Western Front. He died in November 1945, a few months after the end of the war and two days before his 56th birthday. Patch was, along with James Van Fleet and Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., one of the very few senior American commanders to command a division, corps and field army on active service during World War II.

Patch was born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, although he was raised in Pennsylvania. His father, Captain Alexander M. Patch, was a former cavalryman in the United States Army and an 1877 graduate of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York and his mother was Annie Moore Patch, the daughter of Congressman William S. Moore of Pennsylvania. He had two older brothers, Joseph and Dorst. Of German, Scottish and Irish descent, Patch attended Lehigh University for a year, before receiving an appointment to West Point in 1909. Patch's two older brothers, Joseph and Dorst, also enlisted in the army the same year. He originally wanted to join the Cavalry Branch, but, realizing that it was becoming obsolete, he instead chose the Infantry Branch of the U.S. Army, and was commissioned on June 12, 1913 after graduating 75th in a class of 93. Some of his classmates, all of whom were, like Patch, destined to become general officers, included 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, Geoffrey Keyes, Louis A. Craig, Lunsford E. Oliver, Richard U. Nicholas, Francis K. Newcomer.