“Our success over our enemies will depend upon the degree of development of certain essentials of military personnel: 1. Skillful and resolute leadership. 2. A high morale. 3. Well organized and disciplined troops. If we have the first of these three we are bound to have the last two.”

General Alexander M. Patch (1889 to 1945)

Alexander McCarrell Patch was a senior US Army officer who fought in both WWI and WWII, rising to rank of general. During World War II he commanded US Army and US Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal Campaign, and the US Seventh Army on the Western Front.

With an invasion of Japan still an apparent likelihood, Patch returned to the US in August 1945 to take charge of the Fourth Army headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He died in November 1945 at 55, his health having been ravaged during his time in the Pacific early in the war. Patch and Lucian K. Truscott Jr. were the only US Army officers to command a division, corps and field army on active service during World War II.

A Lieutenant General at the time of his passing, he was posthumously promoted to four star General in July 1954.