fifty miles behind enemy lines. It was only at the express order, urging by General Patton that General Hoge consented to the raid. In fact Patton had told Abrams, “Bill, I’ll promise I’ll replace anything you lose…every man, every tank, every half-track.” After the revelation to General Hoge from MAJ Stiller of Patton’s son-in-law being in the camp, that General Hoge understood the purpose for the raid. The true purpose of the raid was a violation of trust . The mission was shrouded in the rhetoric of rescuing American prisoners which might be shot by the Germans during the allied advance. It was also suggested the task force was a feign to make the Germans redirect their forces away from the future axis of advance. However, the true mission of the raid was to rescue General Patton’s son-in-law. Patton’s leadership did not know the raid was happening and the truth was never intended to be revealed to anyone in the Task force but Major Alexander C. Stiller. General Patton sent Major Alexander C. Stiller with the task force under the guise of letting him see a “taste of combat,”29 but Major Stiller was in fact going along with the convoy in order to identify General Patton’s son-in-law because he had previously met him. Major Stiller then revealed the true mission of the raid to General …show more content…
The only potential hole in Captain Baum’s credibly in exercising disciplined initiative is the legitimacy of the mission itself. It was unethical for General Patton to risk the lives of more than three-hundred men in order to save his son-in-law. It was potentially unethical and showed a lack of personal courage for those who knew about it to not confront or oppose General Patton on the matter. However, Captain Baum exercised very disciplined initiative towards accomplishing the