Horace Lynn

Horace Lyn Woodring, born 30-09-1926 in Morganfield, Kentucky, an Army private who was chauffeuring the Cadillac limousine of General George S. Patton (see Patton) and General Hobart Gay (see Gay) through the German countryside when it crashed and caused the injuries that resulted in Patton's death, On 0-12-1945, Private Woodring was behind the wheel when a two-and-a-half-ton Army truck collided with the limousine.   General Gay was unhurted but General Patton suffered a broken neck and was paralyzed from the neck down. He died on 21-12-1945 age 58. The New York Times reported on Dec. 13 that an investigation had determined that Private Woodring and the truck driver, Private. Robert L. Thompson, had been guilty of carelessness. Neither was disciplined. Mr. Woodring recalled that Patton in his hospital bed asked him to drive to the airport to pick up his wife and he said General Dwight D. Eisenhower (see Eisenhower), the Allied commander, personally told him he was in no way responsible for the accident. The case is never dissolved, but Patton, pro German? was not a favourite and it could have been more than an accident. The truck came  from a side street and didn’t use his brake ? Woodring lived in White Lake, Michigan, were he at the age of 77, on 02-11-2003, died in the Detroit hospital. The cause was heart disease, said his daughter Jinger DeMent. Woodring is buried on the Clay White Oak cemetery of Kentucky.