December 9th, 1945 (SUNDAY)
GERMANY: Heidelberg:
General George S. Patton's staff car is in collision with a US Army truck.
Patton and General Hobart Gay were backseat passengers in a military staff sedan speeding along the autobahn
at 11.45AM en route to a pheasant hunt. The truck travelling in the opposite direction suddenly crossed their lane, creating the conditions for a head-on collision. Both drivers swerved to avoid a direct collision, but the side-swiping impact threw the general forward, striking his head on the
sedan’s interior dome light, and then whiplashing him back. Although both the driver and General Gay were uninjured, Patton suffered crushed vertebrae in his upper spinal column, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and mortally wounded.
The driver of the truck T/5 Robert L. Thompson was drunk.
Patton told his driver Horace Woodring and Gay to "(W)ork my fingers for
me. Take and rub my arms and shoulders and rub them hard." It was
immediately evident patton had no feeling below the neck. As they waited for
help, he said, "This is a helluva way to die." (75)
1946 (MONDAY)
GERMANY: An American military tribunal in Nuremberg opens criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. During what is called the "Doctors Trial" the defendants are accused of planning and enacting the "Euthanasia" Program, the systematic killing of those they deemed "unworthy of life." The victims included the mentally retarded, the institutionalized mentally ill, and the physically impaired. Sixteen of the doctors are found guilty and seven are sentenced to death. Of the other nine found guilty, they ended up serving from less than 10- to 20-years. Seven are found not guilty. (Tom Hickcox)