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In Patton's speech to the Third Army, he refers to an incident in Sicily where 400 men died because a sentry was caught sleeping on the job:

There are four hundred neatly marked graves in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job—but they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before his officer did.

On the scale of the Allied invasion of Sicily, that's fairly substantial -- about 10% of total German deaths -- but none of Wikipedia's articles on the invasion mention it even in passing. Did it happen, and if so, when and where?

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    The implicit assumption in this question that something General Patton said to motivate his troops could not possibly have been factually incorrect is cute, but perhaps overly generous.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 4:42
  • This might be an event caused by paras during the landing
    – totalMongot
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 9:18
  • Agreed, it sounds like the perfect motivational speech. A warning not to shirk duty, wrapped up in a humourous dig at the enemy, which reinforces the idea that they can be beaten. So, too good to be true as well.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 17:00
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    The US official history of the Sicily campaign can be downloaded here. If the incident happened, it should be in there.
    – John Dallman
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 18:01
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    @JohnDallman, that's got a couple of incidents that could reasonably have been distorted into "400 dead from a single sentry", and it leaves open the possibility that Patton is taking credit for British actions on Sicily.
    – Mark
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 2:07

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