Patton did think he was reincarnated. He claimed to have memories of being a Carthagian soldier and wrote the poem Through a Glass Darkly which describes this. He was not only a talented military general, but was a talented poet too!
Source:
This excerpt from a Patton biography describes Patton's reincarnation beliefs in greater detail.
The movie is highly based upon the book "A General's Life" which is the book about Patton's fellow general Omar Bradley who did not like Patton at all. You get a small sense of that in the film, but Omar really thought poorly of Patton (except for the latter's war fighting capability, which is hard to guess at-- he was a brilliant general, the only American the Germans actually feared, but never got to run a war-- just his 3rd Army). The book was one of the main bases for the film thus the film's inaccuracy.
ETA-- try Zaloga, Steven (2008), Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, ISBN 978-0-8117-0424-3
AND Zaloga, Steven (2010), George S. Patton: Leadership, Strategy, Conflict, Oxford, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84603-459-6
Zaloga is the current leading expert on Patton.
OTOH-- the movie is a great experience and was supposedly Nixon's favorite. The speech at the beginning is historically accurate as far as content. I still show that speech to Intro to Speech students.
A few corrections on Patton
Yes, Patton did believe he was reincarnated and knew in unique detail different battlefields from ancient times without ever actually having visited them.
Patton was the foremost expert in the US army on tanks and battle tactics using armor and armored infantry.
Bradley disliked Patton because of his brash nature and willingness to speak up to higher authority, whereas Bradley was a go along to get along kind of general.
Bradley's dislike of Patton intensified as a result of high casualties during the invasion of Sicily, which were the result of Patton wanting to go up the east coast where Montgomery was, because Patton knew the faster Messina was captured, the faster the Germans would surrender. Since Bradley and Eisenhower disagreed with this, Patton was given the west flank of the island. Once Patton saw the delay on the east coast, he forced his men to race up the west and cut the island in two, then proceed down the north coast to Messina. Once Messina fell, all German opposition ended. Afterwards, intell found from interrogations of German officers, that had Patton been given the east attack, Messina would have fallen in a matter of days, and would have ended the campaign 2 weeks earlier and leading to the capture of some 125,000 German soldiers. Because of Montgomerys delay, 75,000 Germans managed to escape to the mainland.
The German high command definitely feared Patton. He was the only US general that understood blitzkrieg tactics in both attack and defense. When Eisenhower discovered this through intercepts, Patton was put in charge of Operation Fortitude (the deception of an invasion of the Pas de Calais), the German high command and Hitler believed that the allies would only use Patton for the main invasion. The deception worked so well, that the German high command only believed the actual invasion was in Normandy when Patton was posted to the command of 3rd Army and came to the European mainland. This deception lasted for 30 days after D-Day.
Bradley was an idiot in regards to battle plans and tactics. Operation Cobra, his plan for the breakout of Normandy, involved a mass bombing of enemy front line positions, before 3rd Army attacked. Instead of ordering the bombers to bomb down the length of the German lines, they bombed across the lines and hit many US units preparing to move out. When the debacle was over, Bradley pinned the blame on bomber command, even though bomber command tried to change their orders prior to the attack and Bradley refused. Patton raced around Paris to cut off the German army, but Montgomery delayed his own attacks and Patton was unable to fully close off the Falaise pocket. If Montgomery had moved faster, he and Patton would have cut off over 200,000 German troops from crossing into Germany. Instead, because of the delay and the reissue of supplies to prepare for Montgomerys Operation Market Garden only 50,000 Germans were captured, whereas the rest escaped through the Falaise gap.
Again, during the battle of the Bulge, it was Bradley who put General Hodges in charge of the men who were overrun during the initial attack, Bradley had delayed in preparing these men for new combat because he believed that the Ardenne area was safe. Patton, smelling something on the wind from initial reports, had rearranged his army to turn 90 degrees to the north and attack the bulge with under 72 hours warning and preparation. In 3 days Patton was cutting off the Bulge from the south, and by December 26 Patton was approaching Bastogne and cutting into the German rear areas forcing the Germans to pull back.
Metz was required to be removed for Patton to advance to the German border and make a crossing into Germany. Metz had to be captured to remove a force that would be at Pattons back if they cut it off and left it behind. Since it was a fortified location, it required a direct assault. The allies delayed a full out assault until methods were developed to reduce fortifications effectively. Once these methods were tested and the troops trained and practiced them, the city of Metz fell in short order. It wasn't that the Germans held off the allies and Patton for so long, it was that the allies and Patton had to work out some new methods first, practice them, before the full on assault.
This thread has produced a substantial number of deleted comments. To highlight some important rules from the sidebar:
Thank you.
Also, how extensively was his death investigated after the war?
I haven't heard an answer to the second question in this thread yet. Does this imply he died under suspicious circumstances?