When Bernard Montgomery Finally Rolled Into Messina and Saw Patton’s Flag Already Flying, He Paused on the Hill, Took Off His Beret, and Said the One Thing No One Expected to His Staff

By the time the first British tanks crawled up the last bend in the dusty road to Messina, the race was already over.

From his command vehicle, General Bernard Law Montgomery saw it—simple and infuriatingly clear.

On the far side of the harbor, by the ruined waterfront, an American flag was already snapping in the Mediterranean breeze. Below it, clustered around trucks and half-tracks and dusty tanks, he could see helmets glinting and men milling in the loose, animated way of troops who know, deep in their bones, that they got there first.

“Signal flags on the quay, sir,” his aide, Major George “Pip” Roberts, said quietly, binoculars to his eyes. “Third U.S. Army markings. That’ll be Patton.”

Montgomery didn’t answer right away.

For a man famous for speeches—planned offensives, clear objectives, and the occasional lofted barb at American impatience—he could be surprisingly silent when the moment demanded it.

He stepped down from the side of his armored car, boots crunching on the gravel that edged the rutted road. The air smelled of dust, hot metal, and distant smoke from buildings that had burned days before.

Behind him, the British columns waited in their neatly ordered files: lorries, tanks, half-tracks, men perched on fenders or sitting on their packs. They’d fought their way up from the south and east, taking hilltop towns and stone farmhouses one by one, as was his way—methodical, prepared, minimizing casualties where he could.

Patton had come another way—cut across the island, taken Palermo, whipped around the coast road in a blur of dust and gasoline and profanity. It had not been pretty. It had not been tidy.

It had, however, been fast.

Montgomery raised his field glasses.

Through the lenses, the American flag leapt closer. Beneath it, a banner he knew too well: a blue field, white “AA” in a circle—Patton’s Seventh Army.

On the pier, he could pick out a single figure standing a little apart from the others, hands on hips, helmet gleaming. Even at this distance, the stance looked unmistakable: planted, arrogant, satisfied.

General George S. Patton Jr. was—there was no other word for it—posing.

Montgomery lowered the glasses.

His staff watched him like men watching a fuse approach a powder keg.

“Well,” Roberts said at last, trying to sound more neutral than he felt, “it appears they’ve beaten us to it.”

Montgomery adjusted his black beret, a habitual gesture. His lips brushed against the badge as he tugged it into place—a small ritual, invisible to most, that calmed him more than he liked to admit.

For a moment, it looked like he might order the column forward at a snap, march right into the town, shake Patton’s hand with enough stiffness to crack bone, and then deliver some dry, cutting remark about haste and tidiness.

Instead, he did something else.

He took a slow breath. The Sicilian heat trembled in front of him, turning the distance into a shimmer.

Then he reached up, took off his beret, and held it loosely in his hand.

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “let it be recorded that General Patton’s army has done well.”

His staff exchanged glances, expressions somewhere between surprise and confusion.

“That’s… very sporting of you, sir,” Roberts ventured.

Montgomery looked at the flag again, then past it to the strait—Italy a faint, hazy line beyond.

“A little too sporting, perhaps,” he said. “But it is the truth. He set himself a finish line and reached it before us. One must not be afraid of facts.”

He put his beret back on.

“And if I am not afraid of those,” he added, voice sharpening, “then I am certainly not afraid of Patton.”

A few chuckles, cautious but real, rippled through the small group.

“Come along,” Montgomery said briskly. “We shall go down and congratulate our cousins. No doubt they will make a great fuss. Americans always do.”

He paused, eyes glinting.

“And then,” he finished, “we shall outdo them in the next round.”

Messina itself was a scraped, tired city, perched on the edge of the water like a boxer at the ropes. It had been bombed by air and shelled from sea. Walls were cracked open like books. Shutters hung askew. The narrow streets were strewn with rubble and spent cartridge cases. Laundry—how there was still laundry, Montgomery didn’t know—fluttered from lines between buildings.

Patton waited for him in the main square.

Of course he did.

The American general had chosen his spot carefully: in front of the bomb-holed façade of the city hall, with a makeshift flagpole jammed into a cracked stone planter. The Stars and Stripes moved in the hot breeze. Beside it, someone had draped a banner with “MESSINA” painted in big, uneven letters, as if anyone needed reminding where they were.

Patton wore his helmet—the polished one with the three stars. His riding boots were dusty but still somehow looked like they had been polished by a man with no other responsibilities. His pistols—ivory-handled, rumoured to be pearl—rested in their holsters.

When he saw Montgomery’s staff car pull up, he smiled, wide and genuine.

Montgomery stepped out slowly.

He wore his usual—the battledress, the beret, the twin badges glinting just enough to remind introduced strangers that this was not some colonel. His shoes were scuffed, his face lined from dust and concentration.

The two men could not have looked more different if a casting director had ordered them that way.

“Monty!” Patton called, striding forward, hand out.

“George,” Montgomery said coolly, moving to meet him.

They shook hands, firmly enough that both noticed.

“It seems,” Patton said, “that my boys beat you to this little party.”

“So it appears,” Montgomery agreed. “Congratulations.”

He said the last word without a hint of irony.

Patton blinked.

“Well,” he said, recovering, “I’ll be damned. That’s decent of you to say.”

“I endeavor to be honest,” Montgomery replied. “I said all along Sicily would be taken by two armies. One took this town. The other took the rest.”

He gestured vaguely southward.

“Plenty of glory to go around,” he added. “At least, that is what Ike will say when we’re all arguing about it at the next conference.”

Patton laughed.

“Touché,” he said. “Though I will say, I rather like the sound of ‘first into Messina.’”

“Then enjoy it,” Montgomery said. “You will dine out on it for years. Americans are very keen on such phrases.”

He let the faintest ghost of a smile touch his mouth.

“But tell me, George,” he went on, “how many trucks did you break to get here?”

Patton’s grin crooked.

“A few,” he admitted. “Maybe more than a few. But Sicily’s bad for trucks anyway. The roads are too small for ’em.”

“And men?” Montgomery asked.

“Too many,” Patton said softly, almost under his breath. Some of the light went out of his eyes. “More than I wanted. More than I’ll ever think was reasonable.”

Montgomery nodded slowly.

“So you see,” he said, “we both paid. Just with different currencies.”

They walked together through the square, their staffs a respectful distance behind, as if two planets had drawn close and moons were wary.

Civilians watched them from windows, eyes cautious but curious. Children peered around doorframes. Somewhere, a dog barked and barked, then stopped suddenly, as if it too realized something unusual was happening.

“So,” Patton said, “what did you say when you saw my flag? I imagine it was colorful.”

Montgomery took a moment.

“It was not,” he said.

“Come now,” Patton said. “Man to man. Out with it. You saw Old Glory flying and my fellows cheering and you must’ve said something to your people.”

Montgomery stopped walking.

He turned, facing the harbor, where the flag was still visible in the distance.

“I took off my beret,” he said. “I said: ‘Let it be recorded that General Patton’s army has done well.’”

Patton stared at him.

“You’re not pulling my leg?” he asked.

“I do not pull legs,” Montgomery said. “I am not a comedian. I am a general.”

Patton barked a surprised laugh.

“Well, I’ll be damned twice,” he said. “If you’re lying, that’s the first good lie I’ve ever heard out of you.”

“I do not lie either,” Montgomery said, slightly offended now. “It is inefficient. One wastes too much time remembering the details.”

Patton considered that.

“So you mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that B. L. Montgomery, General, knight, hero of Alamein, looked at my flag and said I did well?”

“Yes,” Montgomery said. “Privately, to my staff. Do not let it go to your head.”

Patton shook his head in wonder.

“I’m still going to tell everyone,” he said. “You know that, right?”

Montgomery sighed.

“Of course you are,” he said. “You Americans tell everyone everything.”

He started walking again.

“But when you quote me,” he added over his shoulder, “do try to get the words right.”

Later, in a small room commandeered from a damaged municipal office, they convened with maps spread across a table and the atmosphere thick with cigarette smoke and dust.

Eisenhower was not there in person—he was already thinking ahead to the next thing, as he often was—but his influence lay over the conversation like a hand.

For the moment, though, it was just the two of them and their key staff.

The map of Sicily, worn at the edges and scarred with penciled arrows and Xs, lay open.

“We’ve both done the job here,” Montgomery said, tapping the island. “The important question is what next—and how we coordinate it so we are not at cross-purposes.”

Patton bristled slightly.

“Thought you were in charge of all this,” he said.

“I am,” Montgomery replied. “Of the Eighth Army. Eisenhower is in charge overall. You are in charge of the Seventh. No one person is in charge of everything, or we would not be having so many meetings.”

Patton smirked.

“Shame about that,” he said. “Would simplify things.”

“For whom?” Montgomery shot back. “You?”

Patton grinned wider. “Naturally.”

Roberts cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we have orders about possible operations in Italy—Calabria, perhaps Salerno later. The planners in Algiers—”

“Algiers can wait,” Patton cut in. “This is where the dirt is. This is where it happens first.”

Montgomery held up a hand.

“Let us at least pretend to be civilized,” he said. “We have both done well. But there will be no charge into mainland Italy without a great deal of thought. The Germans will not be caught napping as they were here. They know we are coming.”

Patton’s eyes sparkled.

“All the more reason to keep them off balance,” he said. “You punch them in the nose, Monty. Don’t take a week writing them a letter first.”

“I prefer to send a complete package,” Montgomery replied. “Punch, plan, and follow-through.”

He leaned over the map.

“Listen, George,” he said, tone shifting from combative to serious. “This was a race of sorts. You won. Very good. But in the next stage, it cannot be about who gets to which city’s nameplate first. It must be about the outcome.”

Patton listened, to his credit.

“My boys need this,” he said. “After Kasserine, after all the learning, they needed a win. Getting here before you? That’s… something they’ll hang their helmets on. But I take your point. Next time, we coordinate the show.”

“You will try,” Montgomery said. “And when you do not, Eisenhower will shout at both of us, and we will pretend to be chastised.”

Patton laughed aloud.

“I don’t pretend,” he said. “I just apologize and do it again.”

Montgomery stared at him, then actually chuckled.

“At least you are honest about your dishonesty,” he said. “That is something.”

That night, in Messina, with the guns mostly quiet and the harbor lights flickering uncertainly, Patton stood by the water, hands in his pockets, looking across the strait.

Italy lay out there, dark and silent.

Roberts, walking back from a liaison visit, saw him and hesitated, then decided curiosity outranked protocol and approached.

“General,” he said.

“Major,” Patton replied, without turning. “Got your boss back to his lair safely?”

“Yes, sir,” Roberts said. “He’s writing.”

“I figured,” Patton said. “Man writes more than he sleeps.”

Roberts smiled.

“General Montgomery asked me to deliver a message, actually,” he said.

Patton looked at him now, eyes narrowing.

“From Monty?” he asked. “Not written, I hope. I haven’t got a staff big enough to digest that much prose.”

“Verbal,” Roberts said. “I’ll quote as accurately as I can.”

Patton lit a cigar, gestured for him to continue.

“He said,” Roberts began, “‘Tell George that today he beat me to the finish line. Tell him also that wars are not won by finishing lines, but by how you run every mile. And tell him I look forward to the next race.’”

Patton took that in, smoke curling around his face.

“He said that?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Roberts said. “Those were his words.”

Patton stared out at the dark water again.

“He’s a cocky little so-and-so,” he said. “But he’s not wrong.”

He flicked ash into the harbor.

“Tell him this, next time he feels like hearing from me,” Patton said. “Tell him: today my boys needed this. Tomorrow, his might. So long as we keep swapping wins and the other fellow keeps losing ground, I don’t care which of us cuts the ribbon.”

Roberts nodded slowly.

“I’ll pass it along,” he said.

“And Major?” Patton added.

“Sir?”

“Tell him,” Patton said, “that when he told his staff I’d done well today, he did something I didn’t expect. He was gracious. I respect that. Don’t tell him I said so, though.”

Roberts grinned despite himself.

“Of course not, sir,” he said. “I’ll be sure never to mention it.”

Back in his makeshift headquarters, Montgomery sat at a plain wooden desk, lamp hissing, pen scratching across paper.

He was not writing to London—not yet. He was writing to himself, in a small notebook he carried for this purpose.

“Messina,” he wrote at the top of the page. “Patton arrival before Eighth Army.”

He paused, then continued.

“Facts: Americans drove hard along north coast, accepted greater mechanical and human cost. Result: rapid capture of objective. Strategic implication: enemy deprived of organized evacuation route sooner than expected. Political implication: Americans pleased, British somewhat bruised. Personal implication: must accept, then surpass.”

He underlined the last phrase.

He thought back to what he had said on the hill.

“Let it be recorded that General Patton’s army has done well,” he wrote again, this time in ink.

He looked at the words, judging them as if they were orders.

“It is important,” he muttered, “to give credit where it is due. Even when that credit irritates.”

He closed the notebook.

Outside, through the cracked window, he could hear the faint sounds of the city—boots on cobblestones, the murmur of voices, a distant burst of laughter from some unit celebrating in a courtyard.

He leaned back, removed his beret, and rubbed his forehead.

“Very well, George,” he said quietly to the empty room. “You have your medal today.”

He set the beret back on his head, straightened.

“Tomorrow,” he added, “we shall see whose plan impresses history more.”

Word of what Montgomery had said on the hill spread, as such things do, filtered through the mouths and minds of men who were there, or near there, or wished they had been.

“Monty took off his hat,” one staff sergeant told another. “Said ‘Patton did well.’ I heard it.”

“Rubbish,” the other replied. “He’d sooner eat his map. Must’ve said something like, ‘The Americans have arrived, how untidy.’”

“Swear on my mother’s tea set,” the first insisted. “He said it. Calm as you like.”

In American camps, the story took on a slightly different shape.

“Monty stood up and saluted,” a private said, gesturing with his mess tin, “and said, ‘Patton is the finest general in this theater.’”

“Now you’re just making stuff up,” his buddy replied. “But I like your version better.”

The truth, as usual, sat somewhere between reverence and mockery.

Montgomery, for his part, did not repeat the line publicly.

He did not need to.

He knew who had heard it.

So did Patton.

And somewhere at Allied headquarters, Eisenhower, listening to reports from both men, smiled to himself.

If the two most temperamental prima donnas in his coalition could admit—however privately—that they needed each other, then perhaps, just perhaps, they might make it through the next, far more dangerous, act.

Years later, Montgomery would be asked, in an interview, about that day in Messina.

“You and General Patton,” the interviewer said, “had something of a rivalry, didn’t you?”

Montgomery, older now, medals arranged with careful precision on his chest, considered the question.

“We had a difference in style,” he said. “He was… flamboyant. I was, and am, a professional soldier.”

The interviewer smiled, waiting.

“Is it true,” he pressed, “that when you saw the American flag in Messina, you were quite put out? There are tales that you swore up one side of the hill and down the other.”

Montgomery raised an eyebrow.

“Journalists love tales,” he said. “I deal in facts.”

He thought of dust, of sunlight on water, of a flag in the distance and a man in a polished helmet.

“I was disappointed,” he said simply. “I wanted Eighth Army to take that town first. We did not. Seventh Army did. When one fails to achieve an objective, one must be honest about it.”

“Did you say anything?” the interviewer asked. “To your men. To Patton.”

Montgomery hesitated, then nodded.

“I took off my beret,” he said. “I said that his army had done well. It was the truth.”

The interviewer blinked, perhaps expecting more drama.

“That’s all?” he asked.

“It was enough,” Montgomery replied.

He did not add that, in the back of his mind, that line still lived—a small hinge on which a large rivalry had turned from venom to something closer to iron sharpening iron.

Nor did he add that, in quiet moments, he had come to view that simple acknowledgment as one of the more important things he had ever said.

Because sometimes, in war as in life, what you say when someone else gets there first says more about you than any race you win.

As for Patton, when asked in his own way years earlier what he recalled of Messina, he had laughed.

“Hell,” he said, “I remember the dust. And the heat. And that feeling when we rolled in and knew we’d made it before the Brits. My boys needed that.”

He took a sip of coffee.

“And Monty?” the reporter prompted. “What about him?”

Patton’s face shifted, just a little.

“Monty did all right,” he said. “He fought his war his way. I fought mine mine. That day, I got there first. Another day, maybe he did. We both made the Germans’ lives miserable. That’s what counts.”

“Did he ever say anything to you?” the reporter asked. “About that race?”

Patton smiled, eyes distant for a moment.

“He said I’d done well,” he said. “You can print that. Because for him, that was like giving me a medal.”

He stubbed out his cigarette.

“And you know what?” he added. “He earned one too. Just for saying it.”

THE END