A professional soldier in the best sense of the term, Patton had mastered the means of waging war in his time. He had a flair for handling large forces; a sixth sense about what the enemy was likely to do, and a capacity for inspiring and leading men. By his victories on the battlefields of North Africa, Sicily, and Europe in the Second World War, he gained fame, the status of a living legend and, after his death, a place in American folklore.