A great many "bastards" have won wars by dying for their country. Patton was just saying the kind of thing he enjoyed saying to people to show what a rugged, no-nonsense, "hands-on" type of guy he was. ;-) A lot of Patton's men died winning that war.

Here's another interesting example of a hero who died fighting a hopeless battle against absolutely unbeatable odds, and who refused to surrender:

Lord Grenville, commander of the English galleon "Revenge". He has been celebrated for centuries for fighting an incredible but hopeless battle against a much larger number of Spanish galleons. It ended, inevitably, with the death of Lord Grenville and most of his men, and the loss of the Revenge and several Spanish vessels...but it has given generations of British schoolboys something to be inspired by.

And rightly so, I would say. He helped win a lengthy naval campaign by dying for his country.