Whats more, his decision to advance on a broad front ran contrary to the general understanding that it was necessary to concentrate forces to create a sizable breach worthy of exploiting in the enemys main line. Crossing the Rhine 24 -31 March 1945: C-47 transport planes release hundreds of paratroops and their supplies over the Rees-Wesel area to the east of the Rhine. It began with the crossing of the River Rhine in March 1945, with forces fanning out and overrunning all of Western Germany until their final surrender on May 8, 1945. The German armored column continued south, hoping to stampede the American soldiers into abandoning their positions. We are now fairly started on that phase of the campaign which I hope will be the final one. The purpose of this note is to express to you personally my deep appreciation of the splendid way in which you have conducted Third Army operations from the moment it entered battle last August 1. The Panzergrenadiers methodically fought their way up the southern slope, clearing Americans from their foxholes. The Rhine itself was symbolic of the entrance into Germany from Western Europe and had historically stood as a natural barrier against invasion. HTML tags are not allowed. The following day, CCB lined up with the 137th Regiment at Lorey in time to defeat another counterattack by the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. The Shermans popped over the crest of the ridge and opened fire on the enemy tank column at a range of 900 yards, destroying five enemy tanks by striking them in the side. I was convinced then there were no Germans ahead of us except those we were actually fighting. Meanwhile the construction of an even larger Class 40 bridge "London Bridge" continued and was completed by midnight. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. For Gods sake, send some gasoline.. The Commanders: The Leadership Journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel. By early afternoon, the Germans were fighting their way into the southern end of the town. Meanwhile, the western thrust of the 113th Panzer Brigade that morning ran headlong into a platoon of four Hellcats from the 704th TD Battalion, which had been informed of an attack that morning and taken a defensive position in a depression in the landscape. Upon arriving at a dock area, Tucker and his comrades saw a group of sailors lowering a Landing Ship Tank (LST) into the water with a large crane. Maj. Gen. Leroy Irvins 5th Infantry Division pushed across the swollen waters of the flooded Metz River the following day to gain a precarious bridgehead at Dornot, five miles south of Metz. Manteuffels goal, as head of the 5th Panzer Army on the Western Front, was to transform Lunville into a base from which to roll up Third Armys flank on the east bank of the river. On 26 Mar 1945, these troops marched southward toward Patton's troops. Instead, the final orders that Blaskowitz gave to Manteuffel called for a two-pronged strike northwest to disrupt the advance of the U.S. 4th Armored Division and retake the crossroads at Chateau-Salins. Pattons notion that Third Army could cross the Moselle with ease and cover the 40 miles from the river to the West Wall in a matter of weeks had been shattered by Manteuffels determined, if futile, counterattack in September. Equally devastating was the loss of both panzer brigade commanders during the two-day assault on CCAs left flank. He did not expect to encounter substantial resistance until he reached the West Wall. click here for our comprehensive guide to General Patton. Old Blood and Gutss fixation with supply problems and haggling with his superiors over reinforcements had distracted him from the detailed planning necessary to get Third Armys divisions across the Moselle as quickly as possible. Look for the Monument Patton and stop by the General Patton Memorial Museum. As for Patton, he incorrectly dismissed the action as nothing more than another failed local counterattack. The Third Army did just that on the night of 22/23 March, crossing the river with a hasty assault south of Mainz at Oppenheim. He announced that the Third Army would shortly capture its 230,000th prisoner of war. The 134th Infantry Regiment was ordered to cross on the left below Nancy, and the 137th Infantry Regiment on the right. Patton would now report to Bradley. So he decided to imitate William the Conquerors entrance into England before leading Norman forces in their heroic conquest of the entire island in 1066. Third Army, which formed the right wing of Bradleys 12th Army Group, was composed of Maj. Gen. Walton Walkers XX Corps and Eddys XII Corps. The task before Third Army was to establish bridgeheads across the Moselle that would enable it to capture the two strategic towns. The 112th Panzer Brigade decimated by the clash at Dompaire, had only two dozen serviceable tanks. Rather than give command of the U.S. First Army in the D-Day invasion to Old Blood and Guts, Ike gave it to Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, a commander who had served directly under Patton in North Africa and Sicily. As Third Army firmly established itself on the east bank of the Moselle at Nancy, capturing not only crossing points but also key crossroads on the east bank, the Germans had to postpone their counterattack several times and continually revise it to adjust to new events. In other words, they had no depth, Patton said. Left: Keeping a low profile, soldiers of the U.S. Third Armys 89th Infantry Division cross the Rhine in assault boats under intense German fire, March1945. Balck requested that Rundstedt provide Army Group G with three fresh divisions and 80 additional tanks and assault guns to continue the fight. Click here for parts Two and Three. Bradley told General George S. Pattonwhose U.S. Third Army had been fighting through the Palatinateto "take the Rhine on the run". ), Patton also requested the help of the press corps in informing the Germans that four of his armored divisions were slashing away at them. For the crossing 8,000 Royal Engineers came under command of the C.E. Following the disaster at the Falaise Gap in August, where the Germans suffered 300,000 casualties, resistance had been light as the surviving German units raced east toward better defensive ground in the Ardennes and Alsace-Lorraine regions. In preparation for his counterattack, Hitler made several key command changes. But various factors were at work to derail those hopes. C. Peter Chen of Lava Development, LLC. To the right side of the center banner WORLD WAR II 75th ANNIVERSARY is Patton in a B-3 Bomber jacket and his name, GEN. GEORGE S. PATTON JR. Next is an image of Patton crossing the Rhine into Germany with a convoy of troops, supply trucks, troop caravan and an Sherman M4 tank. Although his unit was spearheading the attack toward the river, he assumed there would be a pause to get organized for the crossing. Although Heckers division was at nearly full strength, Rodts had been depleted as a result of nearly a year of hard fighting. At Nierstein assault troops did not meet any resistance. Patton began drafting plans for Third Armys advance east toward the Rhine as early as September 14. The eastern thrust of the 113th Panzer Brigades attack that day was aimed at Companies C and D of the 37th Tank Battalion guarding the eastern and southern approaches to Arracourt. Crossing the Rhine 24 -31 March 1945: C-47 transport planes release hundreds of paratroops and their supplies over the Rees-Wesel area to the east of the Rhine. This time the engineers were able to construct a bridge under the cover of darkness, but the bridgehead was again subjected to concentrated shelling by long-range guns from the Metz defenses and also from counterattacks by various elements of all three of the German Panzergrenadier divisions defending the Moselle. News of the crossing made it around the world. Please use this data for any reference citations. But its fortune ended there. Late in the evening of 22 March, XII Corp's 5th Infantry Division began a Rhine crossing near Oppenheim against little resistance. Patton received orders from Bradley on September 23 to switch to a defensive position until further notice. Bradley, who found the report satisfactory, passed the news to Eisenhower that Third Army was indeed across the Moselle in strength. Nevertheless, the Germans established strong defensive positions in two dilapidated French fortresses that effectively blocked the western approaches to the city. This had elements of the 6th and 7th Parachute Divisions on their flanks and, to their rear in reserve, the 15th and 116th Panzer Divisions. Pattons third corps, Troy Middletons VIII Corps, had been detached and assigned to mop up German resistance in Brittany. Copyright 20122023 World War II - Day By Day. Wietersheim ordered the battle group to break off its attack until the following day so that reinforcements could be sent to Bures. Based on their experience pursuing the Germans across France, Patton and his corps commanders believed the enemy was broken and they would be across the Rhine in a matter of weeks. Second, it is to showcase 140 kilometers to the north, British Second Army captured Wesel, Germany. We figured we had a perfectly good boat. The German high command also reinforced the Fifth Panzer Army with Gen. Lt. Wend von Wietersheims 11th Panzer Division. Seventh Army in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. US-Armee unter General George S. Patton (1885-1945) die Stadt Nierstein am Rhein. He wanted a quick, spectacular crossing that would produce newspaper headlines in the manner of Distinguished Unit Citations: 11. In response to the changing circumstances, Patton issued orders on September 24 for CCA to pull back from Juvelize to Arracourt to lessen its exposure to any subsequent enemy attacks. After 48 hours of hard fighting, the bridgehead was abandoned. This airborne operation was the largest of its kind during the entire war, utilizing 1,625 transports, 1,348 gliders, and 889 escort fighters to deliver over 22,000 airborne infantry into the contested territory. The day dawned with a thick blanket of fog shrouding the crest of the hill. Meanwhile, British 2nd Army began an offensive towards the Elbe River. . DEste begins with Pattons early life and family and moves through his decades at a pace that makes this long book seem far shorter. After the completion of the Battle in The Ardennes, Patton and his Army turned to the south and east attacking toward the Rhine. It controlled the majority of American forces on the Western Front in 1944 and 1945: the U.S. First Army under Gen. Courtney H. Hodges, the Third Army under Gen. George S. Patton, the Ninth Army under Gen. William H. Simpson, and the Fifteenth Army under Gen. Leonard T. Gerow. Throughout the night of 23 Mar and the next day, 80,000 British and Canadian troops crossed the 20-mile stretch of the river. Unfortunately for the Germans, the 111th Panzer Brigade became lost in unfamiliar countryside and didnt reach the staging area at Bures until late afternoon on the 19th. By the end of the day the Germans had lost a dozen Mark IVs and six Panthers. . (To be fair to the British 21st Army Group, their Rhine crossings were marshy (Wesel) and twice as wide, with the river carrying a far higher volume of water than the crossings consigned to the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies and the French First Army, meaning that Montgomery could not possibly cross the Rhine on the run.) The next day Patton, showing his contempt for the enemy, made good on his pledge to piss in the Rhine in a week, which he did from a pontoon bridge in full view of his men and news cameras. ww2dbaseBetween Frankfort and the Ruhr River, the American First Army had breached the Rhine River barrier earlier in the month near Remagen. In 1943 he commanded the U.S. March 22, 1945 On this date in 1945, one day before the British 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was due to launch Operation Plunder, the long-awaited northern offensive across the Rhine River at Rees and Wesel in North Rhine-Westphalia, Gen. George S. Patton sneaked a division of his U.S. Third Army across the Rhine at Oppenheim, lower on the river and south of Mainz. ", ww2dbaseAdditional Contribution by Alan Chanter. In addition, he ordered the creation of 10 new panzer brigades, numbered 101 to 110, each of which would boast a battalion of approximately 45 Panther tanks. Manteuffel, who knew the attacks were hopeless but was under orders from Balck to continue regardless of the cost, threw the remnants of the 111th and 113th against CCA again the following day, only to suffer further tank losses. The 9th Armored Division quickly expanded the bridgehead into a full scale crossing. Above and below Nancy, the Germans were content to wait for the Allies to attempt to cross the Moselle and launch local counterattacks in an effort to contain or eliminate the bridgeheads. The American tank crews also benefited from a hydraulic turret that allowed them to swing into firing position faster than the Germans slower hand-cranked traverse. This kind of came as a surprise, but everything was so well prepared for us, recalled Tucker. If so, please consider supporting us on Patreon. For a five-day period at the beginning of September, Pattons Third Army remained idle as German forces to their east regrouped and entrenched behind the Moselle. . After the completion of the Battle in The Ardennes, Patton and his Army turned to the south and east attacking toward the Rhine. To their surprise, they were not opposed by enemy forces. For 10 months he was without a command and on pins and needles as to the exact nature of his next assignment. The Hellcats bought precious time for Companies A and B of the 37th Tank Battalion to rumble north from Lezey toward the battlefront. General der Panzertruppen Walter Kruegers 58th Corps, which formed the right wing, comprised the 15th Panzergrenadier Division and the also untested but intact 113th Panzer Brigade. ww2dbaseTo cross the Rhine presented the Royal Engineer with many highly technical problems, but experiments and preparations for just such a task had been carried out on the River Ouse, near Goole, since 1943, and orders for specialised equipment needed had been placed with the Ministry of Supply in good time. On September 2, Hitler issued orders for the creation of 25 new divisions, most of which were to be given the designation of Volksgrenadier. Patton would be promoted to General (four stars) in April, 1945, after his troops liberated some of the worst concentration camps in Germany, and was fighting toward the Czech border by the time VE Day was declared on 8 May 1945. The 134th was fortunate to find a bridge intact and threw a battalion across the river. Montgomery was supposed to make the next crossing in a complex operation utilizing ground and airborne troops. On the night of March 22, 1945, elements of the Third Army crossed the Rhine at the German town of Oppenheim. A major firefight developed that resulted in the destruction of seven enemy tanks at the cost of three Shermans. Until now, I cant find a webpage, book or other source for an . Under extremely tough and experienced Parachute and Panzer officers and NCOs new replacements (many dedicated Nazis) had been moulded into a formidable fighting force. The US 3rd Army crossed the Rhine River west of Mainz and near Oppenheim just before midnight; the Americans had beaten the British in crossing the river. On the night of March 22, 1945, with no artillery preparation or air cover, assault boats of the 5th Infantry began their quiet crossing near Oppenheim. All rights reserved. The very notion was unpalatable to Old Blood and Guts. 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite C-100 McLean, VA 22101, Stay up to date with all of our latest news, The men of the 317th Infantry Regiment managed to cross a bridge left intact and braced themselves for a counterattack. But there were simply too many crossing points for the Germans to contest every one with such promptness as they had shown at Dornot, Arnaville, and Pont-a-Mousson. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. From there, Third Army would advance along a northeast route of march toward the fortified West Wall. Out of the fog on September 22, the remaining tanks of the 111th Panzer Brigade punched like a steel fist through CCAs cavalry screen around Juvelize. This is Part One of a Three Part look at Pattons Lorraine Campaign. The Shermans then retreated behind the crest of the ridge and reappeared at another point to finish off the three remaining Panthers. Meanwhile, US Third Army reached Siegen, Germany. U.S. Army personnel cross the Ludendorff Bridge "CROSS THE RHINE WITH DRY FEET COURTESY OF 9TH ARM'D DIV". As blue skies gave way to rainy spells signaling autumn's approach, the U.S. Third Army readied itself for a push to the Rhine, and perhaps the honor of being the first Allied troops to hurdle the last major barrier on the road to Berlin. Against light opposition, he had secured Morocco during the opening phase of Torch and ably led the U.S. II Corps when selected to replace Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredenhall after the debacle at Kasserine Pass. Bradley quickly exploited the opportunity and expanded the bridgehead into a full-scale crossing. Still, Walkers XX Corps remained stalled before Metz, even though Eddys XII Corps had advanced well beyond its Moselle bridgeheads. The Americans captured the northern fort almost immediately, but German paratroopers held out in the southern fort for five days. While the fighting raged, P-47s flew repeated sorties against Bures, through which the Germans were funneling fresh troops and ammunition into the battle. Even Hitlers closest supporters like Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels could clearly hear the clanging bell. When word reached Clark that morning of another determined attack by the Germans, he ordered the entire combat command to turn back to Arracourt and sweep the area. Pattons rapid advance across France came to an abrupt halt at Metz, due to fuel shortages, deteriorating weather conditions, and increased enemy resistance. "My dear General", Winston Churchill said to the American general as they met the next morning, "the German is whipped. Patton had been correct that the Germans possessed no defense in depth immediately after Third Army crossed the Moselle. We've got him. 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