Patton immediately issued orders to Eddy and Walker to proceed with reconnaissance-in-force missions to determine the best points at which to cross the Moselle. Three weeks earlier Churchill had visited the front lines near Juelich. Click here for parts Two and Three. In Washington, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson declared, We gave Monty everything he asked forparatroopers, assault boats and even the Navy, and by God, Patton has crossed the Rhine!. The gasoline arrived and Pattons men pressed headlong across southern Germany and into Czechoslovakia. On the banks of the Rhine River the British Royal Corps of Engineers completed the construction of a Class 9 bridge "Waterloo Bridge" at 0100 hours and a Class 15 bridge "Lambeth Bridge" at 0830 hours. The combined pressure of American armor, artillery, and air support proved too much for the German armor, and as the Panthers and Mark IVs and their complement of Panzergrenadiers pulled back north, they were hammered by the Thunderbolts. His pleas fell on deaf ears, and he prepared to make do with the untrained and understrength units he had been given. (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. From there, the vehicle fired an armor-piercing shell into the side of a Panther in a field 300 yards away. On the night of March 22, just hours before the official operation began, Patton and his division crossed the Rhine quietly in boats. The initial counterattacks against Third Armys bridgeheads should have convinced him that the enemy was regaining strength. Units of the Canadian First Army, British Second Army, and the U.S. Panzergrenadier formations then swept forward to clear American antitank, machine-gun, and rifle positions. When the Germans attacking Hill 265 learned of the withdrawal of the 11th Panzer Division to Bures, they also quit the battle. From there, Third Army would advance along a northeast route of march toward the fortified West Wall. You can also buy the book by clicking on the buttons to the left. Geplant war eine Flussberquerung, die nach dem Willen des Oberkommandierenden berraschend, schnell und spektakulr werden sollte. To learn more,click here for our comprehensive guide to General Patton. The men of the 317th Infantry Regiment managed to cross a bridge left intact and braced themselves for a counterattack. I never knew what happened to those other boats., Once the two returned to the west bank, Tuckers entire squad was ordered north to help the U.S. Navy. His commanding general Omar Bradley, who issued the order for him not to cross to avoid interfering with Bernard Montgomery's operations, did not know of the crossing until the next morning. The news came as a hard blow to Patton, whose spirits had been riding high with the prospect of pushing through the West Wall to the Rhine. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. . The Crossing of the Rhine River. By mid-September 1944, the U.S. Third Army was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of Adolf Hitlers Third Reich along a fabled corridor in northeastern France used for centuries by armies tramping across Europe. To Allied supreme commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower he wrote: I have just pissed into the Rhine River. 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. During the respite the Fifth Army was given the previous day, Manteuffel had assimilated the remnants of three battered panzer brigades into veteran divisions. On 26 Mar 1945, these troops marched southward toward Patton's troops. For inquiries about military records for members of the World War II armed forces, please see our FAQ. Whats more, a series of determined counterattacks by the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division kept the U.S. infantry from expanding the bridgehead. 140 kilometers to the north, British Second Army captured Wesel, Germany. The Rhine itself was symbolic of the entrance into Germany from Western Europe and had historically stood as a natural barrier against invasion. Seventh Army during the Sicilian campaign ( Operation Husky ), and in August 1944 his Third Army became operational in northern France. The Germans gained considerable ground on the morning of September 25, but the attack ground to a halt when the Germans were unable to dislodge CCA units from high ground northeast of Arracourt. Finally, head to Hamm American Cemetery to visit Patton's grave. Most of the forces opposite Pattons Third Army belonged to the German First Army, which was part of General-Colonel Johannes Blaskowitzs Army Group G. Hitler planned to increase the forces opposite Patton to the point that they would be capable of launching a strong counterattack that would rock Third Army back on its heels. had to be carried out under closely supervised security to prevent the German defenders on the higher ground across the river anticipating the exact location of the crossing. The goal of this Most of CCA had shifted north to prepare for an advance east in the direction of the West Wall, leaving artillery and other support units at Arracourt. Meanwhile, US Third Army reached Siegen, Germany. Behind the lines, Dwight Eisenhower transferred US 9th Army from Bernard Montgomery's army group to Omar Bradley's army group as Anglo-American objective shifted toward southern Germany and Czechoslovakia. My Dad was quoted as saying: We had crossed the Moselle River and gained a high ground position two miles to the east. On the night of March 22, 1945, elements of the Third Army crossed the Rhine at the German town of Oppenheim. This I felt was particularly true against the Germans, because as long as you attack them, they cannot find the time to plan how to attack you, Patton said. When he reached the other side of the river, Patton pretended to stumble, imitating William the Conqueror, who famously fell on his face when landing in England but transformed the bad omen into a propitious one by leaping to his feet with a handful of English soil, claiming it portended his complete possession of the country. It is thought that the accompanying photo of General George Patton documents Patton urinating into the Rhine River. Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe
This meant that two columns of tanks and half-tracks from the 113th would have to carry the objective themselves. Patton was fatally injured in a road accident on December9, 1945, dying twelve days later. The Germans, who observed the Americans pulling out of Juvelize, occupied the abandoned town the following day. The attack, which came as a complete surprise, was being orchestrated by one of the Third Reichs most talented panzer leaders, the diminutive General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, whom Hitler had plucked from the Eastern Front with his staff to drive Pattons forces back across the Moselle. ww2dbaseAll this, plus the assembly of vast amounts of troops, assault boats, Buffaloes, guns etc. Captain Richard Lamison, commanding Company C, took four Shermans and raced south along a ridge to another ambush position. 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. Yet Abramss 35th Tank Battalion counterattacked in the afternoon and recaptured the town in a fight that inflicted substantial casualties on the Germans. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the supreme commander of Allied forces in North Africa at the time, picked Patton to lead the U.S. The pause that refreshes. The general told the troops around him. Although a bridge had been captured some weeks before at Remagen, and a bridge-head tenuously held, this was to be the first river assault crossing of this famous stream since . 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. Once it captured the section of the West Wall protecting the Saar factories, Third Armys next objective would be to cross the Rhine and seize Frankfurt. It was an unusually costly day for the Americans, who lost a dozen Shermans. Meanwhile, the main attack that morning by the Germans against the 51st Armored Infantry Battalion of Dagers CCB occupying the camelback was broken up by the concentrated fire of six artillery battalions. If Third Army was unable to cross the Moselle by September 14, Bradley told Patton, it would have to go over to the defensive. By August 30, Pattons army was receiving only about 32,000 of the 400,000 gallons of fuel it required to run all of its tanks and vehicles. Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks of XXX Corps commented later that, although they heard stories of German soldiers surrendering in their thousands at other places, the German troops encountered in XXX Corps' area were extremely fanatical in defence of their homeland. 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. Germany. Our database is searchable by subject and updated continuously. This dramatic entrance to the battle by CCA caught the Germans off guard and paid large dividends. North of Metz, Third Armys left flank lay exposed, and Knobelsdorff sent the 106th Panzer Brigade to attack the Americans in an effort to keep them off balance and slow their efforts to cross the Moselle. The main column found itself in the midst of the 90th Division headquarters at 3 am, and several Panthers engaged an M4 Sherman guarding McLains command post situated on a knoll. At the beginning of September, Pattons Third Army was close enough to Germany to alarm Hitler. With no ground or air bombardments, they captured 19,000 German troops and created a six-mile bridgehead in the process. Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Fall of Berlin. In Germany, US Third Army captured Frankfurt and Wiesbaden and US Seventh Army captured Mannheim. When the Germans attempted to withdraw, they found their escape route blocked by the 359th Infantry Regiment moving east to cut them off. To ensure that the bridgehead could properly defend itself, Wood ordered Clarks CCA to send its lead elements across the bridge the following morning. After the completion of the Battle in The Ardennes, Patton and his Army turned to the south and east attacking toward the Rhine. Email Address Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. Tom Tucker was one of the first men from Pattons Third Army to cross the Rhine River, the last natural barrier to the heart of Germany. By early afternoon, the Germans were fighting their way into the southern end of the town. He believed that it would leave too long of a left flank vulnerable to German counter offensives. During the fighting around Juvelize, the Americans lost 14 Shermans and 7 Stuarts. Left: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in the company of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and a party of U.S. commanders, crosses to the German-held east bank of the Rhine without incident, March25, 1945. Eddys final plan, which was a compromise between his initial plan and that of headstrong 4th Armored Division commander Maj. Gen. John Wood, called for Brig. To reach the West Wall, XII Corps was to change front to the northeast and push 30 miles from Chateau-Salins to Sarreguemines. XXX Corps. In short order, more than a half-dozen M5 Stuart tanks sat smoldering and crumpled in fields near the town. Click here to see our comprehensive article on World War 2. With no ground or air bombardments, they captured 19,000 German troops and created a six-mile bridgehead in the process. Still, Walkers XX Corps remained stalled before Metz, even though Eddys XII Corps had advanced well beyond its Moselle bridgeheads. Lava's technical capabilities. You can read more about the day . But various factors were at work to derail those hopes. Abrams received orders from Wood to pivot south toward Arracourt, where he would be in a position to link up with CCB and complete the encirclement of Nancy. The comparatively light casualty rate experienced by the first troops across (153rd and 154th Brigades of 51st Highland Division) clearly demonstrated how thorough the preparations had been made. "My dear General", Winston Churchill said to the American general as they met the next morning, "the German is whipped. This was because Third Army, and the other Allied armies racing to its north, had stretched their supply lines until they snapped. Unlike Manteuffels forces, Knobelsdorffs had artillery with which to support an attack. From Metz to Nancy the Germans were deployed on the east bank of the Moselle as follows: the 559th Volksgrenadier Regiment opposite Thionville, Division Number 462 (partially composed of zealous officer cadets from the Metz service schools) and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division at Metz, the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division opposite Pont-a-Mousson, the 92nd Luftwaffe Training Regiment opposite Marbache, the 3rd Parachute Replacement Regiment in front of Nancy in a westward loop of the river, and the 553rd Volksgrenadier Regiment inside Nancy. The Germans failed to reconnoiter enemy positions, and their replacement tank crews were no match for Leclercs veteran troops. 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. 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. Lying astride Third Armys route of advance were the key cities of Metz and Nancy, both of which are located on the east bank of the Moselle. Hardcover. For Gods sake, send some gasoline.. Patton would face significant leadership and tactical challenges in the region in the months following the Arracourt clashes. . Right: Patton famously relieved himself in the Rhine on March24, 1945and made sure he was photographed doing so. After the war Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Churchill suggested the Allied forces to skip over the Ruhr region and march east toward Berlin, but Eisenhower refused to leave the Ruhr region unsecured. The media and public back home were outraged that a general would treat an enlisted man in such a manner. But where he crossed the Main? Six-Mile bridgehead in the process ground or air bombardments, they found their escape route blocked by 17th. Stuart tanks sat smoldering and crumpled in fields near the town in a fight that substantial. 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