(far left), comedian
Bob Hope (second from left), writer/actor Barney Dean, singer
Frances Langford and musician
Tony Romano meet George Patton in Sicily during World War II Following the
German Army's
invasion of Poland and the outbreak of
World War II in Europe in September 1939, the
U.S. military entered a period of
mobilization, and Colonel Patton sought to build up the power of U.S. armored forces. During maneuvers the
Third Army conducted in 1940, Patton served as an umpire, where he met
Adna R. Chaffee Jr. and the two formulated recommendations to develop an armored force. Chaffee was named commander of this force, and created the
1st and
2nd Armored Divisions as well as the first combined arms doctrine. He named Patton commander of the 2nd Armored Brigade, part of the 2nd Armored Division. The division was one of few organized as a heavy formation with many tanks, and Patton was in charge of its training. Patton was promoted to
brigadier general on 2 October, made acting division commander in November when
Charles L. Scott assumed command of I Armored Corps, and on 4 April 1941, was promoted again to
major general as
Commanding General (CG) of the 2nd Armored Division. As Chaffee stepped down from command of the
I Armored Corps, Patton became the most prominent figure in U.S. armor doctrine. In December 1940, he staged a high-profile mass exercise in which 1,000 tanks and vehicles were driven from
Columbus, Georgia, to
Panama City, Florida, and back. He repeated the exercise with his entire division of 1,300 vehicles the next month. Patton earned a
pilot's license and, during these maneuvers, observed the movements of his vehicles from the air to find ways to deploy them effectively in combat. His exploits earned him a spot on the cover of
Life magazine. General Patton led the division during the
Tennessee Maneuvers in June 1941, and was lauded for his leadership, executing 48 hours' worth of planned objectives in only nine. During the September
Louisiana Maneuvers, his division was part of the losing Red Army in Phase I, but in Phase II was assigned to the Blue Army. His division executed a end run around the Red Army and "captured"
Shreveport, Louisiana. During the October–November
Carolina Maneuvers, Patton's division captured the now Lieutenant General Drum, who served as the commander of the opposing army. The general was greatly embarrassed and became the subject of mockery. After soldiers from
Isaac D. White's battalion detained Drum, the exercise umpires ruled that the circumstances would not have transpired in combat, so he was allowed to return to his headquarters, enabling the exercise to continue and for Drum to
save face. Despite the umpires' actions, the incident indicated to senior leaders that Hugh Drum might not be prepared to command large bodies of troops under the modern battlefield conditions the Army would face in World War II, thus, he was not considered for field command. On 15 January 1942, a few weeks after the American entry into World War II, he succeeded Scott as commander of I Armored Corps, and the next month established the
Desert Training Center in the
Coachella Valley region of
Riverside County in California, to run training exercises. He commenced these exercises in late 1941 and continued them into the summer of 1942. Patton chose a expanse of desert area about southeast of
Palm Springs. From his first days as a commander, Patton strongly emphasized the need for armored forces to stay in constant contact with opposing forces. His instinctive preference for offensive movement was typified by an answer Patton gave to
war correspondents in a 1944 press conference. In response to a question on whether the Third Army's
rapid offensive across France should be slowed to reduce the number of U.S. casualties, Patton replied, "Whenever you slow anything down, you waste human lives." It was around this time that a reporter, after hearing a speech where Patton said that it took "blood and brains" to win in combat, began calling him "blood and guts". The nickname would follow him for the rest of his life. Soldiers under his command were known at times to have quipped, "our blood, his guts". Nonetheless, he was known to be admired widely by the men under his charge.
North African campaign Henry Kent Hewitt aboard , off the coast of
North Africa, November 1942 Under
Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the
Supreme Allied Commander, Patton was assigned to help plan the
Allied invasion of
French North Africa as part of
Operation Torch in the summer of 1942. Patton commanded the Western Task Force, consisting of 33,000 men in 100 ships, in landings centered on
Casablanca, Morocco. The landings, which took place on 8 November 1942, were opposed by
Vichy French forces, but Patton's men quickly gained a
beachhead and pushed through fierce resistance. Casablanca fell on 11 November and Patton negotiated an
armistice with French General
Charles Noguès. The
Sultan of Morocco was so impressed that he presented Patton with the
Order of Ouissam Alaouite, with the citation "
Les Lions dans leurs tanières tremblent en le voyant approcher" (The lions in their dens tremble at his approach). Patton oversaw the conversion of Casablanca into a military port and hosted the
Casablanca Conference in January 1943. On 6 March 1943, following the defeat of the
U.S. II Corps by the German
Afrika Korps, commanded by
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, at the
Battle of Kasserine Pass, Patton replaced Major General
Lloyd Fredendall as Commanding General of the II Corps and was promoted to lieutenant general. Soon thereafter, he had Major General
Omar Bradley reassigned to his corps as its deputy commander. With orders to take the battered and demoralized formation into action in 10 days' time, Patton immediately introduced sweeping changes, ordering all soldiers to wear clean, pressed and complete uniforms, establishing rigorous schedules, and requiring strict adherence to military protocol. He continuously moved throughout the command talking with men, seeking to shape them into effective soldiers. He pushed them hard, and sought to reward them well for their accomplishments. His uncompromising leadership style is evidenced by his orders for an attack on a hill position near
Gafsa, in which he ended by reportedly saying, "I expect to see such casualties among officers, particularly staff officers, as will convince me that a serious effort has been made to capture this objective." , Major General
Terry Allen and Lieutenant General George S. Patton, March 1943 Patton's training was effective, and on 17 March, the
U.S. 1st Infantry Division took Gafsa participating in the indecisive
Battle of El Guettar, and pushing a German and
Italian armored force back twice. In the meantime, on 5 April, he removed Major General
Orlando Ward, commanding the
1st Armored Division, after its lackluster performance at Maknassy against numerically inferior German forces. Advancing on
Gabès, Patton's corps pressured the
Mareth Line. During this time, he reported to British
General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the
18th Army Group, and came into conflict with
Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham about the lack of
close air support being provided for his troops. By the time his force reached Gabès, the Germans had abandoned it. He then relinquished command of II Corps to Bradley, and returned to the I Armored Corps in Casablanca to help plan Operation Husky, the
Allied invasion of Sicily. Fearing U.S. troops would be sidelined, he convinced British commanders to allow them to continue fighting through to the end of the
Tunisia Campaign before leaving on this new assignment.
Sicily campaign For Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, Patton was to command the
Seventh United States Army, dubbed the Western Task Force, in landings at
Gela,
Scoglitti and
Licata to support landings by General
Sir Bernard Montgomery's
British Eighth Army. Patton's I Armored Corps was officially redesignated the Seventh Army just before his force of 90,000 landed before dawn on D-Day, 10 July 1943, on beaches near the town of Licata. The armada was hampered by wind and weather, but despite this the three U.S. infantry divisions involved, the
3rd,
1st, and
45th, secured their respective beaches. They then
repulsed counterattacks at Gela, where Patton personally led his troops against German reinforcements from the
Hermann Göring Division. , commanding the 2nd Battalion,
30th Infantry Regiment, in conversation with Patton, near
Brolo,
Sicily, July 1943 Initially ordered to protect the British forces' left flank, Patton was granted permission by Alexander to take
Palermo after Montgomery's forces became bogged down on the road to Messina. As part of a provisional corps under Major General
Geoffrey Keyes, the 3rd Infantry Division under Major General
Lucian Truscott covered in 72 hours, arriving at Palermo on 21 July. Patton then set his sights on Messina. He sought an
amphibious assault, but it was delayed by lack of landing craft, and his troops did not land at
Santo Stefano until 8 August, by which time the Germans and Italians had already evacuated the bulk of their troops to mainland
Italy. He ordered more landings on 10 August by the 3rd Infantry Division, which took heavy casualties but pushed the German forces back, and hastened the advance on Messina. A third landing was completed on 16 August, and by 22:00 that day Messina fell to his forces. By the end of the battle, the 200,000-man Seventh Army had suffered 7,500 casualties, and killed or captured 113,000 Axis troops and destroyed 3,500 vehicles. Still, 40,000 German and 70,000 Italian troops escaped to Italy with 10,000 vehicles. Patton's conduct in this campaign met with several controversies. He was also frequently in disagreement with
Terry de la Mesa Allen Sr. and
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. though often then conceding, to their relief, in line with Bradley's view. , Sicily, 28 July 1943. Major General Geoffrey Keyes, deputy commander of Patton's Seventh Army, stands to the far left of the picture. When Alexander sent a transmission on 19 July limiting Patton's attack on Palermo, his
chief of staff, Brigadier General
Hobart R. Gay, claimed the message was "lost in transmission" until Palermo had fallen. In an incident on 22 July, while a U.S. armored column was under attack from German aircraft, he shot and killed a pair of mules that had stopped while pulling a cart across a bridge. The cart was blocking the way of the column. When their Sicilian owner protested, Patton attacked him with a walking stick and had his troops push the two mule carcasses off the bridge. When informed of the
Biscari massacre of prisoners, which was by troops under his command, Patton wrote in his diary, "I told Bradley that it was probably an exaggeration, but in any case to tell the officer to certify that the dead men were snipers or had attempted to escape or something, as it would make a stink in the press and also would make the civilians mad. Anyhow, they are dead, so nothing can be done about it." Bradley refused Patton's suggestions. Patton later changed his mind. After he learned that the 45th Division's Inspector General found "no provocation on the part of the prisoners ... They had been slaughtered," Patton is reported to have said: "Try the bastards." Two soldiers were tried for the Biscari massacre, both of whom claimed in their defense that they were acting under orders from Patton not to take prisoners if enemy combatants continued to resist within two hundred yards of their position. Major General
Everett Hughes, an old friend of Patton's, defended him, asserting that Patton had not "at any time advocated the destruction of prisoners of war under any circumstances." James J. Weingartner argues that Patton's innocence in inciting violence against prisoners of war is uncertain, stating that No official action was taken against Patton for any complicity in the massacre.
Slapping incidents and aftermath Two high-profile incidents of Patton striking subordinates during the Sicily campaign attracted national controversy following the end of the campaign. On 3 August 1943, Patton slapped and verbally abused
Private Charles H. Kuhl at an evacuation hospital in
Nicosia after he had been found to suffer from "
battle fatigue". On 10 August, Patton slapped Private Paul G. Bennett under similar circumstances. Ordering both soldiers back to the front lines, Patton railed against cowardice and issued orders to his commanders to discipline any soldier making similar complaints. Word of the incident reached Eisenhower, who privately reprimanded Patton and insisted he apologize. Patton apologized to both soldiers individually, as well as to doctors who witnessed the incidents, and later to all of the soldiers under his command in several speeches. Eisenhower suppressed the incident in the media, but in November journalist
Drew Pearson revealed it on his radio program. Criticism of Patton in the United States was harsh, and included members of Congress and former generals, Pershing among them. The views of the general public remained mixed on the matter, and eventually Secretary of War
Henry L. Stimson stated that Patton must be retained as a commander because of the need for his "aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory." Patton did not command a force in combat for 11 months. In September, Bradley, who was Patton's junior in both rank and experience, was selected to command the First United States Army forming in England to prepare for
Operation Overlord. This decision had been made before the slapping incidents were made public, but Patton blamed them for his being denied the command. Eisenhower felt the invasion of Europe was too important to risk any uncertainty, and that the slapping incidents had been an example of Patton's inability to exercise discipline and self-control. While Eisenhower and Marshall both considered Patton to be a skilled combat commander, they felt Bradley was less impulsive and less prone to making mistakes. On 26 January 1944, Patton was formally given command of the
U.S. Third Army in England, a newly formed field Army, and he was assigned to prepare its inexperienced soldiers for combat in Europe. This duty kept Patton busy during the first half of 1944.
Ghost Army (back seat), commanding the
2nd Infantry Division, with Lieutenant General Patton pass in review of elements of Patton's Third Army in April 1944, prior to the Normandy invasion in June The
German High Command had more respect for Patton than for any other
Allied commander and considered him to be central to any plan to invade Europe from England. Because of this, Patton was made a prominent figure in the deception scheme
Operation Fortitude during the first half of 1944. Through the British
network of double-agents, the Allies fed German intelligence a steady stream of false reports about troop sightings and that Patton had been named commander of the
First United States Army Group (FUSAG), all designed to convince the Germans that Patton was preparing this massive command for an invasion at
Pas de Calais. FUSAG was in reality an intricately constructed fictitious army of decoys, props, and fake
radio signal traffic based around
Dover to mislead German
reconnaissance planes and to make Axis leaders believe that a large force was massing there. This helped to mask the real location of the invasion in
Normandy. Patton was ordered to keep a low profile to deceive the Germans into thinking that he was in Dover throughout early 1944, when he was actually training the Third Army. As a result of Operation Fortitude, the
German 15th Army remained at the Pas de Calais to defend against Patton's supposed attack. So strong was their conviction that this was the main landing area that the German army held its position there even after the
invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, believing it to be a diversionary force. Patton flew to France a month later, and then returned to combat command.
Normandy breakout offensive Sailing to Normandy throughout July, Patton's Third Army formed on the extreme right (west) of the Allied land forces, and became operational at noon on 1 August 1944, under Bradley's
Twelfth United States Army Group. The Third Army simultaneously
attacked west into Brittany, south, east toward the
Seine, and north, assisting in trapping several hundred thousand German soldiers in the
Falaise Pocket between
Falaise and
Argentan. (right) at Montgomery's
21st Army Group HQ, Normandy, 7 July 1944. Patton's strategy with his army favored speed and aggressive offensive action, though his forces saw less opposition than did the other three Allied field armies in the initial weeks of its advance. The Third Army typically employed forward scout units to determine enemy strength and positions.
Self-propelled artillery moved with the
spearhead units and was sited well forward, ready to engage protected German positions with
indirect fire. Light aircraft such as the
Piper L-4 Cub served as artillery spotters and provided airborne reconnaissance. Once located, the armored infantry would attack using tanks as infantry support. Other armored units would then break through enemy lines and exploit any subsequent breach, constantly pressuring withdrawing German forces to prevent them from regrouping and reforming a cohesive defensive line. The U.S. armor advanced using
reconnaissance by fire, and the .50 caliber
M2 Browning heavy machine gun proved effective in this role, often flushing out and killing German
panzerfaust teams waiting in ambush as well as breaking up German infantry assaults against the armored infantry. The speed of the advance forced Patton's units to rely heavily on air reconnaissance and tactical air support. The Third Army had by far more
military intelligence (G-2) officers at headquarters specifically designated to coordinate air strikes than any other army. Its attached close air support group was
XIX Tactical Air Command, commanded by Brigadier General
Otto P. Weyland. Developed originally by General
Elwood Quesada of
IX Tactical Air Command for the First Army in
Operation Cobra, the technique of "armored column cover", in which close air support was directed by an air traffic controller in one of the attacking tanks, was used extensively by the Third Army. Each column was protected by a standing patrol of three to four
P-47 and
P-51 fighter-bombers as a
combat air patrol (CAP). In its advance from
Avranches to Argentan, the Third Army traversed in just two weeks. Patton's force was supplemented by
Ultra intelligence for which he was briefed daily by his G-2, Colonel
Oscar Koch, who apprised him of German counterattacks, and where to concentrate his forces. Equally important to the advance of Third Army columns in northern France was the rapid advance of the supply echelons. Third Army logistics were overseen by Colonel Walter J. Muller, Patton's
G-4, who emphasized flexibility, improvisation, and adaptation for Third Army supply echelons so forward units could rapidly exploit a breakthrough. Patton's rapid drive to
Lorraine demonstrated his keen appreciation for the technological advantages of the U.S. Army. The major U.S. and Allied advantages were in mobility and air superiority. The U.S. Army had more trucks, more reliable tanks, and better radio communications, all of which contributed to a superior ability to operate at a rapid offensive pace.
Lorraine campaign on Private Ernest A. Jenkins, a soldier under his command, October 1944 Patton's Third Army was sent to Lorraine. Despite its proximity to Germany, Lorraine was not the Allies' preferred invasion route in 1944. Except for its cities of
Nancy and
Metz the region contained few significant military objectives. Once the Third Army had penetrated Lorraine there would still be no first-rate military objectives on entering Germany. The
Saar's industrial region, while significant, was of secondary importance when compared to the great Ruhr industrial complex farther north. Patton's offensive came to a halt on 31 August 1944, as the Third Army ran out of fuel near the
Moselle River, just outside Metz. Patton expected that the theater commander would keep fuel and supplies flowing to support his advance, but Eisenhower favored a "broad front" approach to the ground-war effort, believing that a single thrust would have to drop off flank protection, and would quickly lose its punch. Patton had planned to reach the River Moselle, leap it in one bound, bypass Metz and head straight for the Rhenish cities of
Mainz and
Mannheim, deep in the Third Reich but his units were restricted in fuel by the
Broad front strategy, on one occasion receiving just 25,390 gallons of fuel; only one-eighteenth of what Patton had asked for. His units were also running short of ammunition. Still within the constraints of a very large effort overall, Eisenhower gave Montgomery and his
Twenty First Army Group a higher priority for supplies for
Operation Market Garden, although no supplies were diverted from Patton's Third Army. Three British transport companies were lent to American forces on 6 August for eight days not being returned until 4 September. The Third Army exhausted its fuel supplies, however after the Market Garden operation. According to Bradley there was parity of supplies between the three allied armies, Second British, First and Third US, by mid September 1944 and according to the official US Army History as cited on page 52 in Hugh Cole's book, The Lorraine Campaign, "by 10th September the period of critical [gasoline] shortage had ended". This was a whole week before Market Garden took place. The gasoline drought was the end of August/beginning of September. The French rail network, which was repaired and quickly put to use, greatly aided the speed of the Third Army's logistical recovery. In eastern France the rail network was relatively undamaged by Allied aircraft and had been abandoned almost intact by the retreating Germans. The Third Army brought its railheads as far forward as Nancy. The French themselves operated the trains providing rolling stock and trained personnel to supplement the Third Army. Patton believed his forces were close enough to the
Siegfried Line that he remarked to Bradley that with 400,000 gallons of gasoline he could be in Germany within two days. In late September, a large German Panzer counterattack sent expressly to stop the advance of Patton's Third Army was defeated by the
U.S. 4th Armored Division at the
Battle of Arracourt. The German commanders believed this was because their counterattack had been successful. The halt of the Third Army during the month of September was enough to allow the Germans to strengthen the
fortress of Metz. Patton's forces reached the fortress at Metz on 5 September 1944, forcing a German surrender on 21 November 1944, taking over 10 weeks in the
Battle of Metz with both sides suffering heavy casualties. Also an
attempt by Patton to seize Fort Driant just south of Metz was defeated. , Lieutenant General
Omar Bradley, Major General
John S. Wood, Lieutenant General George S. Patton and Major General
Manton S. Eddy being shown a map by one of Patton's armored battalion commanders during a tour near Metz, France, November 1944 Patton's decisions in taking this city were criticized. German commanders interviewed after the war noted he could have bypassed the city and moved north to Luxembourg where he would have been able to cut off the
German Seventh Army. The German commander of Metz, General
Hermann Balck, also noted that a more direct attack would have resulted in a more decisive Allied victory in the city. Historian
Carlo D'Este later wrote that the Lorraine campaign was one of Patton's least successful, faulting him for not deploying his divisions more aggressively and decisively. Patton remained frustrated at the lack of progress of his forces. From 8 November to 15 December, his army advanced no more than . In
The Lorraine Campaign An Overview, September–December 1944, on page 36, Dr. Christopher R. Gabel of the Combat Studies Institute stated in February 1985: Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war.
Battle of the Bulge ,
Eisenhower and Patton in Bastogne, Belgium, 1945|alt= In December 1944, the German army, under the command of German Field Marshal
Gerd von Rundstedt, launched a last-ditch offensive across
Belgium,
Luxembourg, and northeastern France. On 16 December 1944, it massed 29 divisions totaling 250,000 men at a weak point in the Allied lines, and during the early stages of the ensuing
Battle of the Bulge, made significant headway towards the
Meuse River during a severe winter. Eisenhower called a meeting of all senior Allied commanders on the Western Front at a headquarters near Verdun on the morning of 19 December to plan strategy and a response to the German assault. At the time, Patton's Third Army was engaged in heavy fighting near
Saarbrücken. Guessing the intent of the Allied command meeting, Patton ordered his staff to make three separate operational contingency orders to disengage elements of the Third Army from its present position and begin offensive operations toward several objectives in the area of the bulge occupied by German forces. At the Supreme Command conference, Eisenhower led the meeting, which was attended by Patton, Bradley, General
Jacob Devers, Major General
Kenneth Strong, Deputy Supreme Commander
Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, and several staff officers. When Eisenhower asked Patton how long it would take him to disengage six divisions of his Third Army and commence a counterattack north to relieve the
U.S. 101st Airborne Division which had been
trapped at Bastogne, Patton replied, "As soon as you're through with me." Patton then clarified that he had already worked up an operational order for a counterattack by three full divisions on 21 December, then only 48 hours away. Eisenhower was incredulous: "Don't be fatuous, George. If you try to go that early you won't have all three divisions ready and you'll go piecemeal." Patton replied that his staff already had a contingency operations order ready to go. Still unconvinced, Eisenhower ordered Patton to attack the morning of 22 December, using at least three divisions. Patton left the conference room, phoned his command, and uttered two words: "Play ball." This code phrase initiated a prearranged operational order with Patton's staff, mobilizing three divisions—the 4th Armored Division, the
80th Infantry Division, and the
26th Infantry Division—from the Third Army and moving them north toward
Bastogne. In all, Patton would reposition six full divisions,
U.S. III Corps and
U.S. XII Corps, from their positions on the
Saar River front along a line stretching from Bastogne to
Diekirch and to
Echternach, the town in Luxembourg that had been at
the southern end of the initial "Bulge" front line on 16 December. Within a few days, more than 133,000 Third Army vehicles were rerouted into an offensive that covered an average distance of over per vehicle, followed by support echelons carrying of supplies. , Major General
Horace L. McBride, Major General
Manton S. Eddy, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, and an unidentified aide On 21 December, Patton met with Bradley to review the impending advance, starting the meeting by remarking, "Brad, this time the Kraut's stuck his head in the meat grinder, and I've got hold of the handle." Patton then argued that his Third Army should attack toward
Koblenz, cutting off the bulge at the base and trap the entirety of the German armies involved in the offensive. After briefly considering this, Bradley vetoed it, since he was less concerned about killing large numbers of Germans than he was in arranging for the relief of Bastogne before it was overrun. Desiring good weather for his advance, which would permit close ground support by
U.S. Army Air Forces tactical aircraft, Patton ordered the Third Army
chaplain, Colonel
James Hugh O'Neill, to compose a suitable prayer. He responded with: When the weather cleared soon after, Patton awarded O'Neill a
Bronze Star Medal on the spot. On 26 December 1944, the first spearhead units of the Third Army's 4th Armored Division reached Bastogne, opening a corridor for relief and resupply of the besieged forces. Patton's ability to disengage six divisions from front line combat during the middle of winter, then wheel north to relieve Bastogne was one of his most remarkable achievements during the war. He later wrote that the relief of Bastogne was "the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed, and it is in my opinion the outstanding achievement of the war. This is my biggest battle."
Advance into Germany By February, the Germans were in full retreat. On 23 February 1945, the
U.S. 94th Infantry Division crossed the
Saar River and established a vital bridgehead at
Serrig, through which Patton pushed units into the
Saarland. Patton had insisted upon an immediate crossing of the Saar River against the advice of his officers. Historians such as
Charles Whiting have criticized this strategy as unnecessarily aggressive. Once again, Patton found other commands given priority on gasoline and supplies. To obtain these, Third Army ordnance units passed themselves off as First Army personnel and in one incident they secured thousands of gallons of gasoline from a First Army dump. Between 29 January and 22 March, the Third Army took
Trier,
Koblenz,
Bingen,
Worms,
Mainz,
Kaiserslautern, and
Ludwigshafen, killing or wounding 99,000 and capturing 140,112 German soldiers, which represented virtually all of the remnants of the
German First and Seventh Armies. An example of Patton's sarcastic wit was broadcast when he received orders to bypass Trier, as it had been decided that four divisions would be needed to capture it. When the message arrived, Trier had already fallen. Patton rather caustically replied: "Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?" The Third Army began crossing the
Rhine River after constructing a
pontoon bridge on 22 March, two weeks after the First Army
crossed it at Remagen, and Patton slipped a division across the river that evening. Patton later boasted he had urinated into the river as he crossed. on 12 April 1945, after liberation On 26 March 1945, Patton sent
Task Force Baum, consisting of 314 men, 16 tanks, and assorted other vehicles, behind German lines to liberate the
prisoner of war camp
OFLAG XIII-B, near
Hammelburg. Patton knew that one of the inmates was his son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel
John K. Waters. The raid was a failure, and only 35 men made it back; the rest were either killed or captured, and all 57 vehicles were lost. Patton reported this attempt to liberate Oflag XIII-B as the only mistake he made during World War II. When Eisenhower learned of the secret mission, he was furious. Patton later said he felt the correct decision would have been to send a
Combat Command, which is a force about three times larger. , George S. Patton,
Carl A. Spaatz,
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Omar Bradley,
Courtney Hodges, and
Leonard T. Gerow; standing are (from left to right)
Ralph F. Stearley,
Hoyt Vandenberg,
Walter Bedell Smith,
Otto P. Weyland, and
Richard E. Nugent By April, resistance against the Third Army was tapering off, and the forces' main efforts turned to managing some 400,000 German prisoners of war. On 14 April 1945, Patton was promoted to
general, a promotion long advocated by Stimson in recognition of Patton's battle accomplishments during 1944. Later that month, Patton, Bradley, and Eisenhower toured the
Merkers salt mine as well as the
Ohrdruf concentration camp, and seeing the conditions of the camp firsthand caused Patton great disgust. Third Army was ordered toward
Bavaria and
Czechoslovakia, anticipating a
last stand by German forces there. He was reportedly appalled to learn that the
Red Army would take
Berlin, feeling that the Soviet Union was a threat to the U.S. Army's advance to
Pilsen, but was stopped by Eisenhower from reaching
Prague, Czechoslovakia, before
V-E Day on 8 May and the end of the war in Europe. In its advance from the Rhine to the Elbe, Patton's Third Army, which numbered between 250,000 and 300,000 men at any given time, captured of German territory. Its losses were 2,102 killed, 7,954 wounded, and 1,591 missing. German losses in the fighting against the Third Army totaled 20,100 killed, 47,700 wounded, and 653,140 captured. Between becoming operational in Normandy on 1 August 1944, and the end of hostilities on 9 May 1945, the Third Army was in continuous combat for 281 days. In that time, it crossed 24 major rivers and captured of territory, including more than 12,000 cities and towns. The Third Army claimed to have killed, wounded, or captured 1,811,388 German soldiers, six times its strength in personnel. Fuller's review of Third Army records differs only in the number of enemies killed and wounded, stating that between 1 August 1944 and 9 May 1945, 47,500 of the enemy were killed, 115,700 wounded, and 1,280,688 captured, for a total of 1,443,888. == Postwar ==