General George S. Patton’s Third Army came to life in Europe this week back in 1944 and played a pivotal role in the Allies’ breakout from the Normandy region of northern France.
It had been slow going in the weeks following the Allies’ successful D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy.
The Allied powers — the United States, Great Britain and Canada — did not anticipate how fierce the German resistance would be.
And the countryside, with its ancient fields proved very advantageous for Nazi defenders.
Patton described the “bocage” country in his book “War As I Knew It” as “composed of innumerable small fields separated by banks of earth from four to six feet high surmounted by hedges. These form ideal delaying positions for infantry.”
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Allied troops in Normandy face serious obstacles from French hedgerows, dense network giving ideal cover to Germans. pic.twitter.com/FxOgtCqHXm
— Second World War tweets from 1940 (@RealTimeWWII) July 10, 2016
Fifty days after D-Day, the Allies were only about 20 to 30 miles inland, a point they had hoped to be just five days after the landings. Further, taking the territory they won had come at a cost of 122,000 casualties, Rick Atkinson records in his book, “The Guns at Last Light.”
Patton was about to help change all that, turning the Allied crawl into a dash across northwest Europe to the German border.
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The general had been sidelined the previous eleven months after the completion of his operations in Sicily.
By July 1944, Patton was like a highly taut spring. “I was obsessed with the belief the war would end before I got into it,” he wrote.
The war leader was about to get his chance to get back in the fight.
On July 25, the Allies launched Operation Cobra, which first involved the concentrated bombing of an area of land on the German front lines in Normandy about 3.5 miles long by nearly 1.5 miles deep.
According to Atkinson, 2,500 Allied bombers together dropped approximately 11,000 bombs per square mile, making it one of the “greatest concentrations of killing power in the history of warfare.”
The Allies quickly rolled into the breach in German lines in what became known as the breakout at Saint-Lô, a town in Normandy.
Operation Cobra was a resounding success for the Allied forces on their path to liberating France in the summer of 1944, and one of the key turning-points in the history of #WWII.
See the battle map from the 15-page special published in our April issue: https://t.co/Sx2k7NInbj
— Military History Matters (@MilHistMag) July 31, 2019
Though the Third Army had not officially come online yet, Patton’s immediate superior, Gen. Omar Bradley, gave the warhorse operational control of the units that would comprise it starting on July 28, with an official birth date of Aug. 1.
Patton’s forces, numbering close to 150,000 soldiers at this point, moved quickly through the breach and into the French countryside, overtaking tens of thousands of enemy soldiers and liberating thousands of square miles of land in the weeks ahead.
Part of the reason for the rapid success was Patton’s battle philosophy in the age of mechanized warfare — tanks, armored personnel carriers, mobile artillery, planes and motorized supply chains — which was far different than the slow methodical advances of World War I, 20 years before.
The U.S. First Army under LTG Omar N. Bradley broke the stalemate in Operation COBRA, opening the field of battle for LTG George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army, which scythed through Brittany and eliminated much of German strategic position in northwestern France by JUL’s end. #WW2 pic.twitter.com/fyrV8rX0L1
— CMH (@USArmyCMH) July 25, 2024
In his book “Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer,” Michael Keane wrote that the general had standard lines he often employed in speeches to his troops to instill his vision of battle, which among other topics emphasized the importance of fast movement forward.
“I don’t want to get any messages saying, ‘I am holding my position.’ We are not holding a [expletive] thing. Let the Germans do that,” he said. “We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the [enemy].”
Dr. James Carafano — a national security expert with The Heritage Foundation and author of the book “After D-Day: Operation Cobra and the Normandy Breakout” — told The Western Journal in 2019 that the Third Army set the gold standard for the Americans in the execution of mobile warfare.
“His forces did much to accelerate the speed of the advance on the Western Front and hasten the liberation of Europe,” Carafano said. “The Third Army blazed the way, leading American forces in rediscovering operational maneuver warfare.”
War historian Dr. Conrad C. Crane believes Patton’s most impressive military feat as Third Army commander came late in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, which was the German Army’s last major offensive on the western front.
The surprise Nazi attack made a 50-mile deep and 20- to 30- mile wide bulge in the Allied lines and encircling the 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne, Belgium.
“[Patton’s] greatest accomplishment is when he turned his army 90 degrees in the middle of winter in December of ‘44 to attack into the flank of the Bulge, relieve Bastogne and help blunt the German drive there,” Crane told the Journal in 2019.
Battle of the Bulge is over, as German salient in Ardennes collapses under Allied counterattack; German offensive ends in 125,000 casualties pic.twitter.com/GcbrDS7OQr
— Second World War tweets from 1940 (@RealTimeWWII) January 25, 2017
“During the operation the Third Army moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States — possibly the history of the world,” Patton wrote concerning the push to Bastogne and in the weeks that followed.
The maneuver was depicted in the 1970 film “Patton,” which won the Academy Award for best picture. George C. Scott also garnered the prize for best actor in a leading role.
The movie did much to propel the Patton legend to new heights.
A remarkable incident occurred just prior to the outbreak of the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 16, 1944 when Patton asked Third Army Chaplain James O’Neill for a good weather prayer. The skies had been overcast for weeks and heavy rains had made the roads muddy, all but stopping the Allied advance.
O’Neill drafted one which Patton liked so much he ordered the chaplain to print up prayer cards and distribute them to all the Third Army’s 250,000 troops.
General Patton, desiring good weather for his advance to Bastogne, had Chaplain Fr. James O’Neill compose a card to be distributed to each one of the 250,000 troops under his command of the Third Army, and had all of the men pray this prayer. #WW2 pic.twitter.com/lbuQOFILY1
— WWII Pictures (@WWIIpix) December 22, 2017
After weeks of inclement weather, the skies finally broke crisp and clear on Dec. 23, allowing Patton’s forces to break through to Bastogne three days later and relieve the 101st Airborne.
December 26 1944 Battle of the #Bulge
Relief of #Bastogne #BoxingDay Major #Milestone in #WW2#101st #Airborne #McAuliffe and 10th #Armored Div relieved by 4th Armored, spearhead of #Patton #ThirdArmy #USArmy #Ardennes pic.twitter.com/z8jczToEoU— John Robson 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 (@Jaeger_9) December 26, 2017
In a letter to the Third Army following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Patton recounted some of his soldiers’ astounding accomplishments.
“During the 281 days of incessant and victorious combat, your penetrations have advanced farther in less time than any other army in history,” he wrote. “You have liberated or conquered more than 82,000 square miles of territory, including 1,500 cities and towns, and some 12,000 inhabited places.
“Prior to the termination of active hostilities, you had captured in battle 956,000 enemy soldiers and killed or wounded at least 500,000 others. France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia bear witness to your exploits.”
In “War As I Knew It,” Patton lamented the end of the great conflict.
“It is rather sad to me to think my last opportunity for earning my pay has passed,” he wrote. “At least, I have done my best as God gave me the chance.”
Portion of this article first appeared in “We Hold These Truths” by Randall DeSoto.
