Y1806

At 10:37 p.m. on March 22, 1945, George Patton picked up the telephone and called General Omar Bradley. "Brad, don't tell anyone, but I'm across," he said. "I crossed the Rhine." He had not crossed with a thousand guns, or with airborne divisions dropping from the sky, or after two months of meticulous planning and … Read more

On the afternoon of December 21, 1944, at the temporary American Third Army forward headquarters in Luxembourg City, Colonel Walter James Mueller placed a stack of supply reports on Lieutenant General George Smith Patton Jr.'s desk. Patton read them. Among the reports was one detailing the ration situation of the forward tank companies of the … Read more

In the early hours of December 22, 1944, a 20-year-old private named Hayes sat in a frozen foxhole in the Ardennes forest, unable to feel his left foot. Beneath three layers of frozen leather, the skin had turned the color of wet ash. He could not remember when the feeling had stopped. The cold had … Read more

In the final weeks of World War II, two generals met in a room behind American lines. One was George S. Patton, the most feared American commander of the war. The other was a German general who had spent months killing Patton's men. What happened in that room was never recorded in any official document. … Read more

In December 1944, on a frozen road in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium, General George S. Patton was on a surprise inspection of the front lines when his Jeep got stuck behind a supply convoy that had stopped moving. Patton got out and walked up to the nearest soldier, a private sitting on the running … Read more

In April 1945, a crowded and muddy German town square had become a sea of human misery. Hundreds of displaced civilians, exhausted refugees, and surrendered soldiers stood in a long, silent line waiting for military police processing under General George S. Patton's Third Army. In the middle of the crowd stood a man in a … Read more