The blue arrows on Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third Army situation maps in his mobile headquarters trailer all pointed eastward. From the vicinity of Frankfurt-am-Main, Patton’s three corps—Troy Middleton’s VIII, Manton Eddy’s XII, and Maj. Gen.
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Walton H. Walker’s XX—were plunging side by side over hills, across rivers, streams, and fields, through woods, and into towns and villages, through barricades, road blocks, and minefields, destroying all efforts by the Germans to slow the advance. This was all before the true horrors of the Nazi regime were known to Allied forces. Patton’s army had yet to learn of the atrocities that were taking place at Ohrdruf and the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. But that day was fast approaching.
Since August 1944, the XII and XX Corps had been the main striking arms of Patton’s Third Army and, as such, had blazed a trail from the western coast of France, through Belgium, and into Germany.
The divisions that composed Walker’s XX Corps from the middle to the end of March 1945 were the 6th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Armored Divisions, and the 5th, 26th, 65th, 80th, and 94th Infantry Divisions. During that same period, making up Manton S. Eddy’s XII Corps (which had been attached to Third Army on August 1, 1944), were the 4th Armored Division and the 76th, 89th, and 90th Infantry Divisions.
Middleton’s VIII Corps, which had been added to Third Army on December 20, 1944, shortly before Middleton’s units were mauled during the Battle of the Bulge, consisted only of the 87th and 89th Infantry Divisions. All told, the three corps that made up Patton’s Third Army totaled some 203,000 men.
By mid-March, Walker’s XX Corps had taken Trier, Saarlautern, and Kaiserslautern. By March 21, Walker’s advance elements had reached both the Rhine and the Main, then crossed both rivers and took Mainz, Wiesbaden, and Frankfurt. Eddy’s XII Corps, too, had progressed well, crossing the Mosel River on March 14 and capturing Bad Kreuznach on March 18 and Worms three days later. For six days—March 21-27—XII Corps battled for and seized Mainz in conjunction with XX Corps. On the 22nd, XII Corps assaulted across the Rhine River at Oppenheim where it pummeled the German defenders.