In Patton and His Third Army, Brenton Wallace details the actions of General George S. Patton and the Third Army from its preparations in Britain, to its first engagements with the enemy, through to the major battles countering the German offensives, liberating Paris and breaking across the Moselle into the Nazi heartland to subdue Hitler's forces.

As the United States Third Army's tanks moved through Avranches, no one, not even the Third Army's commander, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, could have foreseen that it was the start of one of the most successful offensives of World War II--an offensive that received a great deal of help from the air. As Patton later wrote to the chief of the Army Air Forces, "For about 250 miles I have seen the calling cards of the fighter-bombers, which are bullet marks in the pavement and burned tanks and trucks in the ditches." This book covers the units in the Ninth Air Force, which gave close air support to the Third Army, and the Third Army's campaign in France from August to November 1944, with special emphasis on how support from the air helped the Third Army continue pushing toward the German border. The difficult logistics of the operation are discussed in detail: Both the Ninth Air Force and the Third Army were hurt by a lack of materiel, especially gasoline, and this affected the offensive.

Part I of a very fine, richly illustrated reference book on General Patton’s Third Army. The XII Corps fought from northern France to Austria in World War II. Constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1933, it was activated on 29 August 1942 at Columbia, South Carolina. XII Corps became operational in France as part of Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s Third Army on 1 August 1944. Initially commanded by Major General Gilbert R. Cook, bad health forced MG Cook to relinquish command to Major General Manton S. Eddy within three weeks. MG Eddy commanded the corps until late April 1945, when his own health problems forced him to turn over command to MG Stafford LeRoy Irwin.

The story of Gen. George S. Patton’s magnificent Third Army as it advanced across Nazi-occupied Europe and into Hitler’s redoubt. Includes photos. As America’s own answer to the Blitzkrieg, Third Army’s actions from the Normandy coast across France and Germany to Austria gave a new dimension to the term “fluid warfare.” They only needed one general order—to seek out the enemy, trap, and destroy them. This they did, relentlessly overcoming every obstacle thrown in their way. Third Army’s story is one of teamwork, of armor, infantry, and aircraft working together with a perfection that amazed even the Germans, who’d always considered themselves the masters of the mobile offensive. Though Third Army is often remembered for its tank spearheads, like the 4th Armored Division, these pages also give credit to the brave infantry divisions which butted their heads against fortresses such as Metz with ultimate success. It is also the story of a triumph of administration as thousands of trucks carried forward the vital supplies to keep the army on the move and fighting. When a German counteroffensive nearly burst through the US lines in the Ardennes, it was Patton’s Third Army that turned on its heel and immediately drove in the “Bulge,” ending Hitler’s last great hope for success in the west. Afterward nothing could stop it as it crossed the Rhine and overran the Reich. Much of Third Army’s greatness, driving force, and will to win, was owed to one man—Gen. George Smith Patton Jr.—and a significant part of this book is devoted to him alone. In these pages, a renowned military historian gives a vivid impression in words and pictures of what it was like to live and fight with Patton’s men. Full of eyewitness accounts, photographs, and maps, it relates the full story of how America’s most dynamic fighting formation led the Allied effort against the Nazis’ seemingly invincible European empire.

Eugene G. Schulz was born on a farm in Clintonville, Wisconsin in 1923. He graduated from high school in May, 1941, and worked on his father's farm and at a truck manufacturing plant until he was drafted into the army in January 1943. Schulz received his basic training at Camp Young, California at the Desert Training Center, and later at Camp Campbell, Kentucky. He was assigned to the IV Armored Corps (later named the XX Corps) where he was a typist in the G-3 Section. His duties included the typing of battle orders developed by Colonel W. B. Griffith, the G-3 of XX Corps Headquarters. The XX Corps sailed to England in February 1944 on the Queen Mary with 16,000 soldiers on board, completing the voyage in five days. After final training in England, the XX Corps landed on Utah Beach in Normandy on D+46. His unit was attached to General Patton's Third Army and spearheaded the drive across France, through Germany and into Austria where they met the Russian Army on V-E Day. Schulz was awarded the Bronze Star medal when the war ended. He served in the Army of Occupation in Germany, then returned to the States and was discharged on December 1, 1945. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin Madison taking advantage of the GI Bill of Rights, and earning Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Business Administration. Schulz met his wife, Eleanore, at the University and they were married in 1949. Schulz worked as an investment research officer at the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company in Milwaukee for 36 years. The Schulz's have been retired since 1988 and continue to live in Milwaukee. They are world travelers. They have five sons, all married, and sixteen grandchildren.

Patton was champing at the bit to lead the D-Day invasion, but Eisenhower placed him in command of a decoy unit, the First U.S. Army Group. Nearly seven weeks after D-Day, Patton finally got his chance to take Third Army into battle. He began a ten-month rampage across France, driving through Germany and into Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and Austria. Along the way Third Army forces entered the Battle of the Bulge, breaking the siege of Bastogne. It was a turning point in the war, and afterward the Third Army pushed eastward again. Patton’s Third Army in World War II covers Patton’s command of Third Army with a focus on the armor. It was a new style of fighting, avoiding entrenched infantry warfare by continuously pushing forward, and it appealed to Patton’s hard-charging personality. Archival photos along with frequent quotes complete the portrait of Patton as well as his men as they fight their way across the Third Reich.

By January 1945, Nazi Germany's defeat seemed inevitable yet much fighting remained. The shortest way home for American troops was towards Berlin. General George S. Patton's Third Army would carve its way into the German heartland, the Fourth Armored Division once again serving as his vanguard. This companion volume to the author's Patton's Vanguard: The United States Army Fourth Armored Division covers the final months of combat: the drive to Bitburg; the daring exploitation of the bridgeheads on the Moselle, Rhine and Main Rivers; Patton's ill-fated raid to rescue his son-in-law from a prisoner of war camp deep behind enemy lines; the first liberation of a concentration camp on the Western Front; the drive toward Chemnitz; the controversial push into Czechoslovakia; and the little-known encounter with General Andrey Vlasov's turncoat Russian Liberation Army.