Final Battles of Patton’s Vanguard

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.

Don M. Fox serves on the board of directors of the Army Historical Foundation and resides in Jacksonville, Florida.

Don M. Fox

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 319
Bibliographic Info: 103 photos, maps, bibliography, indexes
Copyright Date: 2020
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8009-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3899-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vii
Author’s Notes ix
Preface 1

1. The Western Front 5
2. Goodbye Bastogne 9
3. Rest and Recuperation 20
4. To Hell and Back 32
5. The Armored Infantry—Again 49
6. Attack into Germany 57
7. The Drive to Bitburg and the Kyll River 66
8. The Drive to the Rhine 93
9. Between the Rhine and Moselle 110
10. From the Moselle to the Rhine 127
11. Jumping the Rhine 159
12. Task Force Baum 178
13. The Road to Hammelburg 187
14. The Only Mistake 204
15. Breakout from the Main River Bridgehead 215
16. Ohrdruf 233
17. Beyond the Restraining Line 249
18. Czechoslovakia 266
19. The Occupation 284

Bibliography 295
Military Unit Index 299
General Index 303

“brilliant…All skirmishes and battles, whether of short of long duration, are presented and examined, and, for those who have never ridden in a tank during battle, the experience is harrowing, thanks to the narrative skill of fledgling writer, Don M. Fox.”—ARGunners Magazine