Establishment of a Strategic Bridgehead at Serrig by Patton Across the Saar River

By February, the Germans were in full retreat. On 23 February 1945, the U.S. 94th Infantry Division crossed the Saar River and established a vital bridgehead at Serrig, through which Patton pushed units into the Saarland. Patton had insisted upon an immediate crossing of the Saar River against the advice of his officers. Historians such as Charles Whiting have criticized this strategy as unnecessarily aggressive. Once again, Patton found other commands given priority on gasoline and supplies. To obtain these, Third Army ordnance units passed themselves off as First Army personnel and in one incident they secured thousands of gallons of gasoline from a First Army dump. Between 29 January and 22 March, the Third Army took Trier, Koblenz, Bingen, Worms, Mainz, Kaiserslautern, and Ludwigshafen, killing or wounding 99,000 and capturing 140,112 German soldiers, which represented virtually all of the remnants of the German First and Seventh Armies. An example of Patton's sarcastic wit was broadcast when he received orders to bypass Trier, as it had been decided that four divisions would be needed to capture it. When the message arrived, Trier had already fallen. Patton rather caustically replied: 'Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?' The Third Army began crossing the Rhine River after constructing a pontoon bridge on 22 March, two weeks after the First Army crossed it at Remagen, and Patton slipped a division across the river that evening. Patton later boasted he had urinated into the river as he crossed.