At 2230 hours, 200 Piper L-4 Grasshoppers began to shuttle from one bank to the other. These small observation and artillery-spotting aircraft carried an armed infantryman instead of an observer. Once the first bridgehead had thus been formed, the 12 L. C.V. P.s (Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel) of the "naval detachment” which Patton had trained to a high pitch of efficiency on the Moselle at Toul, entered the river while his bridging crews, from which he had refused to be separated (lest he not get them back) when he had driven hard from the Sarre to the Ardennes, began to work at once under the command of Brigadier-General Conklin, the 3rd Army’s chief engineer.
At dawn on March 23, the 5th Division had already placed six infantry battalions, about 4,000 or 5,000 men, on the right bank of the Rhine, at the cost of only eight killed and 20 wounded. The Germans were so surprised that when Patton made his report to Bradley, he asked him not to publicise the news, so as to keep the Germans in the dark while they expected him at the approaches to Mainz. As an all-American soldier, he was happy to have stolen a march over "Monty” by forcing the Rhine before him and without making any demands on anybody.
As a result, 48 hours later, five divisions of the 3rd Army had crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim, stretched along the valley of the Main: XII Corps towards Aschaffen-burg, and XX Corps towards Hanau.
World History
