What Montgomery Said When Patton Crossed the Rhine — In Fishing Boats

March 22, 1945. Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine in plywood assault boats — twenty-six hours before Field Marshal Montgomery's massive Operation Plunder even began. This is the untold story of how a high school shop teacher, a farmhand from Indiana, and an engineer captain from Iowa stunned the Wehrmacht — and the entire Allied high command — on a foggy night near Oppenheim. You'll learn why German doctrine had become a checklist the Allies could read, how the 5th Infantry Division put six companies across the Rhine for the cost of just twenty-eight casualties, and what Captain John S. Boles's engineers accomplished by assembling an 1,896-foot Treadway pontoon bridge in under eleven hours. You'll also hear what Field Marshal Montgomery said — and didn't say — when the teletype reached his caravan headquarters near Wesel. Sources include Charles B. MacDonald's The Last Offensive (US Army Center of Military History, 1973), Carlo D'Este's Patton: A Genius for War (1995), Omar Bradley's memoir A Soldier's Story (1951), and the declassified Trent Park transcripts at the UK National Archives (WO 208/4177), published by Sönke Neitzel in Tapping Hitler's Generals (2007). If your father or grandfather served with the 5th Infantry Division, the 11th Infantry Regiment, the 1135th Engineer Combat Group, or any unit of Patton's Third Army that crossed the Rhine in March 1945, please share his unit and hometown in the comments. I read every one. This video uses AI-enhanced visuals and historical recreations to bring archival history to life. Subscribe to WW2 Narrator for more untold stories from the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. #ww2 #worldwarii #ww2history #militaryhistory #ww2documentary #secondworldwar #patton #ThirdArmy #usarmy #RhineCrossing #TrentPark #declassifiedfiles