Northing & Easting
Description: Making sure things are where they really are
It’s become a Christmas tradition here on the Old Topographer blog to republish one of my most popular postings – the true story of General George S. Patton’s Christmas Prayer. So it is with Christmas 2016. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope this holiday season finds you and your loved ones safe and happy. And please let’s keep all the service men and women, both deployed on battlefields across the Middle East and stationed here at home, in our thoughts and prayers.
In early December 1944 General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army was stalled in its advance to the Siegfried Line along the French – German border. Patton was a master of combined arms operations and he knew he needed tactical air support from the Army Air Forces before he could breach the Siegfried Line and push on towards the Rhine River.
But the weather was not cooperating. The winter of 1944 was one of the worst on record for central Europe. Thick cloud decks and heavy fog were keeping Allied aircraft grounded all across France and the Low Countries. Patton was frustrated, impatient and angry. He saw German resistance crumbling before him yet he knew he couldn’t push forward into the German homeland without adequate air cover. The 3rd Army and its supporting 19th Tactical Air Command ground attack squadrons were a deadly team. Ground-base
Northing & Easting