Jackie Robinson is best known for breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Less well known, but just as pivotal, is his 1944 court-martial after refusing to move to the back of a military bus.

Much has been made in the historical record of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany in early March of 1945. However, fewer accounts exist of Operation Flashpoint, Ninth US Army’s assault crossing of the Rhine, which began on March 24. General William H. Simpson, commander of Ninth Army, has received little attention in the historiography of World War II.

Allied intelligence believed that most captured American officers were being held at the Hammelburg prisoner of war camp, Oflag XIII-B. This population likely included Patton’s son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, but there was no way to be sure.

Despite being overlooked in many circles, American “Lend-Lease” support sent to the USSR not only tipped the scales in Eastern Europe but enabled the victory on the Russian Front.

Planning the Overlord assault didn’t just happen overnight. It was a result of a prewar doctrinal framework built upon six identified components for an amphibious assault.