Patton took charge of the newly activated Third Army and began an all-out drive across France at a rate of fifty miles a day, moving with furious resolve from the seaside bluffs of Avranches, into the Brittany peninsula, and then eastward to help destroy the German Seventh Army. It was one of the most astonishing achievements in the history of mobile warfare, and it was made possible by close coordination among tanks, troops, artillery, and the fighter-bombers of the Allied air forces, which acted as fast-moving aerial artillery for the army.
