He served there until August 1944 when O'Daniel and his 3rd Division landed at the St. Tropez Peninsula in Southern France and drove north through the Vosges Mountains to Germany. O'Daniel led the 3rd Division up the Rhône Valley to Strasbourg, in the Colmar Pocket where it decimated German forces in January 1945 and when it smashed across the Siegfried Line at Zweibrücken in March 1945. He frequently flew over the front lines in a light airplane dropping notes to the troops below, exhorting them to advance. He led the division across the River Rhine and participated in the capture of the Nazi citadel at Nuremberg on April 20, 1945 after ruthless house to house fighting. O'Daniel hoisted his flag over Adolf Hitler Square in the center of the city and paid a rousing tribute to the exhausted infantrymen around him for having "driven the hun" from one of the last remaining Nazi strongholds.