Long ponderous movie about this battle - but amazing story.
A couple of days later my late father-in-law, a field artilleryman in the 78th Infantry Division crossed the bridge to establish the northern flank of the penetration.
Ever wonder if the Germans knew the war was lost and wanted the Americans to advance as far east as possible rather than have the Russians occupy more German territory. Too bad those German engineers weren’t interviewed after the war. That is not to deny the heroism and courage of those young American soldiers.
The Ludendorf bridge is long gone, all that stands now are the two towers on the west and east side. The one on the West side has a small Museum, the one on the east side appears closed. There is a regular shopping center behind the west tower. Really not much there to see. Funny, the museum has us as the “America Liberators” I guess after the Battle of the Bulge we suddenly became “Liberators”?
Operation Plunder would have been another Market Garden casualty-fest. Monty was hugely overrated in the European theater.
One of the soldiers on that bridge — and who barely managed to get off it in time — was a young Warren Spahn, who would receive a battlefield commission and be honored for his bravery. Imagine how different the story of Major League Baseball would be if the winningest left-hander in its history (and the winningest pitcher in the game after 1920) hadn’t gotten off the bridge in time. The war cost Spahn three years of pitching, but he always said it made him a more mature pitcher — and enabled him to keep pitching until age 43, after going a mind-boggling 23-7 the year before.
Remember reading a book on the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen some 50 years ago. Don't remember the name of the soldier who made it across first but remember he was from Omaha, NE.
Great Story!
Thanks for posting!
If one steps back and looks at the multi-decade effects of Hoge’s actions, he even did Germany a favor. They are far better off now than they would have been under the monster Hitler.
American initiative...http://www.lonesentry.com/gi_stories_booklets/9tharmored/index.html
“Next, engineers raced across to the far side of the bridge to cut the main cable. Sgt. Dorland squeezed the cable with a pair of small pliers but couldn’t even dent it. Without hesitating, he fired three shots into the cable with his carbine, smashing the line completely.”
Note that the members of the patrol who made the dangerous run across the bridge to prevent demolition were a Lt, SSGT, and SGT- leaders have to lead.
Such men... The society that could create them must have been blessed.
The actual construction of Caesar's first bridge took place most likely between Andernach and Neuwied, downstream of Koblenz on the Rhine River. Book 4 (Liber IV) of his commentaries gives technical details of this wooden beam bridge. Double timber pilings were rammed into the bottom of the river by winching up a large stone and releasing it, thereby driving the supporting posts (or piling) into the riverbed. The most upstream and downstream pilings were slanted and secured by a beam, and multiple segments of these then linked up to form the basis of the bridge. Conflicting models have been presented based on his description.[1][2] Separate upstream pilings were used as protective barriers against flotsam and possible attacks while guard towers protected the entries. The length of the bridge has been estimated to be 140 to 400 m (roughly 460 to 1,300 ft), and its width 7 to 9 m (23 to 30 ft). The depth of the river can reach up to 9.1 m (30 ft).
The construction of this bridge showed that Julius Caesar, and Rome, could go anywhere, if only for a few days. Since he had over 40,000 soldiers at his disposal, they built the first bridge in only 10 days using local lumber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar's_Rhine_bridges
I don’t know what that picture is of. It is not any bridge at Remagen. I went by there two months ago and it is exactly as described by a poster above. Ferry service gets cars across. The old shore side towers are there. The concrete piers in the river were removed in the 1950s.
I thought the movie The Bridge at Remagen was excellent, but not as good as A Bridge Too Far, about the bridge further north on the Rhine at Arnhem, the Netherlands. Outstanding movie.
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Thanks for the posting, Kaslin.
Brought back memories of the movie about the bridge, but I’d never read anything about the real history before.
The Army of Occupation Medal, which was awarded for service in Berlin up until 1990, has the Bridge at Remagen on the front and Mount Fuji on the reverse