Download December 2004 - Dr. Harold C. Deutsch WWII History Roundtable

April 2004
Volume 12 Number 8
Published by The WW II History Roundtable
Edited by Jim Gerber
Welcome to the April meeting of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War Two History Roundtable.
Tonight’s topic is about the crossing of the Rhine and the bridge at Remagen.
Drive to the Rhine
As the US 1st and 3rd Armies finished taking care of the bulge that the Germans created in the
US lines with their counteroffensive in the Ardennes, 12th Army Group commander, General
Omar Bradley knew that Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower would return to his
original strategy. This was a main effort aimed at the Ruhr industrial region in the north. Field
Marshall Montgomery was to attack in the north while Patton was to strike from the south.
General Bradley would be in the center. Bradley’s 12th Army Group tried to swing east and jump
the Rhine. The attempt failed and Bradley had to wait until the British Army in the north unhinged
the German flank. Then the American army could attack towards the Rhine on a broad front. By
the first of March, the Germans were confronting the 1st and 3rd US Armies and simply waiting
the obviously impending American blow. The long anticipated blow by Patton’s 3rd Army came on
March 3rd as the 8th Corps struck eastward from Prum and the 12th Corps jumped the Kyll river
east of Bitburg. At daylight on March 5th the armor began to move first to the north to trap
German units still holding along the Kyll, then swinging north-east toward the Rhine. The speed of
the attack picked up and the reports back to the division headquarters soon began to read like a
railroad timetable. By nightfall the armor was 12 miles beyond the Kyll. In just over two and a half
days the 4th Armored Division had driven 44 miles taking 5000 prisoners, capturing or destroying
volumes of equipment and spreading havoc through the German units. In view of these
accomplishments, the drive by the 1st Army’s 9th Armored Division had in the meantime
produced even more spectacular results. Allied troops all along the line poured toward the Rhine.
Thousands of German troops were retreating towards the Rhine and the town of Remagen. Adolf
Hitler had ordered that all bridges over the Rhine were to be blown up to prevent a crossing of
this river. The bridge at Remagen was left up to allow as many German troops as possible to
retreat back into Germany.
The 9th Armored Division was ordered to not cross the Rhine but to turn south along the west
bank in order to join up with General Patton’s 3rd Army. The Americans had no specific plans for
taking a bridge intact because they felt that it was unlikely that the methodical Germans would
neglect to demolish a vital bridge across the Rhine. That made it all the more astounding when an
hour after midday on March 7, 2nd Lieutenant Emmet Burrows, commanding the leading infantry
platoon, emerged from the woods on a bluff overlooking Remagen to see below him the German
troops streaming in retreat toward a railroad bridge on the southern fringe of the town. Incredibly,
the bridge still stood. The bridge was known as the Ludendorf bridge after Germany’s WW I
general. When the French occupied this section of Germany after WW I, they filled the demolition
chambers underneath the bridge with cement. The German defenders set up a demolition plan
which involved a circuit which could be activated from a tunnel on the east side of the bridge.
The bridge was originally designed as a railroad bridge, but it was planked over to allow for
vehicular traffic.
When General Hoge saw that the bridge was still standing he ordered an attack on the town and
the bridge. Lt. Karl Timmerman led the first troops across the bridge. Just before they set foot on
the bridge, the Germans blew a 30 foot crater in the approach to prevent tanks from crossing. A
young soldier named Clemon Knapp had a tank with a blade in front of it which he called “tank
dozer”. Under fire, he brought the “tank dozer” forward to fill in the 30 foot crater. In the
meantime, Lt. Hugh Mott and his two sergeants, Eugene Dorland and John Reynolds, climbed
underneath the bridge to cut the wires to the German demolitions.
The Germans had excellent observations of the bridge from the top of a 600 foot cliff known as
the Erpler Ley. In the German Army, anti-aircraft personnel were under the command of the Air
Force, while the major defense of the bridge was under the infantry commander, Captain Willi
Bratge.
The Air Force decided to replace the unit on top of the Erpler Ley on March 6, the day before the
Americans’ attack. Captain Bratge ordered the anti-aircraft unit to hurry to the top of the cliff, but
the replacement unit refused to take orders from the German Infantry Commander and thus
deprived the German defenders of an excellent post on top of the Erpler Ley.
Just as Lt. Timmerman and his infantry men started to cross the bridge, there was a tremendous
explosion as the Germans attempted to destroy the bridge. Both the Americans and the Germans
later testified that the bridge seemed to lift up from its foundations and then settle back shakily.
While it was still shaking, Lt. Timmerman and his men made their way across.
Adolf Hitler was infuriated by the successful capture of the Ludendorff bridge. He was certain it
had fallen into American hands because of German treason. He sent an execution squad to
single out five German officers for immediate execution. Four of the five were immediately shot to
death and the fifth man, Captain Brutge, escaped execution only because the Americans had
captured him.
Hitler ordered an all-out attack on the Americans who had crossed the bridge. He sent in jet
planes for the first time in the war, and they tried in vain to bomb and destroy the bridge. A group
of under water swimmers, armed with explosives, tried to destroy the bridge, but they were picked
up by very powerful searchlights before they reached their objective. The newly developed V2
rockets were also fired at the bridge from Holland. Eleven V2s landed near the bridge, shaking it
like an earthquake.
The 51st and 291st Engineer Battalions immediately began to build pontoon and treadway
bridges on both sides of the weakened railroad bridge. This was very fortunate, because on
March 17, 1945, the seriously damaged Ludendorff bridge collapsed into the Rhine River, killing
28 engineers who had been trying to strengthen the bridge. The surprise crossing of the
Ludendorff bridge probably saved 5000 American lives that otherwise would have been lost by an
assault crossing of the river. The Americans were also able to encircle and trap 300,000
Germans east of the Rhine.
More Reading on Tonight’s Topic:
The Bridge at Remagen
by Ken Heckler
Pictorial Histories Publishing Co. Inc.
Missoula, Montana 1957
One More River; The Rhine River Crossing of 1945
by Peter Allen
Charles Scribner and Sons
New York 1980
Battle for the Rhine
by R. W. Thompson
Ballantine Books, Inc.
New York 1959
Rhine Crossing
by James Stock
Ballantine Books, Inc.
New York
1973
Phantom 9; the 9th Armored Division 1942-1945
by Walter Reichell
Northfield, N.J.
After the Battle - Crossing the Rhine
Issue number 16
by RZM Imports
Southbury, CT
Across the Rhine
by Franklin Davis
Time-Life Books
Chicago, Ill. 1980