An M26 Pershing fires at German positions across the Rhine.
On March 7, 1945, a 9th Armored Division platoon discovered a bridge over the Rhine left standing to accommodate retreating German forces. Owing to misplacement of explosives, German engineers failed to destroy it as the Americans rushed across. General Eisenhower redirected troops toward Remagen and shifted the weight of his offensive from the northern to a central axis. Quick exploitation by U.S. forces resulted in rapid encirclement of the Ruhr, eliminating Germany’s heavy industrial heartland, along with a 325,000-man army, from the war.
To the south of Bonn along the Rhine lies the relatively small town of Remagen, important only because the Ludendorff railroad bridge spanned the river at that point. In midafternoon on 7 March, a task force of the American 9th Armored Division, led by several new Pershing tanks, advanced through the flotsam of escaping Germans. As the Americans approached the bridge from the west, a large explosion greeted them. An even larger explosion followed, clearly designed to drop the bridge into the Rhine. To the astonishment of Germans and Americans alike, when the smoke cleared, the bridge still stood—the charges had lifted the bridge straight up in the air instead of twisting it, and the bridge had come backdown on its pillars.
Crossing the Rhine River
The Americans quickly launched a full-scale assault on the
bridge while the defending Germans scrambled to detonate the explosive charges
that had been set to destroy it. The fighting was fierce as both sides realized
what was at stake. The American soldiers scrambled under withering gun fire
from girder to girder returning fire and ripping the explosives from the
bridge’s super structure. The German’s were successful in detonating some
explosives – but not enough to destroy the bridge. By 4 PM – approximately four
minutes after the assault began – the Americans had reached the other side of
the river and secured the bridge. When informed, 1st Army commander Omar
Bradley responded: “Hot dog . . .this will bust ’em wide open. Shove
everything you can across!”
“While we were running across the bridge. . . I spotted
this lieutenant, standing out there completely exposed to the machine gun fire
that was pretty heavy by this time. He was cutting wires and kicking the German
demolition charges off the bridge with his feet!”
Everett Holles was a NBC Radio war correspondent
accompanying the troops that made the assault over the Rhine. He describes what
happened as the American force approached the bridge:
“On beyond the four towers of the Apollinariskirche
that glistened in a light drizzle of rain they saw Remagen’s 400-yard-long,
three-span bridge across the Rhine. The bridge ran to the village of Erpel on
the east bank and across it lay two railroad tracks. Other American forces had
come up against the same sort of thing before, but always, as they came to the
Rhine crossings, the bridges went up in great explosions before their eyes, set
off by German demolition engineers.
Traffic was still moving across the Ludendorf Bridge. On the
other side locomotives puffed, awaiting orders to pull out. Lt. Col. Leonard
Engemann of Minneapolis, in command of a reconnaissance party, was determined
to save this bridge if it was at all possible. So, at 3:50 o’clock, a platoon
led by Lieut. Emmett Burrows of New York City, sped down the slope to the
bridge entrance. There was a flurry of shooting as the Germans, taken
completely by surprise, scurried about trying to organize a defense. A German
gun was knocked out, some German soldiers killed. Then the Yanks, crouching low
against machine gun fire coming from the bridge towers, ran out onto the
bridge. Just as they stepped on the span, an explosion occurred three-quarters
of the way down the bridge. The Germans were setting off demolition charges,
and the men thought surely their chance was gone. But no, only slight damage
was done. They raced on.
Sgt. Alexander A. Drabik, a tall, lanky former butcher from
Holland, Ohio, was the first American across the Rhine, the first invader to
reach its east bank since the time of Napoleon. But he wanted all the honors
passed on to a young lieutenant of the engineers, John W. Mitchell of
Pittsburgh.
‘While we were running across the bridge – and, man, it may
have been only 250 yards but it seemed like 250 miles to us – I spotted this
lieutenant, standing out there completely exposed to the machine gun fire that
was pretty heavy by this time.’
‘He was cutting wires and kicking the German demolition
charges off the bridge with his feet! Boy that took plenty of guts. He’s the
one who saved the bridge and made the whole thing possible – the kinda guy I’d
like to know.’
Soon the bridge was swarming with Americans, while Mitchell,
joined now by other engineers, cut and jerked out wires leading to dynamite
charges. Gingerly they detached detonators and lifted boxes of explosives from
the piers.
Later, from prisoners, the Americans learned that the
Germans planned to blow up the span at precisely four o’clock. But the German
officer assigned the demolition job was drunk.when the American tanks reached
Remagen. This officer, a lieutenant, had gone into the town of Eprel as the
Yanks approached and spread the word boastfully that ‘the bridge goes up at
four o’clock this afternoon.
German soldiers and civilians, gathering from miles around,
were sitting in ‘grandstand’ seats at every vantage point on the east bank,
waiting for the spectacular event to come off, when Burrows’ patrol ran onto
the bridge – ten minutes before the hour fixed for its destruction. The German
lieutenant signaled the plunger down. Two small explosions occurred, but the
bridge only shuddered and remained standing. Several of the fuses had been
faulty.
. . .By nightfall scores of tanks, trucks by the hundreds
were moving up and across the Rhine. All roads leading to Remagen were packed
with American troops and trucks and armor and guns. Soldiers who had been ready
to drop from fatigue stepped on the accelerator, broad grins splitting their
begrimed faces. The Ludendorf bridge had become a one-way street,
east-bound.”
By night the Americans had pushed a small force of tanks across the river—and within 24 hours they had 8,000 men across. Over the course of the next ten days, Hodges pushed a substantial force across the Rhine River in the face of desperate German efforts to destroy the bridge. The bridge’s capture had delighted Eisenhower and Bradley, although neither showed much interest in exploiting the advantage. To Hodges’s fury, Eisenhower limited First Army to a maximum of five divisions in the bridgehead, while Bradley ordered First Army to limit its advance to 1,000 yards per day and to hold in place once it reached the Frankfurt autobahn.
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