Remagen Bridge 1945

[Gerald Weiß]

Byearly February 1945, the Allies had regained all the ground lost during the Battle of the Bulge and resumed their advance into the Rhineland toward the Rhine River, the last natural barrier to Germany's heartland. They planned to launch assaults across the Rhine at several locations during March. The main assault was to be made by American and British troops near the town of Wesel, north of the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heart. Before this assault took place, however, the fortuitous capture of a bridge further south, near Bonn, changed the course of the battle.

In early March, Allied troops had reached the west bank of the Rhine River along most of the River's length, north of the city of Kln. Although most bridges spanning the river were blown up as American troops reached them, one was not. The Ludendorff Railroad Bridge at Remagen, between Koblenz and Bonn, was captured intact by troops of the US 9th Armored Division on March 7, 1945. Armored infantry fought their way across the bridge under intense enemy fire as the Germans attempted to destroy it with demolition charges. Several explosions damaged part of the bridge, but the main charges failed to fire and the bridge remained standing.

The rough terrain on the eastern bank of the Rhine at Remagen made the region a less than ideal avenue for the invasion of Germany in Allied strategic planning. Nonetheless, the Allies seized the opportunity to transport troops, tanks, and vehicles across a bridge, rather than over the river by assault boats and pontoon bridges. Allied plans were quickly adjusted to take advantage of this coup. Thousands of men and vehicles poured onto the bridgehead that, although suffering repeated German counterattacks for a week, continued to expand east of the Rhine.

Within a week of crossing the Rhine over the Ludendorff Bridge, seven US divisions had established themselves in strength east of the Rhine. On March 17, 1945, the Ludendorff, severely damaged in the fighting ten days earlier and weakened further from the strain of heavy traffic, collapsed into the Rhine. Having crossed the Rhine, the Allied armies prepared to drive into the interior of Germany.

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The Battle of Remagen was an 18-day battle during the Allied invasion of Germany in World War II. It lasted from 7 to 25 March 1945 when American forces unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine intact. They were able to hold it against German opposition and build additional temporary crossings. The presence of a bridgehead across the Rhine advanced by three weeks the Western Allies' planned crossing of the Rhine into the German interior.

The sudden capture of a bridge across the Rhine was front-page news in American newspapers. The unexpected availability of a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine more than two weeks in advance of Operation Plunder allowed Allied high commander Dwight Eisenhower to alter his plans to end the war. The Allies were able to rapidly transport five divisions across the Rhine into the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland. The bridge had endured months of aircraft bombing, direct artillery hits, near misses, and deliberate demolition attempts. It finally collapsed at 3:00 pm on 17 March, killing 33 American engineers and wounding 63. But by then U.S. Army combat engineers had finished building a M1940 aluminum-alloy treadway bridge and a M1938 pontoon bridge followed by a Bailey bridge across the Rhine. Over 125,000 troops established a bridgehead of six divisions, with accompanying tanks, artillery pieces, and trucks, across the Rhine.[12] The Americans broke out of the bridgehead on 25 March 1945, 18 days after the bridge was captured. Some German and American military authorities agreed that capturing the bridge shortened the war, although one German general disputed this.

The Ludendorff Bridge was not rebuilt following World War II. In 2020, plans were initiated to build a replacement suspension bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. There is no other river crossing for 44 km (27 mi) and few ferries. Local communities indicated an interest to help fund the project and an engineer was commissioned to draw up plans.[13]

Romans originally built a settlement at Remagen in the first century AD.[14] Over that long period of time, it had been destroyed multiple times by invading armies from several nations. The town was rebuilt each time. In March 1945 about 5,000 people lived in the small resort town. The Rhine near Remagen was about 270 meters (890 ft) wide.[2] The Ludendorff Bridge had been built by Russian prisoners of war during World War I to help transport supplies from Germany to France.

The bridge connected the village of Erpel on the eastern side with Remagen on the west bank. It had been named after the World War I German General Erich Ludendorff, who had been a key proponent for building this bridge. It carried two rail lines and pedestrian catwalks on either side across the Rhine. The total length was 400 metres (1,300 ft), while the main steel structure was 325 metres (1,066 ft) long. The arch spanned 156 metres (512 ft) and at its highest measured 28 metres (92 ft) above the water. Two trusses on either side of the central arch were both 85 metres (279 ft). An elevated overpass on each end of the span connected the approach to the bridge and allowed a rail line or roads to pass underneath, parallel to the river. The bridge was normally about 15 metres (49 ft) above the Rhine. Since it was built for military purposes, it had solidly built stone towers on either side of the rails on both banks, equipped with fighting loopholes and accommodations for up to a battalion of troops.[2] On the eastern side, a 1,299-foot-long (396 m) tunnel was cut at almost 90 through Erpeler Ley, a steeply sided hill that overlooks the Rhine.[15]

During the autumn of 1944, the Allies had repeatedly attempted to destroy the bridge to disrupt German efforts to reinforce their forces to the west. On 9 October 1944, a raid by 33 bombers damaged the bridge and it was reported as destroyed, but the bridge was back in use again on 9 November. A few weeks later on 28 December 1944, 71 B-24 Liberator bombers were dispatched to strike the bridge. They hit it with four bombs but the Germans quickly repaired it.[19] The 446th Bombardment Group attacked the bridge again on the next four consecutive days from 28 to 31 December 1944.[20] More bombers struck at the bridge during raids in January and February 1945.[15] On 5 March 1945, B-24 bombers from the 491st Bombardment Group attempted one more time to destroy the bridge, but failed.[21]

Montgomery's ground assault plan included the British 21st Army Group, consisting of the British Second Army, First Canadian Army and the attached US 9th Army. They were charged with crossing the Rhine north of the Ruhr following the airborne assault. To the south, Montgomery would be supported by Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group, including the First Army under the command of Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges. Hodges was given the objective of capturing dams on the Rur River and then trapping the Germans in a pincer move west of the Rhine. Plans for Operation Plunder had begun in England in August 1944,[26] almost since Operation Market Garden failed.[22]

After pushing the Germans back during the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies quickly advanced into western Germany. General Eisenhower established a twofold mission. The first was to prevent German forces defending the west bank of the Rhine River from escaping to the east bank. The second was to allow the Allied forces to select a river crossing where they could concentrate the attack leaving minimum forces defending the remainder of the front. The Allies held little hope they would be able to capture a Rhine River bridge intact. Instead, they brought up huge amounts of bridging equipment to the front.[16] But Eisenhower left a standing order that if any unit found a bridge intact, they were to "exploit its use to the fullest, and establish a bridgehead on the other side".[27]

To the south of the First Army, Lieutenant General George Patton's Third Army would also support Montgomery's advance across the Rhine. But the First Army had been delayed by two weeks when the Germans released water from the Rur river dams, flooding the valley below and slowing down the advance of Hodges' units.[24]

Major General John W. Leonard, commanding officer of the 9th Armored Division, later recalled that on 6 March, III Corps commander Major General John Millikin, referring to the Ludendorff Bridge, told him over the phone, "You see that black line on the map. If you can seize that your name will go down in history."[33] In the last week of February, Colonel Charles G. Patterson, the anti-aircraft artillery officer for III Corps, led a meeting for brigade and group commanders during which they discussed what they would do if they were lucky enough to capture a bridge intact.[7]

On 2 March, Millikin assigned the 14th Tank Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Leonard E. Engemann to the north flank and attached it to the 1st Division. The 9th Armored's Combat Command B attacked towards the Erft river, and Combat Command A advanced towards the Ahr river. They were to then move south to capture Remagen and Sinzig before linking up with the flanks of Patton's Third Army.[5]

On the right flank of the First Army south of Bonn, the 9th Armored Division moved swiftly, and the closer they got to the Rhine, the more quickly they advanced. The speed of their movement towards the Rhine surprised the Germans.[34][35][36]

When the First Army captured Cologne and reached the west bank of the Rhine, it was greeted as a major success of the Allied campaign, but German engineers dropped the Hohenzollern Bridge on 6 March, shortly before the 3rd Armored Division arrived.[35]

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