THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN

In August, 1944, the Allies were driving east towards the Rhine River and the German Heartland. The biggest question to the Allied high command was where should the Allies try to cross the Rhine River. General Omar Bradley, commander of the Twelve Army Group, which included General Hodges First Army and General Patton's Third Army wanted to head for the Rhine near Frankfurt. This route led thru the coal rich central part of Germany, depriving Germany's war machine of this priceless resource. Field Marshal Montgomery, commander of the Twenty-first Army Group, which included the British Second Army, Canadian First, and American Ninth Army wanted to cross the Rhine in the north through Holland. Montgomery's aim was to open the large port of Antwerp to relieve supply problems, and drive thru the Ruhr area of Northern Germany, directly to Berlin. General Eisenhower decided his plan would have Montgomery make the first crossing of the Rhine north of the Ruhr. No one could have imagined the first crossing of the Rhine would occur seven months later near a small town called Remagen. In September, Montgomery tried a daring attempt to cross the Rhine using paratroopers near Arnhem. But the German panzers inflicted heavy casualties on the allied troops near Arnhem and the crossing failed.
In October, the First Army took Aachen. Bradley expressed to Eisenhower that a two pronged attack encircling the Ruhr would lead directly to a German defeat. General Eisenhower agreed and plans for an attack both north and south of the Ardennes were formulated. Bradley's armies would march on to the Rhine and control any river crossings. Again, no mention was made of the town of Remagen.The offensive in the north and the south left a thin line of defense in the central Ardennes. On December 16, 1944, the Germans took advantage of this thin line of defense and smashed thru it with large amounts of panzer and infantry troops, starting the Battle of the Bulge. The American Ninth Armored Division, which would later become famous for being the first troops to cross the Rhine at Remagen, was thrown into the battle. The Ninth Armored Division was split to defend the cities of Luxembourg, Bastogne, and St. Vith. The Ninth Armored Division suffered high casualties in men and equipment, but gave up ground very relunctantly until reinforcements could push back the Germans. The Battle of the Bulge offensive delayed crossing of the Rhine for months.
In January, 1945, Hitler wanted to hold the Siegfried line west of the Rhine at all costs. Plans again were discussed in the Allied High Command on how best to crush the Germans west of the Rhine and where to cross the Rhine. This time Eisenhower wanted the main effort to be Montgomery making a southward assault from Nijmegen, behind the heavy fortifications of the Siegfried Line. Bradley would support the assault by capturing dams on the Roer River. When completed, Montgomery's forces would cross the Rhine north of the Ruhr. Again, there was no mention of crossing the Rhine at Remagen.
In February, the offensive started off slowly. Heavy rains, melting snows, and the Germans blowing the Roer River dams slowed travel along the front to a crawl. Meanwhile, General Hodges First Army in the north and General Patton's Third Army in the south were preparing a pincers movement to trap German troops west of the Rhine.
In March, 1945, the Americans made a few unsuccessful attempts to cross bridges over the Rhine before the Germans blew the bridges. The Ninth Armored Division was given orders to seize crossings over the Ahr River and clear the enemy from the west bank of the Rhine River. Remagen was specifically stated as a 9th Armored Division objective. On March 7, 1945, a detachment from the 9th Armored Division spotted a wonderful sight - the Bridge at Remagen, (also known as the Ludendorff Bridge), was still standing, spanning the Rhine River. The railway bridge had been built in 1916 and was named after a WWI hero Erich Ludendorff. The bridge had two sets of train tracks and a footpath on each side. The bridge was 1069 feet in length. To the east of theRhine the tracks led into a railroad tunnel. Overlooking the east bank stood the cliffs of Erpeler Ley. The Germans had not heavily defended the Ludendorff Bridge because preparations had been made to blow the bridge on the approach of the allied armies. Hitler's orders were that no bridge was to be blown unless Allied units were within a few kilometers to allow as many retreating German troops to escape from being trapped on the Rhine's west bank. Unfortunately, the German chain of command at Remagen was in a much confused state. General major Walther Botsch, who had recently been in charge of the bridge's defense had been appointed the command of LIII Corps. There was no time to brief his replacement of the situation at Remagen. Captain Willi Bratge was in command of the army units in the Remagen area. Captain Karl Friesenhahn was an engineer officer in charge of the bridge. An AA officer commanded the anti-aircraft troops. The troops in the Volksturm were under a Nazi Party official. At 11:15 AM on March 7, Major Hans Scheller would be sent to Remagen from LXVII Corps to take command of Remagen. Even though reports were coming in about U.S. troops on the bluffs overlooking Remagen, Scheller decided not to blow the bridge since precious artillery pieces from an artillery battalion were in the process of moving across the bridge. The number of men available for defense of the Remagen area was well under 1000. These men were drawn from a bridge security company, an engineer company, Hitler Jugend members, and anti-aircraft units. There were no panzer units and no transportation units other than a few bicycles, and railroad cars that came through the railroad tunnel. Adding to the chaos were many retreating German units who caused huge traffic jams in Remagen and the bridge. German engineers had recently spent four days placing planking on the bridge to allow vehicle traffic on the railroad bridge. Lack of supplies, ammunition, and reinforcements were commonplace for German units in 1945 west of the Rhine.
General Leonard, commander of the U.S. 9th Armored Division gave orders to CCB/9, commanded by Brig. Gen. William Hoge, to drive on Remagen. By nightfall on March 6, 1945, CCB/9 had reached Stadt Meckenheim which was only eight miles from the Rhine River. On the morning of March 7, CCB sent one column to the southeast to cross the Ahr River and another column to Remagen. The Remagen column, commanded by Lt. Col. Leonard Engemann, was built around the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion and the 14th Tank Battalion (minus one company). The leading column was an infantryplatoon and a tank platoon which contained the experimental Pershing T26 Tank armed with a 90mm gun. First bulldozers had to clear a path out of Stadt Meckenheim before the armored vehicles could pass. TF Engemann moved out at 8:20 AM. Three miles from the start the TF encountered some small arms and artillery fire. Four and a half miles from the start the column turned south. Before noon the TF was in a large patch of forest west of Remagen. At 1:00 PM the infantry platoon commander, Lt Emmett Burrows, emerged from the forest onto a high bluff overlooking Remagen. He saw an amazing site, an intact railway bridge! At 3:15 PM a message came from CCB's other column who had captured Sinzig after finding an intact bridge over the Ahr River. A civilian in Sinzig insisted that the Germans were intending to blow the Ludendorff bridge at 4:00 PM. The Germans had no exact timetable to blow the bridge, but General Hoge gave orders to immediately attempt to seize the bridge before it was blown. After a brief firefight against occasional small arms fire, the town of Remagen was captured. The TF neared Remagen bridge around 4:00 PM. As they approached the bridge, a huge explosion went off near the west end of the bridge. Captain Friesenhahn, on his own initiative, had exploded a charge which was specifically designed to prevent enemy tanks from entering the bridge.
German troops on the east bank were running all over apparently getting ready to blow the bridge. As Friesenhahn hurried across the bridge to give the order to blow the bridge, a tank shell exploded nearby knocking him unconscious. After fifteen minutes he regained his senses and again started toward the east bank. In and near the railroad tunnel, matters were chaotic. White phosphorous tank shells created a heavy eye stinging smoke screen.
Soldiers were screaming as their flesh burned from the phosphorous. Captain Bratge rushed from the tunnel and met Freiesenhahn. Major Scheller gave his approval to blow the bridge. Bratge insisted on having the order written down. He then went outside the tunnel and informed Friesenhahn to detonate the explosives. The first three attempts to blow the bridge was unsuccessful -the circuit failed. Machine gun and tank fire was riddling the bridge. A brave sergeant volunteered to manually ignite the charges. An attempt was made to light an emergency demolition charge. The charge exploded sending debris into the air, but the bridge settled back down on its foundation - it was still standing. Timmerman had barely given the order to storm the bridge
to A Company/27th Armored Infantry Battalion when the charge exploded. The explosion had torn huge holes in the planking, but the footpaths on either side were still intact for infantry to cross. Timmerman again ordered an attack. Infantry units weaved and dodged enemy gunfire from the eat tower and attempted to cross the bridge with tank support firing on the opposite side of the bridge. Three platoons of infantry crossed the bridge. Engineers followed the three platoons to cut any wires that could set off more explosives. Next the infantry took the railroad tunnel and spread out on the east bank and began climbing the heights of the Erpeler Ley, the menacing cliff above the railroad tunnel.
When American troops appeared at both ends of the tunnel, the German forces inside surrendered. General Hoge, commander of CCB, ordered the entire Armored Infantry battalion across the river. When news of the captured bridge reached Army HQ, General Hodges ordered engineers and boats to Remagen. Eisenhower authorized five divisions to march to Remagen and cross the Rhine to expand the bridgehead, which was very weak. General Millikin made plans to motorize two infantry divisions. Other engineers, anti-aircraft, and artillery units were notified of their new orders. Beforemidnight three heavy caliber artillery battalions were insupporting positions. The Americans had not pushed any armor across yet; a strong German counterattack could have wipedout the bridgehead. Fortunately for the Americans, communication lines for the Germans were poor. U.S. engineers had to repair the holes and damage in the bridge's planking to allow tanks to cross. It was around midnight before the Americans were able to send nine Sherman tanks across the bridge. The first Tank Destroyer got stuck in an unrepaired hole for over five hours. The Germans counterattacked on the evening of March 7, but it was unsuccessful in routing the bridgehead. On March 8, 1945, the Americans pushed units from three divisions across the bridge. This gave the Americans a strength of about 8,000 men at the bridgehead which included two armored infantry battalions, a tank battalion, a tank destroyer company, and a platoon of armored engineers of the 9th Armored Division; a regiment and two additional battalions of the 78th Infantry Division; a regiment and one battalion of the 9th Infantry Division; and one and a half batteries of anti-aircraft artillery. The Germans did notmount a significant counterattack to the bridgehead until two to three days after the bridge had been captured. On March 17, 1945, the Ludendorff Bridge collapsed. The damage from demolitions, air attacks, and artillery shells was too much for the bridge the Germans could not destroy and the Americans could not repair. By this time pontoon bridges had been constructed to carry troops and vehicles across the Rhine.
The capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was essential in trapping 300,000 German soldiers in the Ruhr and speeded the end of the war.