Home The Bridge at Remagen
"The epic battles that shortened the war in Europe during WWII"
Sunday, June 29th, 2008 10AM to 5PM RULES REGISTRATION
By March 7th, 1945, the Allies had freed much of France from German occupation and were looking for a way into Germany, which had never been successfully invaded from the West. The 75,000 German forces of the 15th Army were retreating as rapidly as they could despite the order from Hitler to fight on. The German military was trying to reorganize its forces as it retreated to protect the Fatherland from invasion. Retreat was extremely difficult as the Allies kept bombing the bridges in order to cut off the German Army or if the Allies approached too close, the Germans would blow them up to prevent use to the Allies. The Loodendorf Railway Bridge, located at the town of Remagen, was one of the few remaining bridges left for the Germans to use as a crossing home. The British 21st Army Group was located 80 miles to the north of Remagen, at the town of Wesel. They were commanded by General Bernard Montgomery. The American 3rd Army Group, commanded by General George Patton, was 70 miles south of Remagen, at Oppenheim. The American 9th Armored Division of the 1st Army, commanded by General Courtney Hodges, was ordered to cut off the retreat of the German Army by pushing his forces into the area at Remagen.
The Loodendorf Bridge was 1000 ft long, spanning the Rhine River which flows 450 miles marking the German border. It had two stone towers guarding the entrance to each side of the bridge. The towers on the German side were manned by machine guns creating a vicious crossfire controlling the bridge which was heavily loaded with explosive charges. The railway vanished in to a tunnel of the vertical escarpment. When the Americans threatened the forces guarding the bridge, the Germans tried twice to detonate the explosives, but the circuits failed. Finally, a German engineer ran on to the bridge an succeeded to set the manual detonation. The center section of the span rose into the air and miraculously settled into its original position.
General William Hooge, commanding the 1st Infantry, ordered Lt. Carl Timmerman to assault the bridge immediately with three platoons. Engineers followed close behind disarming the explosives as the assault force fought its way across. Lt. Timmerman and Sergeant Alex Trobeck with 120 men, on March 8th, captured the bridge. Sergeant Trobeck was credited with neutralizing the two stone towers containing the machine guns. In the following ten days, eight thousand men and equipment managed to establish a bridgehead on the German side, before the bridge collapsed from the stress. Twenty eight engineers died in the collapse. The Germans tried to repeatedly bomb the bridge, but failed due to the immense number of antiaircraft batteries rushed to the area from all over Europe. Before the collapse, the Allies began to construct a pontoon bridge across the Rhine. When completed it allowed the Allies to put 9 Divisions in to Germany. One vehicle crossed every 2 minutes. In seven days, over 2500 vehicles made the crossing.
To reinforce the bridgehead, the Allies had to widen the front across the Rhine. The British began planning a river assault long before the Loodendorf Bridge was a factor. On March 24th, they launched a very complex operation named, "Operation Plunder", involving 250 Lancaster bombers dropping bombs 1500 yards ahead of the advancing troops while artillery fired 1000 shells a minute. Just before the river crossing, another phase of the operation, codenamed "Varsity", a massive airborne assault began. It used 1700 transport planes and 1300 gliders to ferry 20,000 airborne troops to a drop zone 5 miles from the Rhine on the German side. Operational security was inadequate as "Axis Sally" continually broadcasted on the airwaves, that the paratroops could leave their parachutes behind and instead "walk to the ground on the flack that would be shot at their planes." The Sky Train stretched for 200 miles and took 2 1/2 hrs to pass over head. Fifty gliders and 44 transports were blown out of the sky. The Airborne troops were dropped into Hell. Once on the ground, not only did they have to contend with the Germans trying to kill them, but the debris that fell from the sky like a hailstorm. The airborne troops lost 1100 men killed and many, many wounded. It was the deadliest airborne drop of WWII. The river assault was made by British, Canadians, and some American units in buffalo vehicles, in lanes of passage marked by gaps in the tracer fire used against the Germans. Some vehicles succumbed to friendly fire while navigating the river crossing.
The Germans launched a counterattack, north of the landing zones, at Diersfordt and Hamminkein with heavy armor ... Tiger tanks. A few airborne troops managed to stop the tigers at a bridge with piats, an early bazooka, by disabling two on the bridge. This created a blockade which never allowed them in to the battle.
One day before the British assault began, General Patton launched his river assault at Oppenheim, south of Remagen. The wave of boats managed to get half way across the Rhine before the Germans were aware. Three regiments established a bridgehead under deadly but unorganized fire.
The overall Bridgehead of the Allies, at Remagen, expanded to 20 miles wide and 8 miles deep by the 28th of March. By that time, 17 divisions of Allied forces were across the Rhine. Germany was soon defeated.