Posted on 03/11/2015 2:53:12 PM PDT by Kaslin
The March 7, 1945, seizure the Rhine River's Remagen Bridge by a U.S. Army task force is an outstanding example of individual and organizational initiative and carefully assessed aggressiveness. A lesson in leader intuition, one with application to politics and business as well as battle, lies within the operation's deep history.
The moment of capture was a thriller. Ignoring span-rattling enemy demolition charges and German fire from the Rhine's east bank, approximately 60 young American soldiers raced across the damaged bridge that blundering German military engineers had not quite destroyed. By March 17, when it collapsed, six U.S. divisions had followed them, shattering the Nazi regime's last line of strategic defense on the Western front.
The wide, swift Rhine presented the attacking Allied armies with a major, easily defended obstacle. The German timetable for destroying the Rhine's 22 bridges, however, had two competing objectives: Let Germans retreat east but prevent the Allies from grabbing a span.
On March 7, a 9th Armored Division task force led by Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Engeman approached Remagen. At 10:30 a.m., a pilot in an artillery observation Piper Cub reported Remagen's Ludendorff Railroad Bridge (its official name) was still intact. The Germans had blown up the Rhine's other 21 spans. Brigadier Gen. William Hoge (commander, Combat Command B, 9th Armored) received the news. At 1 p.m., Engeman's armored scouts reported that German soldiers and vehicles were still streaming east. The bridge had two rail lines, one of them planked over for use by retreating vehicles.
Hoge arrived on the scene. Risk versus reward: He knew the risk in American blood was high. He had little information on German defenses in Remagen. If his men took the bridge and got across, what happened if German forces counter-attacked and cut them off?
Hoge believed he faced court-martial charges if the gamble he contemplated failed. U.S. commanders had been told their forces were not to cross the Rhine, though the prohibition had some maybes and a little murk. Alliance politics played a role. The British were to lead the Allied assault on central Germany. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's long-awaited Operation Plunder would begin in late March. Monty would star. U.S. forces were assigned a supporting role.
But Hoge also understood the enormous opportunity. Leap the Rhine now and U.S. armor would run loose behind still-fluid German defenses. British and American soldiers would not have to cross the Rhine in rubber boats and die by the thousands.
Hoge ordered infantry and tanks to attack into Remagen. At 3 p.m., a German prisoner told his American captors the bridge was going down at 4 p.m. Engeman took a cavalry troop (light armored vehicles) and a team of infantry and tanks, and struck for the bridge.
At 3:50 p.m., as a U.S. infantry squad stepped onto the bridge, a demolition charge exploded. But it did not collapse. U.S. tanks fired on German machine guns. Infantrymen and combat engineers raced across, ripping every wire that might link to a demolition. One sergeant, despite heavy fire, ran across the entire 117-meter span. His squad followed him. That is physical courage and leadership, in the toughest of circumstances.
The Allies had a bridge over the Rhine. For the first time since the Napoleonic wars, a German enemy had successfully attacked across the Rhine.
The individual and organizational initiative displayed at Remagen is self-evident. By March 1945, 9th Armored was a seasoned, veteran unit. Its soldiers had confidence in themselves and their leaders.
Hoge saw the opportunity to achieve extraordinary gains. His intuition and careful assessment lead him to take an aggressive risk.
Today, at least among media psychologists, aggressiveness has connotations of maladjusted, threatening social behavior. The business community's definition of aggressiveness in the marketplace more closely describes Hoge's decision to order his soldiers to seize the bridge: assessing the risk but acting on an opportunity that could produce enormously valuable gain.
With the bridge in hand, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower exhibited initiative at a higher level of command and changed his operational war plan. Now the U.S. would make the main effort. The battle for Germany was underway.
Such men... The society that could create them must have been blessed.
The actual construction of Caesar's first bridge took place most likely between Andernach and Neuwied, downstream of Koblenz on the Rhine River. Book 4 (Liber IV) of his commentaries gives technical details of this wooden beam bridge. Double timber pilings were rammed into the bottom of the river by winching up a large stone and releasing it, thereby driving the supporting posts (or piling) into the riverbed. The most upstream and downstream pilings were slanted and secured by a beam, and multiple segments of these then linked up to form the basis of the bridge. Conflicting models have been presented based on his description.[1][2] Separate upstream pilings were used as protective barriers against flotsam and possible attacks while guard towers protected the entries. The length of the bridge has been estimated to be 140 to 400 m (roughly 460 to 1,300 ft), and its width 7 to 9 m (23 to 30 ft). The depth of the river can reach up to 9.1 m (30 ft).
The construction of this bridge showed that Julius Caesar, and Rome, could go anywhere, if only for a few days. Since he had over 40,000 soldiers at his disposal, they built the first bridge in only 10 days using local lumber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar's_Rhine_bridges
Good point...Patton was probably right. We should have kept on going.
I don’t know what that picture is of. It is not any bridge at Remagen. I went by there two months ago and it is exactly as described by a poster above. Ferry service gets cars across. The old shore side towers are there. The concrete piers in the river were removed in the 1950s.
I thought the movie The Bridge at Remagen was excellent, but not as good as A Bridge Too Far, about the bridge further north on the Rhine at Arnhem, the Netherlands. Outstanding movie.
bookmark
“Ever wonder if the Germans knew the war was lost and wanted the Americans to advance as far east as possible rather than have the Russians occupy more German territory. Too bad those German engineers weren’t interviewed after the war. That is not to deny the heroism and courage of those young American soldiers.”
Agreed with the last part - but nonetheless an interesting thought.
That is actually fascinating. The 291st really got around. I just saw a program a few days ago about the 291st. they, more than anyone else were responsible for stopping Peiper during the Battle of the Bulge.
Their commander guessed correctly where the Germans were headed and time and again, blew bridges just before or just as he approached them. They said Peiper was heard to say “Those damned engineers”. when he was forced to retreat.
Thanks for the posting, Kaslin.
Brought back memories of the movie about the bridge, but I’d never read anything about the real history before.
The last time we were stationed in Germany which was from 1977 to 79 we took a trip to Renagen with my sister in law who had come to visit us from Upstate New York. We went there were the bridge used to be. My husband picked a small rock up from the ground which he thought was from the bridge. I doubt though that it was
The Army of Occupation Medal, which was awarded for service in Berlin up until 1990, has the Bridge at Remagen on the front and Mount Fuji on the reverse
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