A couple of days later my late father-in-law, a field artilleryman in the 78th Infantry Division crossed the bridge to establish the northern flank of the penetration.
Your father-in-law was a brave man. A few days after that, the bridge fell, but by then the bridgehead had been established. Under cover of Americans on both sides of the river, engineers were able to erect pontoon bridges to take the weight of traffic streaming across.
The Germans should have kissed our asses, for the alternative would have been a much larger East Germany. Maybe only a rump West German state west of the river.