Ten Minutes to the Good

At Euskirchen, 17 miles west of the Rhine, Major General John W. Leonard heard of Cologne's capture. Other elements of Lieut. General Courtney H. Hodges' U.S. First Army had that situation well in hand. General Leonard's 9th Armored Division could turn southeast to hit the Rhine and envelop more of its west bank. Leonard gave an open order: keep going; if you reach the river try to establish a crossing and hold it.

On the morning of March 7, dark, handsome, Missouri-born Brigadier General William M. Hoge got the order: it was much to his liking. Getting across rivers was one of his specialties. His Distinguished Service Cross testified to his part in bridging the Meuse under fire in World War I's decisive offensive.

General Hoge's outfit was to come up to the Rhine near Remagen. In that area he hoped to find favorable points for future bridging. There had been no information for two weeks about Remagen's double-tracked railroad bridge, which air reconnaissance had last reported damaged, but still in use.

At first General Hoge's men met spotty opposition, then almost none. They picked up speed, rumbling through the Eifel hills. 'By late afternoon they sighted Remagen through a break in the hills, the four towers of its Apollinariskirche glistening in the drizzle. Beyond the church was Remagen's 400-yard-long, three-span bridge. The bridge still stood, but that was hardly worth remarking: the Germans usually waited until the last moment.

The U.S. spearhead force sped down the slope to the bridge entry. There was a flurry of shooting. A German gun was knocked out, some German soldiers killed. Then, warily, some of the Yanks ran onto the bridge. There was an explosion. A guard had touched off one of the charges. But it did little damage. More Americans raced on, seized two Germans on the bridge. Then the Americans were across. A few Germans fled to a tunnel piercing a hill. A few surrendered.

A Moment for History. Soon the Americans were swarming over the bridge. It might have blown up with them at any second. They cut and jerked out wires leading to dynamite charges. Gingerly they detached detonators, lifted boxes of explosives from the piers.

Suddenly Hoge's men realized that they had forced a fantastic break in the fortunes of war. They had seized a Rhine bridge intact. It was a moment for history. German prisoners ruefully reported that the deadline for blowing the bridge had been 4 p.m.--ten minutes after the Americans burst into Remagen.

It was also a moment of historic ironies. Remagen's bridge had spanned the years between World Wars I and II. Completed in 1918, it had been named for General Erich von Ludendorff, later to be Adolf Hitler's sponsor. Its seizure occurred nine years to the day after Hitler had brazenly violated the Versailles and Locarno Treaties by sending German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland.

No Time for Irony. The Americans had no time to dwell upon history. Now was the moment for speed. The word flashed back to General Hoge, on back to General Eisenhower. Dog-weary troops heard the electrifying words: "We got a bridge." One order flashed through: get across and get set. That night tanks by the scores, trucks by the hundreds headed for the bridge. Next day they came by hundreds and thousands. Gun carriers zigzagged to the top of the Erpeler Lei, the basalt cliff that rises more than 300 feet above the Rhine. The Yanks made little effort at first to take territory, but they got set in depth for the expected violent counterattack.

It was slow in coming. The Germans had evidently stripped the area of troops to meet emergencies elsewhere. When it came, 48 hours after the first crossing, it was kicked back. The Americans took prisoners, marched them back over the Rhine. But shelling increased. The bridge was hit several times, never seriously damaged. The Germans stepped up air attacks against the little forest of U.S. ack-ack guns, lost at least 30 planes.

General Hodges went across the bridge on the fourth day. A shell burst near him. A few hours later the Americans stepped out for their first big assault, deepened their grip to five miles, widened it to eleven miles, and moved close to the Cologne-Frankfurt Autobahn. The Germans reported that General Hoge's combat engineers had set up several pontoon bridges for other crossings. There was no longer any doubt--the Americans were over the Rhine to stay.

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