CHAPTER TWELVE
Engineers attempt to repair the Ludendorff Bridge
The German demolition explosion on 7 March had failed to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge, but it had severely crippled the thirty-year-old structure.
As troops began to cross to the Rhine, engineers from the 9th Armored Engineer Battalion had removed packages of explosives that had failed to detonate from the superstructure. A later inspection by the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion revealed that the Germans had filled manholes in the bridge piers with devices. They too had failed to explode.
As the endless convoy of men and vehicles crossed the Rhine, engineers began to carry out emergency repairs to make the bridge as safe as possible. The decking could be repaired, the damage to the upstream truss made it unsafe to open the bridge to two-way traffic. III Corps report vividly describes the extent of the damage done by the explosion:
... [it] had completely torn apart the lower chord, diagonal, and vertical of the truss at the first panel point south of the north pier. As a result of this, the upstream arch truss had dropped at the north end over one foot below the level of the downstream arch truss at the corresponding point. The side plates of the top chord of this upstream truss directly above the point where the lower chord was cut were slightly buckled.
The downstream girders supported the whole weight of the bridge and the tremendous stresses imposed by the twisted superstructure had caused several girders to deform under the strain.
Despite the engineers’ concerns, General Millikin could ill afford to close the bridge until alternative crossings had been opened to traffic. The treadway bridge at Erpel had been opened for traffic on 10 March and the Linz pontoon bridge was completed the following day. A second crossing at Remagen was finished soon afterwards. Confident that he could keep the bridgehead supplied with men and equipment, Millikin allowed his Chief Engineer, Colonel Lyons, to close the
Ludendorff Bridge for repairs on 12 March.
The 276th Combat Engineer Battalion immediately began work on the crippled bridge with the help of 1058th Port Construction and Repair Group’s technical team. The first priority was to repair the decking to allow their equipment to move freely along the bridge. Lieutenant-Colonel Clayton Rust’s men began by cutting and welding the damaged hangers that supported the decking. The torn floor girders were then trimmed and spliced so that new timbers could be laid across the gap. On 17 March Lieutenant-Colonel Rust was ready to begin work on the broken lower chord, adjacent to the north abutment. Once it had been repaired both arches would once again, support the bridge. Colonel Rust’s report illustrates the problems faced by his engineers:
The crane was on the bridge over the north pier with a cable attached which ran through a block on the downstream side of the bridge, through the deck to another block and across under the deck to the part of the bottom chord of the upstream truss which framed into the pier. Attempts to take up on this cable were made once but the clamps slipped...
As the engineers went in search of new clamps, Captain Francis Goodwin of the 1159th Engineer Combat Group walked across the bridge to inspect the continuing repair work. Men were beginning to clear spare timber from the decking, loading the smaller pieces onto a truck while stacking others alongside the pedestrian walkway. Meanwhile, Major Carr was supervising repairs to the decking, next to the idle crane. Captain Goodwin mounted his motorcycle on the east bank, but as he rode towards Erpel a distant rumbling caught his attention:
Just prior to crossing the treadway bridge, I heard an unusual sound and looking up saw that the arch of the bridge had just crumbled and the abutment section was settling to the ground. The time was 15:00.
Ten days, almost to the hour since the first American troops had crossed the Rhine, the Ludendorff Bridge collapsed into the river.
Lieutenant-Colonel Rust was at the centre of the bridge with his assistant, Captain Sergi when the bridge began to show signs that it was about to collapse:
The first idea I had of any trouble was a sharp report like a rivet head shearing and I noticed a vertical hanger which had been spliced by two turnbuckles was breaking loose and one turnbuckle was dangling, having come loose at the top of the turnbuckle. It appeared as though the bolt holding the turnbuckle to the web of the vertical member had sheared through the web. At that instant I heard another sharp report of a rivet shearing off from my left rear followed by a trembling sensation of the whole deck. Quickly glancing down the deck, the whole deck seemed to be vibrating and dust was coming off the surface. I knew instantly that the bridge was collapsing and I turned towards the south bank and ran as fast as I could. While I was running, the east side of the bridge seemed to settle first and I found myself running, in effect ‘on a side hill’. The next instant I was engulfed in water. I had no sensation of falling at all.
‘I knew instantly that the bridge was collapsing and I turned towards the south bank and ran as fast as I could.’
‘...the bridge fell into the Rhine at 15:00 hrs, carrying men with it.’
The view across the Rhine on 17 March 1945, the day the bridge collapsed. National Archives 111-SC-202820
Searching for the injured amongst the debris. National Archives 111-SC-202821
The two officers were swept downstream and were finally rescued at the treadway bridge. Although both men escaped with minor injuries, many others were killed or injured. As ambulances gathered around the wreckage, men dived into the Rhine to try and rescue injured men from the strong current. Power boats operating in the Linz area, were sent downstream to assist the rescue operation.
As the afternoon wore on the number of casualties grew as men were pulled from the wreckage. The 276th Engineer Combat Battalion suffered the greatest loss: six men were killed outright and eleven were missing, sixty had been injured, three of them fatally. The 1058th Port and Construction Repair Unit lost eight men; another six were injured.
St Patrick’s Day. This was the blackest day in the history of the 1058th Engr. P.C. & R. and no man will forget it. After learning of three casualties at the Ludendorff Bridge yesterday we did learn today that the bridge fell into the Rhine at 15:00 hrs, carrying men with it.
Medics evacuate the casualties to safety. National Archives 111-SC-202822
As the medics struggled to extricate the injured, everyone began to wonder why the Ludendorff Bridge had finally crumbled into the Rhine.
Although III Corps investigation could not pinpoint the exact cause of the collapse, the report pointed to a number of possible contributory factors. The initial explosion on the afternoon of 7 March had left the downstream truss supporting the full weight of the bridge and it should have been enough to bring it crashing down into the river. German attempts to destroy the structure over the days that followed could have added to the stresses in the girders. Although only a handful of shell bursts had struck the superstructure, over 600 rounds had landed in close proximity to the bridge; a V2 rocket had also exploded close by a few hours before it collapsed.
However, III Corps had also contributed to the stresses and strains placed on the Ludendorff Bridge. Between the 7th and 12 March, thousands of men and dozens of lorries and tanks had flowed almost continuously across the bridge. Additional timber decking added by engineers to allow the vehicles to cross had increased the loading on the bridge by fifty tonnes according to conservative estimates. A number of heavy artillery batteries had been moved into the Remagen area to support the bridgehead and during the course of ten days eight inch howitzers had fired over one thousand rounds. The repair work to the upstream truss, in progress at the time of collapse, may have also been a significant factor.
Whatever the reason, the Ludendorff Bridge had served its purpose as far as the Allied High Command was concerned and an in depth inquiry would have served no purpose. III Corps Report sums up the evidence;
...it must be assumed that the bridge collapsed from a combination of causes which, when added together finally proved the straw to ‘break the camel’s back’.
Ambulances line up along the east bank of the river. National Archives 111-SC-336971
Sketch of the collapsed bridge and the position of witnesses.
A short time after the bridge collapsed, General Bradley called General Millikin to tell that he had bad news, he was to be replaced by General Van Fleet. For some time both he and General Hodges had been unsatisfied with the way Millikin had handled the expansion of the bridgehead and he considered that his subordinate had let an opportunity slip away. In Bradley’s words:
I have only the greatest respect for the GIs doing the fighting out there, but I think they have had bad leadership in this bridgehead battle.
‘...it must be assumed that the bridge collapsed from a combination of causes..’ National Archives 111-SC-331838
With Remagen bridge collapsed into the Rhine 9th Armored Division’s sign was defunct. Lewis E Thurston/Friedenmuseum
Hitler’s expectation: How the Ludendorff bridge should have looked when the Americans reached the banks of the Rhine at Remagen.
Millikin in turn had bad news, reporting the collapse of the Ludendorff Bridge. Despite the loss of the rail bridge, the temporary bridges across the Rhine were more than adequate to sustain the bridgehead.
When Millikin’s replacement, General Van Fleet, took command of III Corps on 17 March the crisis was over. The Remagen bridgehead had succeeded in drawing German reserves from other vital sectors along the Rhine, in particular 21 Army Group’s chosen crossing point between Emmerich and Wesel, to the northwest of Düsseldorf. Field Marshal Montgomery was in the final stages of preparing to launch Operations Plunder and Varsity, a river crossing on 23 March, followed by an airborne assault the following day. The attack would stand far a greater chance of success due to the capture of the Bridge at Remagen.
Court martialling those responsible for the capture of the Remagen bridge
While the fighting raged throughout the Westerwald, Hitler was venting his anger against the men responsible for the debacle. He was infuriated that the Americans had managed to cross the Rhine; the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge had denied his Armies the chance to regroup behind the river. After replacing von Rundstedt with Kesselring, Hitler appointed Leutnantgeneral Rudolf Hübner to lead a team of officers to court-martial those responsible. The fact that the interrogators were to be accompanied by an execution squad left no one in any doubt what the sentence would be for those found guilty.
Adolf Hitler was furious at the news that the Americans had captured the Remagen bridge. He took immediate action against those he considered resposible.
After questioning a number of senior Generals, Hübner went on to interrogate the NCOs and men who had been at the bridge on 7 March. The results of the investigation led to verdicts being decided against the two captured officers, Captain Bratge and Captain Friesenhahn. Bratge was found guilty of failing to carry out his orders and was sentenced to death in his absence while Friesenhahn was acquitted, having done everything within his powers to try and destroy the bridge.
Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt. Sacked.
On the morning of 13 March the court arrived in Rimbach to try Major Scheller and Leutnant Peters. Hübner was in no doubt about Scheller’s guilt on two counts. Firstly, he had delayed the issuing of the order to destroy the bridge while the second charge accused Scheller of abandonding the men under his command. Although he had escaped to report the news to the nearest headquarters, the court concluded that he should have taken steps to launch a counterattack while there were only a few Americans on the east bank of the Rhine. Leutnant Peters was also tried and found guilty of allowing his experimental anti-aircraft guns fall into enemy hands. Both men were taken out into the woods and shot.
The men who paid with their lives for failures at Remagen bridge.
During the afternoon the court moved to Oberirsen to try Major Strobel, the commanding officer of engineering works along the Rhine, and Major Kraft, Friesenhahn’s superior officer. Both men were found guilty of failing to organise successful counterattacks against the bridgehead on the night of 7 March. Strobel was also charged with neglecting the communications network connecting Remagen to his headquarters. The following morning both men were sentenced to death and executed.
Apart from von Rundstedt, four other senior Generals were blamed for the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge and removed from their positions. General von Bothmer, the unfortunate officer placed in command of the Remagen district hours before the bridge was captured was sentenced to five years imprisonment; he committed suicide a few days later.