| Original caption: “United States First Army at Remagen Bridge.” The Ludendorff Railroad Bridge was built by Russian Prisoners of World War I from 1916 – 1919. The 1,200 foot (365 meter) bridge was accessed from a tunnel through the Erpeler Ley, a 600 foot (180 meter) basalt cliff that the Nazi Germans were fortifying with artillery and anti-aircraft guns in 1945. The 4 stone towers had fighting loopholes and could accommodate a battalion. The bridge had cavities for demolition charges, but the French occupied the Rhineland until 1936, and filled the cavities with concrete. After capturing the right bank of Cologne on March 7, 1945, The 9th Armored Division detailed Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Earl Engeman (October 6, 1906 – July 11, 2002) to capture Remagen. Lieutenant Karl H. Timmermann (June 19, 1922 – October 21, 1951) led A Company, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion discovered the intact bridge and was ordered to assault it. He and his men ran across, cutting demolition wires. Major Hans Scheller (September 7, 1913 – March 14, 1945) attempted to blow the bridge, but only damaged it. Timmermann and his men, after they took cover, continued across. Sergeant Alexander Albert Drabik (December 28, 1910 – September 28, 1993) was the 1st American soldier to make it all the way in 15 minutes. None of Timmermann’s men were hit. This was the 1st time since the Napoleonic Wars that foreign soldiers had crossed the Rhine. American engineers fixed the damage as best they could. Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was furious that the bridge stood, and ordered the execution of Scheller and 3 others for dereliction of duty. The bridge was attacked by the Heer, Luftwaffe, and V-2 rockets, but withstood all attempts to bring it down by fire. The collapse of the bridge could be attributed to no 1 specific factor but rather to a combination of things, some even antedating the emergency demolition. As far back as 1940 Allied planes had launched sporadic attacks against the bridge, and in late 1944 had damaged it to such an extent that it was unserviceable for 15 days. Then came the heavy planking to convert the bridge for vehicles; the assault by the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion’s A Company and the fire of the big T26 Pershing tanks that accompanied it; Scheller’s emergency demolition; the drumbeat of hundreds of infantry feet; the heavy tread of tanks and other vehicles; the pounding of German artillery; the vibrations from German bombs, from American antiaircraft pieces and big 8-inch (203 millimeter) howitzers emplaced nearby, from the near misses of the V-2s; and then the weight of heavy engineer equipment as the Americans tried to repair the bridge. All had to be borne by the downstream truss alone after Scheller’s demolition so damaged the upstream truss that it was useless. In the end, it was too much for 1 weakened truss. About 200 men, principally engineers, and their equipment were working on the Ludendorff Bridge on the afternoon of March 17. Just before 1400 Hours, Captain Francis Goodwin (January 13, 1916 – September 6, 1987), an engineer combat supply officer, walked into the railroad tunnel to investigate some German water supply equipment he had seen at the far end. Finding himself without a flashlight and unable to borrow 1, Goodwin walked back onto the railroad bridge to see if he could borrow a light. As he walked across the bridge he made a mental note of how much lumber would be needed to complete the flooring and treading. He passed a squad of men policing up the odd pieces of lumber and loading them onto a CCKW 2-and-a-half ton truck. He watched them for a moment as they stacked the heavier 6×6 timbers along the sides of the bridge. He stopped briefly to talk with Major William C. Carr (September 3, 1910 – March 17, 1945), the Commanding Officer of the 1058th Port Construction and Repair Group, who did not have very long to live, and asked how long it would take to plank over the gap blown by the German demolition. Carr estimated that he could repair the gap in 1 more day but that it would take a month to repair all of the damaged parts of the bridge completely. Captain Goodwin strolled across to the Remagen side of the bridge. He paused and asked 1 of the welders whether he had enough gas for cutting and welding. The welder assured him that the supply was adequate. The captain stopped by the crane which was trying to straighten out 1 of the members in the truss by tightening a cable, and he questioned the sergeant in charge about what he was attempting to do. Everything appeared to be in order. Captain Goodwin walked off the bridge at 1445 Hours. The bridge still had 15 minutes of life, and nothing unusual appeared to his practiced engineering eye. At the time Captain Goodwin was leaving the bridge, Lieutenant Colonel Clayton A. Rust (December 29, 1916 – December 7, 1991), the Commanding Officer of the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion — 1 of the 2 units of engineers working on bridge repair – was talking with a fellow officer near the center of the bridge. Rust and his battalion staff officer were walking toward the Erpeler Ley side of the bridge to inspect the progress of the work, which was concentrated 2/3 of the way across the bridge. Suddenly, about 3 o’clock, Colonel Rust heard a sharp rifle-like report. It sounded like a rivet head being sheared off. He looked up and saw 1 of the hangers slowly break loose and dangle from the bridge. Then came another sharp report from behind him to the left. Another rivet had sheared off. Both of these noises came too quickly on top of each other for the colonel to shout any warning. The entire deck of the bridge started to tremble. Colonel Rust began to hear frantic cries from the men on the bridge as they dropped their tools and lumber and started to run. The whole deck was vibrating and dust was rising from the surface. Instinctively, he knew that the time was short, that everybody on the bridge was aware that it was collapsing, and that it was every man for himself. He started to run toward the Remagen side of the bridge and in a few seconds found himself running uphill as the center span collapsed. Then the water of the Rhine swirled around his knees and in an instant he was engulfed. He had no sensation of falling, but the weight of 1 of the girders soon pinioned him underwater. How long he was held under, Colonel Rust does not know, but suddenly his trap was sprung, and he rose to the surface just as he felt his lungs would burst. Evidently another falling girder had jarred loose or jacked up the girder which had pinned him, thus reprieving him from almost certain death. The current then swept him down to the tredway bridge, where he was pulled from the Rhine, badly shaken but not seriously hurt. “No one alive can say why the bridge collapsed,” Colonel Rust said later. “The bridge was rotten throughout, many members not cut had internal fractures from our own bomb-ing, German artillery, and from the German demolitions.” “The bridge was extremely weak. The upstream truss was actually useless. The entire load of traffic, equipment and dead load were supported by the good downstream truss…It is my opinion as an engineer the collapse occurred as the result of vibrations caused by numerous possible sources, i.e., air compressors, one crane, a few trucks, several electric arc welders, hammering, and finally, but important, the not insignificant concussion of heavy artillery recently emplaced in the town of Remagen…I believe that, as the vibration continued, the condition of the previously buckled top chord was aggravated to such an extent that it buckled completely under a load which of course it was not designed to carry.” The engineers of the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion and the 1058th Part Construction and Repair Group lost 7 killed, 22 missing whose bodies were never recovered and 3 who subsequently died of wounds — a total of 32 who gave up their lives; 93 others working on the bridge were injured when thrown into the icy waters of the Rhine by the sudden collapse. Colonel David E. Pergrin (July 26, 1917 – April 7, 2012), Commanding Officer of the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion, recalled: “It was just coming up 1500 hours and Colonel H. Wallis Anderson (October 2, 1890 – March 14, 1973), Commanding Officer of the 1111th Engineer Combat Group, and I were still on the tredway bridge when our attention was arrested by a loud, painful groaning from just to our south. As I instinctively glanced toward the source of the noise, I heard an even louder sound of simultaneous screeching, cracking, and splintering as steel rubbed against steel and wood. There, directly in front of me, the tired old Ludendorff Bridge was at last giving way. As the effects of the self-demolition progressed, the immense structure swayed and then caved in. It was like watching a slow-motion movie, the progressive action was so distinct.” “The collapse of the Ludendorff Bridge set all available hands in the 291st to instant, instinctive rescue efforts and a frantic race to save our own span. Automatically, as soon as the big railroad bridge sounded its own death knell, my veteran engineers recovered from the shock and got to doing all the things that seemed to need doing.” “In no time at all, all sorts of heavy debris was floating swiftly in the current toward our vulnerable tredway floats. As the infantrymen on the tredway span speeded up their pace from route march to every man for himself, my magnificent engineers appeared as if out of nowhere with cranes, powerboats, and other equipment that could be used to rescue swimmers and prevent fatal collisions between the debris and the floats. Scores of my men ran out from either bank armed with pikes, poles, or anything that came to hand that could be used to hold off debris and direct it between the pontoons. Max Schmidt and several others drove Quickway cranes out onto the bridge in order to lift the larger, heavier pieces of planking up and over our span. As efforts to save our bridge coalesced, many of my men worked their way out onto the saddles to help pull their comrades from the largely bilged 276th Engineers out of the dangerous current. Most fortunately, several of our utility boats were on the water downstream of the tredway bridge when the Ludendorff collapsed. The crewmen of these and others arriving from the shore nosed against the imperiled tredway span, reinforcing it until the bulk of the floating debris had been poked through or lifted over to be swept away downstream. We fished out 18 survivors from the many members of the 276th I had seen scrambling for safety during the last moments of the Ludendorff’s thundering, screeching demise. Among them was Lieutenant Colonel Clayton Rust, the battalion commander, who was picked up by a boat manned by Sergeant Frank Dolcha (January 3, 1923 – March 19. 1950). Dozens of medics and ambulances were brought to treat the wounded. Among the many Army citations for the battle of Remagen, B Company, 2nd Medical Battalion; B Campy, 9th Medical Battalion; and Ambulance Platoon, 423rd Medical Collecting Company received the Presidential Unit Citation. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0841.jpg |
| Image Size | 462.33 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2912 x 2347 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | March 17, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Remagen |
| State or Province | Rhineland-Palatinate |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-837(160) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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