Remagen 1945 by Steven Zaloga

Author:Steven Zaloga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Remagen 1945: Endgame Against the Third Reich
ISBN: 9781472800176
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Engineer units were hastily dispatched to Remagen to help construct additional tactical bridges. This is a column from the 552nd Engineer Heavy Pontoon Battalion on the road into Remagen on March 10 bringing in pontoons that were used to create the first tactical bridges there. (NARA)

One of the lingering mysteries of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge is why the explosive charges failed to detonate. Counterintelligence officers of the 9th Armored Division later interrogated some of the German officers, civilians and foreign laborers captured in the tunnel. Friesenhahn said that he thought the main cable had been hit by tank fire; an unlikely event but certainly not impossible. One of the Polish forced laborers and at least two disgruntled German soldiers claimed they had sabotaged the circuit, but the circuit had been last tested that afternoon and had worked. So it is possible that the charge was rendered ineffective by sabotage at the last moment, by inexperienced engineers setting the charges improperly, by tank fire against the bridge, or a combination of factors. There was no positive way to determine the cause as US engineers had ripped up much of the detonation circuit during the capture of the structure.

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