 |
We switched Internet providers at the house last Friday, and it’s taken me a while to get all the computers to see the magic that is the Internet again. It turns out the DSL modem and the hub talk on the same channel, so I had to switch the hub to another channel. A bunch of time to find the solution…1 minute to make the change and see the happy result. Yay for that!!
Ok, on to something historical…and it’ll be brief because the whole computer thing took too long. I want to mention the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen again. Devoted readers (and those that click the upcoming link in the text) will remember that we spoke at some length on the capture of the bridge last year. As the last bridge still standing on the Rhine River, it was a tremendously valuable commodity for the Allied forces racing through Germany in the Spring of 1945.
And once the Bridge had been captured (intact) by the Allies on March 7th, it became valuable to the Germans…as a target. In fact, its destruction became a top priority for the Germans. And so they bombed with their airplanes. And they bombed with their longer-range artillery pieces. And they bombed with their V-2 rockets. For nine days, like the Big Bad Wolf, they huffed and they puffed and they could not blow the bridge down.
Until March 17, 1945, they couldn’t. On the 17th, the Germans launched an attack with a dozen V-2 rockets. The V-2’s weren’t all that accurate, but their high velocity meant they packed a tremendous punch. And the rockets came ripping into the area and hit buildings, the Rhine, pretty much everything but the intended target.
But the bridge had been a target for 10 days, the damage that was done needed to be repaired. And as engineers worked that afternoon to fix things up…it was then that the Ludendorff Bridge breathed its last and became one with the Rhine it spanned, killing 28 engineers and injuring nearly 100 others. Some point to the concussions from the V-2 impacts around Remagen as the final straw, but the Germans had tried to blow the bridge even before U.S. forces captured it. Combined with all the other attacks, I suppose there’s only so much a bridge can take before it snaps.
By then, however, pontoon bridges had been built that paralleled the one that fell, so the damage done did little damage to the Allied war effort. The inevitable demise of the German war machine would continue unabated.
Recommended Reading: One More River: The Rhine Crossings of 1945
Today's History Lesson 