 All the flesh in the face of enemy fire, the courage and daring that has inspired men of all ranks of the Second Armored Division, for being the first man of an invading army to cross the German Rhine in 140 years, I award to the captain and to each of his men the Silver Star. And what the old man means, Mrs. Stringer, is that they're the bravest damn men in the army. The United Press, they're there with the colonel. 15 bearded, sodden and grimy men step forward to receive their awards from Brigadier General T.D. White, commander of the Second Armored Division, whose bitter cold and rain stream down their mud-flexed face. Look at those guys, will you? Fidgeting like schoolboys. Can you imagine them being nervous now after what they've been through? Crossing the Adolph-Hitler Bridge, perfect targets against a raging fire, the Germans throwing everything at them, the whole bridge, mind, and ready to go off at any moment. Exactly. Would you like to meet these men, Mrs. Stringer? What do you think? All right. Captain. Yes, sir. Captain, have you got a minute? Somebody here would like to meet you, or should it be the other way around? Oh, the other way around, but definitely. There's your man, Mrs. Stringer, the guy who led the patrol across the bridge. Captain, Mrs. Ann Stringer of UP. How do you do, Captain? Glad to meet you, Mrs. Stringer. Gosh, boys getting almost civilized. Captain, I'd like to hear the full story of that crossing. Sure thing, Mrs. Stringer. From the beginning, please, Captain. Well, first the orders came down from the command post. And you kind of had a feeling it was something big, didn't you? Yeah, I had an idea to be something tough. That certainly wasn't any idle hunch. No, ma'am, but as I was saying, the orders came down. Just afternoon then, I got my patrol together and we hustled off to the post for briefing. Off to cross the Rhine. Captain, tonight you will take you off the troll to the Adolph-Hitler Bridge at Port of Dingen. Yes, sir. At approximately 10.30, you will start up the ramp and work your way across the bridge. Any specific objective, sir? We want to find out how heavily the bridge is mined, how heavily the bridge is guarded. I understand, sir. Now, Captain, you're to cut every demolition rigging you find, and of course, kill every Jerry you can. Well done, Captain. All right, here are your maps, Captain. That bridge is 1,400 feet long. I don't need to tell you that every foot is dangerous. Mine, ready to blow up at any moment. And the Germans are raking it with fire. So good luck, men, and godspeed. They'll need it. After noon, Mr. Stringer, we studied those maps. The men knew their lives could depend on how well they knew them. In about 9.30, we started out. It was dark as pitch, and a sniper fire was cutting the grass and flowers. Spread out, men. Take cover. They spotted us, Captain. Get next to those buildings. Work your way along them. When we get close enough, we'll make a break for it. Men, run. Come on, little guy. No one hit. But boy, those Jerry's really got a z-eyed. Yeah, we made it. Now all we got to do is get across the bridge. Be 10-25 then, Mr. Stringer. Our artillery was giving us hot support, but Jerry Guns had set a terrific fire in the house just behind the bridge. And the fire made you a perfect target, eh? Like ducks in a shooting gallery. And you should have heard the shells whistling around our ears. Men, get going up the ramp now. Bring one of you. We've got to figure out something. I'll mow us down. Hey, Captain, I got an idea. We could use one now. Why can't we duck over the side of the ramp and catwalk along that railing? Yeah, we stick our feet in the pailings and work our way across. I'll go first. Come on, men. All right, men, come on. But watch your step. It's a 75-foot drop, and those cobblestones are mighty hard. What's the trouble, Captain? These damn pailings end with a ramp. Uh-oh. Now I'll have to get right on that bridge. All right, men. I'll take Brown, Lottoitz, McQuinn, Ross, and Miller. Sergeant, you take the rest. Yes, sir. I'll take my men and go across to the far railing. You take yours and go along in this side. And watch for those wires. All right, get started, men. Hey, Captain, do you think they'll blow this bridge tonight? No, Sergeant. Jerry wouldn't do that to us. Not much. Mrs. Springer, I had the same kind of feeling the Sergeant had. I kept thinking they'd blow that bridge a minute we stepped on it. But the only thing that mattered when we hit the road was, hey, Martin, Martin. Boy, listen to that strap. That stuff may not have our names on it, but it sure got our initials anyway. Flopping them right down in the middle of this thing. Uh-oh, uh-oh, that boy is walking down to meet us. Boy, Hitler won't be very proud of his bridge when that crowd gets through, will he? Keep moving, men. Hey, Captain, Captain, look here. What is it? Wires. Evolution. Well, cut them. No, like this. And those twice wires was like the kickoff at a football game. From then on, I wasn't quite so scared. I was too busy thinking about the job I had to do. And you found other rigging? Oh, yes. We kept cutting them every few yards. Those honeys really had that bridge wired, as we had reason to learn not so much later. But we found more than just wire. Captain, Captain, can you come here a minute? Coming right up. You OK? I'm OK. Here, right here. Take a look. Thermite. Thermite found. Yeah, why don't we do it? Saw it over? Haven't go off when it hits a water. That'd really give the jury the tip off. Now we've got to pull the fuse. Give me your pliers, Sergeant. Yeah, here they are, Captain. Look for God's sake, take it easy. That thing may go up right in your face. There. There, I think I got it. Yeah, that's it. Here, Sergeant, throw it in the river. Can't hurt anybody now. That's feeling our way across like blind men. Then, when we were about three quarters of the way. Hey, hey, Captain, Captain, what are the flames spread to that honey dynamite? Look at that fire spread, Captain. What about it? Well, we'll be trapped. That's the baby. Really getting hot. Ah, don't worry. If they're half as hot as the place, we're gone. Well, listen to that stuff. Gotta keep going. Get as close as possible. There's no thing anywhere we'll go through. Come on. As long as we couldn't get through on that end, my next move was to get the men off the bridge before the fire reached the dynamite, or we were trapped. They were the damn bravest men in the army, Mr. Stringer. And you brought them all back? Yeah, we were lucky. You know, we scarcely had reached our side of the river, not more than five or 10 minutes, when all of a sudden. Powdered concrete, sticking grotesquely up out of the water. I looked across the forbidding cliffs on the other side of the Rhine. I thought what a bloody job it would be to reach them. But we know now that a bridge across the Rhine has been taken, taken by other men just as brave as these bravest men in the army. Correspondents are working in the smoke of battle on peoples of the free world, sending you the latest developments in the news. We will bring you another stirring story of these soldiers of the press soon. Be sure to listen. And listen for United Press news on the air. Look for United Press dispatches in your favorite newspaper. They are your guarantee of the world's best coverage of the world's biggest news.