 I received the news that we had captured Remagin Bridge while I was sitting in my headquarters in Namur. At the time, General Bull from Shave Headquarters was in my office, and I passed the news on to him, and we discussed the advantage of it. Of course, when Hodges, the first Army commander, phoned the message in to me that we had received it, I told him to shove troops across and secure the bridgehead, taking whatever troops across were necessary, so we could hold that bridgehead for future operations. This bridge enabled us to get across the Rhine here without having to make an assault later on, and really made a decision to cross on a wide front, easier for Eisenhower to make. When we received the orders that we would have to cross the bridge, the thing that struck me was the length of the bridge and the upper lay on the other side of that bridge, which had very commanding ground for the German Army to defend if they had the soldiers over there to defend it. As to my men, I believe I had the best men in the Army and the best fighting platoon within the Army at that time. We go to Heaven D for each other. From our position on the west bank of the Rhine, we could see considerable enemy activity across the river in the little town of Erpel, a very pretty little town, but it was set on the side of a mountain or a cliff. It did not lend itself very well to an attack. If we should move into that area, the enemy would have quite an advantage overlooking our position. However, since we were there to cover the crossing of the infantry, we did pick out numerous targets of opportunity, as we call them, and opened fire and fired across the river to assist the infantry in crossing the bridge. As we started across, the only thing that was in my mind was to get off that bridge. The Germans had attempted once to blow it and had failed, and we felt sure, or I felt sure, that the next time the bridge would go. Therefore, we tried to move as fast as we possibly could. However, the leading elements were being shot at by snipers and other people on the other side, and they were moving more cautiously. Then somebody yelled, who has the right tower? I looked over my shoulder. I didn't see anybody move, so I moved over to the right tower. I pushed the door in, and there, there were five Germans huddled around a machine gun, apparently the gun had jammed, and they were trying to unjam it. I fired a couple of shots, and I yelled, hundahook, which in English means hands up. That was about the only German I knew. They spun around and threw their hands up in the air. I took the machine guns, and I threw it out the aperture of the tower, showing the boys that the gun had been knocked out, and they had nothing to fear from it. Then, in broken German, English, and whatever the language I could muster, I tried to make them understand, and asked them if there was anyone upstairs. Then one kept saying, nine, nine. I didn't know what it meant at the time, now I know what it means no, but I didn't take their word for it. Using the five as a shield, we started to move up the steps to the second floor of the tower. When we got up there, I found the lieutenant and an enlisted man. The lieutenant made a dive for the corner of the tower. I fired two shots in front of him. He stopped. I don't know what he was diving for. I never stopped to check. All I wanted to do, as I said, was to get off that bridge. I turned around and continued to the attack. Right in front of us, as you get off the bridge, there's the tunnel, the railroad tunnel. Sergeant Kreps and I advanced towards it, and then we each took a hand grenade and threw it into the tunnel. There was a curve in the tunnel, and we got down as far as the curve, and we heard a great many voices talking and yelling and everything else. We couldn't make out how many people or who they were. We didn't know whether it was German soldiers or whether they were German civilians. However, we couldn't take a chance, so we threw a couple more grenades and fired a couple more shots. Captain Riesenhan and I rushed to the tunnel exit. Quickly grab a few saples and try for the second time to make an escape from the tunnel. And again the hand grenade draw down from the tunnel, and at a distance of approximately 120 meters in front of us, a machine gun fires right into the tunnel. Suddenly there are screams coming from behind us. They turn around and go back. There are casualties among the civilians. A man, a child, a bullet wound in the stomach, a gunshot in the leg. The civilians are excited. They scream. They creep to the soldiers, grab them and take away their arms. They come to me, come back commander, order a ceasefire, stop it, our women, our children. I do have a wife at home. What shall I do? There's no order, there's no order. This is the most difficult hour of my life. I decide to summon the officers. I cannot carry on. I tell them according to the Führer's orders. If an officer is no longer in a position to continue combat, he will have to pass on command. And whoever takes over will continue combat, and every officer has to take orders from him down to the lowest rank soldier. Gentlemen, I have an announcement. Which one of you is willing to carry on the battle? I see silence. No one volunteers. Gentlemen, in that case, I'm obliged to pass on the command to the unit. Then I happen to look toward the tunnel exit. Civilians have hoisted the white flag. And they're leaving the tunnel together with the soldiers. It's impossible to go on fighting now. Gentlemen, the white flag has been hoisted without our consent. We are still subject to the regulations of the Geneva Convention. If we continue to fight, we will give the enemy the right to demolish everything. And all these women and children, we will be morally responsible for them. I therefore order a ceasefire, destroy your weapons, and we will be the last ones to leave the tunnel. Meanwhile, the majority of civilians has left the tunnel together with the soldiers. And we five officers who are still in the tunnel, we are now leaving the tunnel too. The last ones to go are Captain Friesenheim and I. We became prisoners of war of the Americans. During the afternoon, we spent considerable time in adjusting our guns and making notes where various targets were. So in the event that we had to fire during the night, we would have those targets zeroed in. However, when nighttime came, I was called into a meeting of the officers by our combat commander to be briefed on what our next action would be. I was told at that time that we were going to attempt a crossing of the bridge with our tanks. It was not known if the strength of the bridge was sufficient to hold a tank, but the infantry needed armored support on the other side, and we had to make an effort to get our tanks over there. So we all started across one close behind the other. As a matter of fact, I was so close to the tank in front of me that several times before the crossing was over, I had bumped Speedy Goodson's tank. I had called ahead to him because it was so dark asking him to make sure that he did not get too far away from me. And he says, Lieutenant, I can't very well get far away from you with you bumping me constantly. Except for the indecision or inability to follow this tape across the bridge, we did get across without any incident. The Americans got five tanks and about 120 infantrymen across the Ramagan Bridge, a pretty thin force to hold a strategic point like that. But the next morning, all of the American troops within miles around converged on the bridgehead, and within 24 hours, 8,000 American soldiers had crossed the Ramagan Bridge. We established a C.P. just across from the bridge on the east side, just north of the bridge, about 200 yards. This C.P. was in what had been the burgamaster's house at Erpel. The sign was still on the gate post. There was hole through the upstairs where several shells had passed through. And we moved into the basement where we found a supply of wine and beef, which we used while we were living in that place. My only souvenir of this attack is the sign which was taken off of the gate post of the burgamaster's house. This was the first command post of the Allied forces on the east bank of the Rhine. It was from this command post in the cellar of the burgamaster's house at Erpel that we commanded the development of the initial bridgehead across the Rhine River. Beginning that morning and continuing for a number of days later, there was a constant stream of American troops from the west bank to the east bank of the river. As soon as we could, we threw four divisions across on the east side of the Rhine to form a bridgehead. The Germans countered by throwing 11 German divisions against us to try to push us back, or at least contain us. Fortunately for us, those were divisions that had been fighting in the bulls and the ardents and were very much reduced in strength and effectiveness. One of the divisions, for example, they threw against us was the 2nd Panzer Division, which had been badly chewed up and suffered terrific casualties. In other words, the 5th Airborne German Division, which had also suffered terrific casualties. So with even the 11 divisions thrown against our 4, they were not able to drive us back across the river. In fact, we could expand almost at will against them and we gave orders to the 1st Army to have those divisions, expand advance about 1,000 yards a day so that they would not be mined in and therefore would be able to break out when the time came. The capture of the Ramaggen Bridge was of the utmost significance to the future operations. As from the beginning, our plans had called for the complete isolation and capture of the roar so as to deprive Germany of that great arsenal of manufacture. Well now, by getting across to the south of the roar at Ramaggen and then waiting for the big push to the north of the roar, we made it possible to surround the whole area much more rapidly and much more securely than had we attacked only at one place. Hitler was hopping mad when the news of Ramaggen reached Berlin. He immediately demanded the heads of those who had been responsible for this treason. He set up a drumhead court-martial headed by a confirmed Nazi General Hübner. The court-martial left Berlin on the 10th of March, 3 days after Ramaggen was captured. It included 3 officers, none of whom had any training in military justice. They allowed no defense counsel for the accused. 3 majors and 1 lieutenant were dragged before the court-martial, harangued and sentenced within an hour. They were taken out the next morning into a small wood about 25 miles from the Rhine River, shot by a firing squad in the back of their heads, buried in 10 inches of soil. This was Hitler's quick answer to the capture of Ramaggen Bridge. Hitler threw in everything he had in an effort to destroy the Ramaggen Bridge. He fired the deadly V-2s against the bridge. He mobilized a couple of big 17-centimeter railroad guns to fire in their big charges. Most of all, he thought he could destroy the bridge through underwater swimmers. There was a special group of swimmers that had been trained in Vienna all under 29 years of age in perfect physical condition. They went into the water several miles above the bridge and swam underneath water, armed with charges that they were going to put against the bridge. However, they were picked up by real powerful American searchlights mounted on tanks that were sweeping the river during the night. These swimmers never did reach their objective and they were captured by the Americans a mile or so below the bridge. With reference to the traffic across the bridge, as you can well understand, there was only the one bridge to start with. Engineers were brought forward immediately and started the construction of ferries and then bridges across the river. Initially, almost all of the traffic was from west to east. The only time we reversed the traffic was to take back the wounded. Later, when ferries were in operation and the fountain bridges came into use, the traffic was both ways and the bridge was closed for repairs. For a period of about seven days, my unit, the Combat Engineer Battalion, worked hand in hand with a bridge construction outfit that was more or less in charge of erecting the dismembered pieces of iron steel that were the upper part of the bridge. Ours was mainly the job of the flooring of the bridge. This was a railroad bridge, by the way, and we worked feverishly around the clock, 24 hours a day in different shifts to build a Bailey Bridge to get treadway on the bridge so that we could give the boys some support or get some equipment to them that were fighting so hard on the other side of the river. During this time, there was constantly periods where enemy aircraft was coming in strafing the bridge, dropping bombs trying to knock this bridge out. There was artillery fire. We stopped periodically to get under cover for these. One time I remember, rather stupid of me, enemy aircraft came over and as it did, I tried to find something to hide under and it was the Bailey Bridge that we were constructing. And after the strafing was over, I realized that this is probably the worst place that I could have been because if that bridge had been hit, I'd have been caught or trapped underneath there. But these are the things that you remember afterwards at any rate. This was a constant turmoil. It was men racing against time that we needed help for those fellows over there and we were working real hard, equipment flying all over the place. In addition to our job as engineers on this bridge, the 276 also took its part in the security measures. That is that we had places of observation at the bridgehead that we could maybe counter an attack that might be made on the bridge. Anyway, about 3.30 in the afternoon, I'd say. My unit, that is my company, was taking over the security of this bridge from another unit, also in our battalion. And at 3.30, I was up on the bridge along with, I think, a Lieutenant Ennis and we were comparing where the vantage points were for these guards. And at 3.45 or some such time, we walked toward the western bank of the river where I had my men stationed in a truck and we had just about decided that these were good places to have the people and mind you, at this time, the railroad engineers were still working and we also had a deadline of about 5 o'clock that evening that the bridge for the first time was going to be opened up to the heavy equipment traffic and everybody was working feverishly to get this job done for that particular time. At any rate, about quarter of 4, Lieutenant Ennis and I were down at the bridgehead or at the western bank and we were discussing a few little details and he was pulling some of his men off and I was just getting ready to send mine up when suddenly we heard something like rifle fire and we looked up in the air as if to look for aircraft but instead there was dust coming up, rising from the bridge and it seemed to totter a little and it seemed to sway toward us and then the center section of the bridge started to cave in we had trucks up on the bridge that part of it was on the center section and part on the abutment side so that this truck I can remember just folded up like an envelope pieces of equipment and pieces of the bridge were tumbling down and I think our first reaction was to take cover that either the bridge had been hit or for some reason that it was going to fall and then just as rapidly as you can well imagine that whole big structure disappeared in front of us and now we're all running to see what we can do about fishing people out of the river that it was almost a bubbling, roaring noise that it almost seemed like the river itself had been turned into a boiling pot with all this debris falling in and men screaming and you can see fellas were hurting and grasping for something to hang on to and going down the river where eventually they were picked up but ours was a case of real turmoil then lots of reasons contributed to the collapse of the Ludendorff bridge on the 17th of March in the first place the German demolition on the 7th of March had really shattered one side of the bridge and weakened it seriously then when the Americans put planking on the bridge to cover it over and cover over the holes which had been blown in the bridge this added about 50 tons of weight to the bridge there was a great deal of heavy pounding from the tanks and the vehicles that crossed the German artillery shells tore a lot of additional holes in the bridge then there were the bombs that the Ludendorff had dropped on the bridge itself one of the real reasons I think in addition to this that contributed to the collapse was the amount of heavy equipment that the engineers moved on to the bridge cranes, electric arc welders, air compressors all these things set up vibrations the American artillery batteries and particularly anti-aircraft batteries that set up vibrations that caused all the ground to shake around the bridge I don't think that you could say that any single one of these factors caused the collapse of the bridge but the combination of them caused the structure just to weaken and die on the 17th of March the action of the people actually at the scene of the capture was beyond praise every man in the whole command approaching that bridge knew that it was mine they knew that all the other bridges that they had seen were blown down into the water at that moment and actually of course the Ludendorff bridge was mine yet without the moment's hesitation the local commanders, the platoon company and battalion commanders and indeed I think General Hogue who had the entire combat team hesitated not a second they rushed the bridge, went across and there was an attempt to blow it up while they were on it but there was a faulty fuse or something else of the kind and that foiled that but the attack had been so sudden and so unexpected on the part of the Germans that the thing just was a complete success we had losses, true but they were minor as compared to the great prize that we won so much has been said and written about Ramagan it was said that the bridge fell into the hands of the Americans through treason, sabotage and cowardice I guarantee that what I told you is true neither sabotage nor treason were involved the bridge was lost to the Americans the officers tried and the German soldiers tried up to the very last moment to do their duty even if it was a battle of unequal weapons and we did not have at our disposal what we needed we did what we caught and you American soldiers who perhaps see this film would not consider it an honor to know that the bridge of Ramagan fell into your hands through treason your comrades of the past, Amilla, Adelizio and others fought for the bridge and there was bloodshed remember the Americans conquered the bridge in rage well to us at the time it was just another job it was an objective that had to be taken and we went ahead and took it to the best of our ability no one I don't believe thought it was of great significance at the time at least we'll say at our level anyway maybe the higher ups figured it was a it had importance but to us it was just a job that had to be done and we done it Captain Carl Friesenhan when I interviewed him right after the war asked what awards the first Americans had received for crossing the bridge and when I told him they had received distinguished service crosses he responded they deserved them and then some they saw us trying to blow up that bridge and by all odds it should have been blown up while they were crossing it in my mind they were the greatest heroes in the whole war