In the spring of 1945 the American and British armies had flattened out the   bulge with which the German attackers had penetrated the American lines in their counter attack through the Ardennes.       

       Starting in December 16, 1944, as the Allied Forces approached the Rhine River, Adolph Hitler ordered all the bridges blown up to prevent a crossing of this wide river.  

        The 9th Armored Division, which had been ordered not to cross the Rhine River but to turn south along the west bank in order to join up with General Patton's Third  Army, found a bridge still standing at the little town of Remagen halfway between Cologne and Koblenz.  The defending Germans had left this bridge open in order to retreat some of their tanks and big guns to save them from being captured by the Americans.

         On the afternoon of March 7, 1945 a small group of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 9th Armored Division emerged from the woods, and from the top of a high hill overlooking the Rhine River they observed the bridge still standing, with the Germans retreating across the bridge.     The bridge was known as the Ludendorff Bridge after Germany's WWI general.  It had been built during WWI.  When the French occupied this section of Germany after WWI, they filled the demolition chambers underneath the bridge with cement, making it very difficult to destroy the bridge.  The German defenders set up a demolition plan which involved a circuit which could be activated from a tunnel on the east side of the bridge.  The bridge was originally designed as  a railroad bridge, but it was planked over to allow for vehicular traffic.   

         When the head of Combat Command B, General William Hoge, observed that the bridge was still standing, he ordered the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion to go down the hill and a