Word: remagen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wirephoto which appeared on the front page of almost every U.S. newspaper, the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen did not look like a thing of beauty. Its squat towers, like two massive beer mugs, looked typically Teutonic. The picture, taken on a grey day, showed the grey rubble of war in the foreground. But the bridge was intact, and therein lay its exquisite beauty. Every American could see in it an imminent promise of victory in Europe...
...smell of doom lay heavy on the German air. Almost every German could smell it. The incredible Nazi failure at the Remagen bridge last week sluiced U.S. troops over the Rhine, and Marshal Zhukov's men were pouring over the Oder east of Berlin [see below']. Now, at last, the battle was being joined in the final arena...
General Hoge's outfit was to come up to the Rhine near Remagen. In that area he hoped to find favorable points for future bridging. There had been no information for two weeks about Remagen's double-tracked railroad bridge, which air reconnaissance had last reported damaged, but still...
...first General Hoge's men met spotty opposition, then almost none. They picked up speed, rumbling through the Eifel hills. 'By late afternoon they sighted Remagen through a break in the hills, the four towers of its Apollinariskirche glistening in the drizzle. Beyond the church was Remagen's 400-yard-long, three-span bridge. The bridge still stood, but that was hardly worth remarking: the Germans usually waited until the last moment...
...realized that they had forced a fantastic break in the fortunes of war. They had seized a Rhine bridge intact. It was a moment for history. German prisoners ruefully reported that the deadline for blowing the bridge had been 4 p.m.-ten minutes after the Americans burst into Remagen...