VE Day: The Bridge At Remagen (Part 1)

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Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a a four-liter jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

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Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

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I stood there on the bank and looked down, and there it was.

The bridge was right there above the town.

I couldn't believe it was true.

I ordered smoke on the big hill opposite so they couldn't see what we were doing.

We moved down through the town and got to the bridge.

While we were waiting, the Germans blew a big crate in the approaches, but we used bulldozers to fill the hole and go right over it.

That, of course, was Brigadier General William B.

Hoag, the commanding officer of Combat Command B of the Night Farmer Division.

And just before everyone starts getting worried that we're going back into the Battle of the Bulge again, don't worry.

It's a little bit more simple this one.

Welcome to We Have Ways of Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, your Second World War podcast.

Let's be honest now, it's March.

In fact, we're recording this on the 1st of April, 2025, 80 years ago.

The dominoes were all

falling.

and heading in one direction only, the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich.

And the Germans are recoiling under the Allied onslaught of the broad front.

This description, Hoag, is it Hoag or Hoag, Jim?

Hoag is describing coming across the bridge at Ramagen.

And the truth is, it is a heck of a thing when you see it in the flesh.

It's a very dramatic location for such a striking bridge and such a discovery.

But anyway, but we're going to spend a bit of time on the bridge at Ramagen in this opening episode.

We thought we'd start with what, in journalistic terms, is called a drop color intro.

Is it?

Straight into the action on March the 6th, 1945, in the city of Cologne.

The cathedral has survived despite the whole city being hammered repeatedly by both the RAF and, of course, the AIFE Air Force.

And on this afternoon of the 6th of March, 1945, Sergeant Bob Early's tank is idling at an intersectioning right near the center.

You can see the cathedral up ahead.

And his tank is an M26 Pershing, the new Big Boys.

And it's called Eagle 7.

Of course it is.

And this tank, he doesn't...

Bob Early doesn't know this at this moment, but it's about to become immortalized.

Well, thank God it's called Eagle 7 then, because if it was called Snoopy Draws 2, then I mean,

wouldn't be quite the story, would it?

No, it wouldn't quite.

Eagle 7 is much better.

Pershing still has a five-man crew, so the driver is Woody McVeigh.

And next to him, this is a slight change.

The radio operator is the old lap gunner in the Sherman, and that's Homer Smokey Davis.

Davis and then up in the turret with early is the loader John Johnny boy DeRiggy and the 21 year old gunner Clarence Smoye.

Smoyer.

Anyway, Clary Smoyer is in the, he's the gunner.

Anyway, the crew has been together since September 44, which is quite a long time for a frontline tank crew.

The Pershing, of course, is the newest, and they were one of 20 crews to get the first Pershings to come across.

As a consequence of this big beast they've got, which I think is sort of about, what is it, 48 tons, something like that?

Anyway, it means they're constantly put in the spearhead, but they have survived.

Anyway, they're halted in this intersection while some medics are attending two German civilians who've been caught in a crossfire between Eagle 7 and a Panzer IV.

And the Panzer IV has very much come out on the worst side of things.

So the main effort is now with the Shermans of Fox Company, which is on a parallel street, and leading the way is Carl Keller and his crew.

And Keller is from Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

And he's recently been given a battlefield commission.

And he he is a right old veteran.

He's been there in Normandy.

He's already been twice wounded.

He's got two purple hearts and he's got a silver star for gallantry.

You know, silver star is a big thing.

So accompanying the Sherman are a number of infantry and also a film camera crew, a Signal Corps camera crew.

Which is the crucial part of this, because what's absolutely amazing about what we're going to describe is you can watch it.

You can see the whole thing.

You can see it in its gory horror, actually.

Yeah.

Because the thing is, these streets are all converging, aren't they?

So ahead of Kelna is the Komodian Strasse, which runs east to west between the cathedral square and the train station next to it.

And if you go there, go to Cologne.

This is the part of the town where there are lots of signs to the Altstadt, and there isn't one because it's basically been, it was destroyed.

And Kellner starts to, he's groping his way down this street.

Inching forward, isn't he?

Yeah, and he's ambushed by a panther commanded by Leutnant Wilhelm Bartelbort.

who's lying in wait near the train station across the street.

It's actually quite interesting when you look at the footage.

Just what Bartelbort thinks is going to happen next, given what he does.

As Kellner moves forward, he goes past the intersection of Commodion Sassa and Andreas Closter, past the Dominican church, and there's some rubble, and he can't get past the rubble.

So they have to wait for a dozer.

So basically, he's trapped.

He's stuck.

He's been caught out.

Yeah, because it's a narrow street and he can't reverse and he can't go forward.

So Bartelbort opens fire and takes Kellner out, hits him the turret twice, and then a third one into the tracks.

And it's really, really awful to watch because you can see, although it's black and white, you can can see this incredibly bright light from the inside of the turret yeah where it's burning yeah and kelner tumbles off the tank with his leg his left leg torn off smoke pour you know his legs on fire it's really because

and the gunner and the driver have been have been killed immediately yeah and jim bates who's the cameraman has been rolling all this time so he's got the whole thing and you can see him rolling scrambling out of the turret rolling off the back and falling onto the ground a journalist who's also watching and a number of tankers and a medic rush to to Kellner's aid, but he dies two hours later.

Yeah, yeah.

Aged only 26.

And of his five-man crew, only Kellner's loader and bow gunner survive.

How they get out, I just do not know.

No.

It's absolutely amazing.

What it shows you is how these things happened in complete instance.

Yeah.

It's so quick, isn't it?

Yeah, it's not like they'd have heard the Panther fire.

They'd have just been hit.

That's the first they'd have known.

Three times as well.

Yeah.

In pretty quick succession.

Not good at all.

It's incredibly dramatic to watch.

It's really shocking, even though it's in black and white to see it because it's real.

And it looks like the footage you might have seen from Ukraine or wherever.

Yes.

Yes, it really, really does.

Anyway, down the road, there's a squeal of tracks that can be heard as the panther creeps forward from its position.

And one street away, Early hears the chatter on the radio, but he's not sure what exactly has gone on.

And then Jim Bates comes over to him, climbs onto his turret, and tells him that a panther's in the cathedral square.

And obviously, Jim Bates wants to make sure the panther's taken out, but he's also is obviously clearly thinking this is absolute gold dust.

Yeah, yeah, kind of filming point of view.

So, Early gets out and kind of stalking it, basically, finding out where it is, creeping forward so he can see down the Marzellan strasser into the cathedral square.

And there is the side of the Panther.

And it's moved forward, but its barrel is still pointing down the Comodian Strasse.

So he's not looking towards where Early is.

So he hurries back to his tank and he moves Eagle 7 out towards the Panther.

And Bartleport is seemingly completely distracted.

But then somehow, because Jim Bates is now filming this again, the sixth sense kicks in and he traverses his turret.

And Jim Bass is crouched on his camera and suddenly realizes that the Pershing is going to turn the corner straight into the Panther's crosshairs.

But then Smokey Davis sees it, realizes Smoyer, the gunner, hasn't turned the turret enough as they turn the corner, so yells at him to do so over the intercom.

Bartlebort has all the advantages, but at that moment he hesitates because he's not familiar with the shape of the Pershing.

Thinking it's German, he tells his gunner to just hold fire for a moment.

But in that delay, this is the opportunity for Smire to find his bead and he slams out a shell while Derigi rams in a second and then a third.

And Bates Camera gets it all, each of the three impacts.

So the first round, Bartlebort and three of the crew jump out with their clothes on fire.

You can see this.

They flee in a hail of bullets, but get away.

The gunner is not so lucky.

You can see him trying to get out when the second round hits and the the footage sees him slipping back into the panther as it's then consumed by flames.

And then the third one turns the panther into raging inferno.

So it's just dealt out its business on Kellner's Sherman and then faces the same.

I mean, it just goes to show the brutality of the violence.

Absolutely.

And soon after that, that is the lone panther in the center of Cologne.

And soon after the...

But it also, I think it demonstrates how desperate things are for the Germans.

You have a guy commanding a tank.

He doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

He can still kill Allied soldiers.

How this last phase of the war, certainly once the Allies are over the Rhine and into Germany, can really be characterised is that every step is potentially lethal, even though the Germans are defeated.

Exactly that.

And I think what we're going to do in this series, really talk about the end of the war in Europe, but we are going to focus, we should say right up front, we're going to focus on Western Europe and the Battle of Berlin.

But we just, you know, you just can't do everything.

So there's not going to be Norway.

We're not going to be dealing with Italy in this one.

We'll probably do a whole series on the war north of Rome and end of the war in Italy another time.

No Balkans, no Hungary and Romania and all that.

We're not going to do that on this one.

It's basically going to be Western Europe and then the Russian assault on Berlin at the end of the war.

Bluntly, this is, after all, where the hammer has to fall to get the German, the Third Reich to collapse.

Yes, the rest is peripheral.

The meat in the sandwich is Reich Germany itself, which is now down to a rump once the Allies have crossed the Rhine and the Russians are over the Elbe, essentially.

but do you know what i think we need i think we need a sit rep jim our ex-military listeners out there will be saying oh i love a i do love a sit rep yeah they love a sit rep a situation report of where we are between january 1945 and the beginning of march 1945 so just a quick sum as you all know because you listened to the battle of the bulge series the germs have rather shot their strategic reserve bolt in an absolutely futile pointless effort to try and get to antwerp or or somewhere split the alliance forever and so on so So this is their massive problem now.

They've got to try and defend between the Rhine and the Vistiela, in fact.

The Ardennes offensive has failed.

You can hear the Red Army revving in the distance, basically.

Warming up the exactly revving their engines in the distance.

The Red Army soldier, each man is bringing up a shell, leaving it an artillery battery and going forward to his position.

It's all that going on right now as they prepare to burst through the German crust in the east.

I mean, what's interesting is, you know, it's a fine day today in London.

And I started to think to myself, maybe one thing I might do is keep a track of how many fine days we have to try and remind myself of how difficult it is to get the weather you need to do this kind of bombing that's going on.

But the Allies are basically bombing round the clock, it doesn't matter that it's January, they're bombing round the clock.

German air defense is so on its knees, and also Allied technology has reached a point where you can bomb pretty much round the clock in pretty much all weathers.

Bomb as accurately at night as you go at day, which is to say, not particularly

well, well, actually, but well, there's instances where very accurately.

I mean, you know, I'm thinking of in the back end of 1944 when 617 Squadron bombed unique and things like that.

I mean,

there's many examples of them being pretty accurate.

But anyway, you've got 15th Air Force in Italy with well over 1,000 planes by this point.

8th Air Force in England.

They're producing anything between 1,000 and 1,400 bombers a day.

Bomber command by night with up to 1,000 heavies and mosquitoes.

And that doesn't, of course, include the tactical air forces and the Knights Air Force and the 2nd Tactical Air Force.

You know, you have another raft of twin-engine bombers and ground attack fighters and all the rest of it.

You know, one by one, those German cities are just getting hammered.

I mean, this is the time, of course, of Fort Sheim, of Würzburg, of Dresden, infamously, and so on.

Fuel supplies are almost out for the Germans.

You know, the infrastructure is absolutely crushed.

The Reichsbahn is on its knees and is basically gone by the end of February 1945.

And as we've said many times before, the Reichsbahn, which is a German railway network, is very much the glue that's sort of keeping it all together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If it's anything, it's sort of Germany's arteries, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

And it's just, it's dead by them.

Exactly.

Well, the arteries have either been severed or clogged by bombing.

Yeah, and I think what's interesting here is defeat is clearly staring Germany in the face.

And this mounting anger and frustration by the Western Allies that they're just not surrendering.

You know, Dresden and Fort Simon-Würzburg, I've mentioned already, but you know, those are born out of that frustration.

Hovering in the background very strongly, increasingly for the Americans is the problem of Japan and the fact that the closer they get to the Japanese home islands, the harder the Japanese are fighting.

There's this terrible fear that the war is going to progress on into 1946, that it's going to cost millions of lives.

And, you know, the more they're wasting here is doubly frustrating in view of what's still to come for them.

You know, for Germany, it's all over, but it isn't for the U.S.

And the Americans are the American, the U.S.

Army's winding down its replacements to Europe to this very end.

Yeah.

There's also rising concerns about the Soviet Union and their intentions and they're getting a little bit over mighty.

There's a Yolta conference in February between, you know, where the big three, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet.

You know, Roosevelt should never have gone.

He wasn't well enough.

Does, travels halfway around the world to get to this meeting.

He's very frail by this point.

Stalin is starting to shaft all over them and he knows he's got the upper hand because he's going to have these territories in

he's got the boots on the ground.

He promises there's going to be democratic free elections in Poland and Romania and etc.

So Hungary afterwards, but he ain't going to stick to it.

And there's this sort of of terrible realization that the Soviet Union is turning into the new enemy if they're not careful.

And so what the Soviets are doing, we've often talked about this, Jim, you always talk about the deep battle, the Soviet thing as a sort of battering ram where you get this enormous, they basically summon up, charge their batteries and then absolutely crash into the German line, try and punch a hole, an entire self-contained army.

So it's 2.2 million troops, thousands of tanks.

It's three fronts, which are, which each consist of army groups themselves.

Unsubtle in its execution, I think it's fair to say.

The key difference here, or one of the distinctions here, is that the Germans are less inclined to surrender in the East than they are in the West.

Just as the Japanese are less inclined to surrender than the Germans full stop.

This is what characterizes these two fronts, really.

And there's definitely a sense on the German side: what you're going to get from the Soviets is what you have already dealt out on the Eastern Front.

You've got to go down swinging, basically.

You're reaping the whirlwind.

You so are

in a very, very big way.

The Red Army starts to sort of slow down after this offensive.

offensive sort of

people get done.

You take casualties, people get tired, tanks break down, supplies can't keep up.

It's all those sort of friction of war things, but with 2.2 million people involved on that scale.

It's just amazing because, you know, the Oda-Vistula offensive starts on the 12th of January.

They make sort of 15 miles in the first day.

By the beginning of February, they've reached the Baltic and they're besieging Koenigsberg and they're 50 miles from Perlin on the banks of the river Oda.

And

you're thinking, and they've just advanced 250 miles.

I mean, it is quite astonishing in three weeks.

But they've lost 626,000 casualties.

That's a quarter of their force.

This is why they have to draw breath, basically.

Hungary falls in February.

The Red Army takes Budapest on the 12th of February 1945.

But, I mean, incredibly, Hitler decides not to give up on Hungary.

And counter-attacks against Budapest and

Sept Dietrich VIII.

Yes,

he's suffering from business.

I'm no good at this.

Please.

I've already proved I'm crap.

Exactly.

Please release me.

And then Hem and Balk's Sixth Army, they attack the Red Army on the 6th of March as well.

And get nowhere.

So the Germans, in the East, the Germans are sort of trying to counter-attack.

But in the West, what you now have after the Aden, now that the lines have been straightened back out and the bulge has been pimple-popped, Ike comes up to the Rhine.

The Irish come up to the Rhine.

Well, the other thing I think is interesting is you suddenly see Ike taking control.

From the start of the bulge offensive, you see him really starting to sort of drop the whole thing.

He's not a kind of just a diplomatic figurehead.

He is now controlling the battle space.

Yeah, exactly.

He's in charge.

And Montgomery has given up trying to get his way right to.

Well, not in.

Well, yeah, but

not entirely, but knows he's never going to.

Not going to happen, mate.

But the idea is, actually, that the main emphasis will be 21st Army Group to the north, supported by General Bill Simpson's 9th Army, which is American.

So actually, although Monty's sort of frussom-russoming to himself, and what he's saying, can I also ask?

Well, he's also asking, yes, for First Army, but Ike's saying.

Hang on to that.

I quite like having that.

Licking Hodges and the most interesting battle.

But what he's got to do is punch his line straight to the Rhine, basically, now.

So on the 8th of February, there's Operation Veritable, which is an enormous European winter slug fest led by Canadian First Armour.

Well, we should do a two-party one of that at some point, but you know, that's really, really hardcore.

30 Corps attached.

And in the van, they push through the Reichsfald towards Cleaver or Cleves, as we out of Clevesville.

And then the Canadian 3rd Division of the South.

Simpson then launches Operation Grenade across the Ruhr, the Ruhr being the Ruhr elsewhere.

And the Ruhr dams, which, after all, at the start of the Battle of the Bulge offensive, were sort of in the American sights, are now taken.

But they get to them, but the Germans have flooded them.

So they can't.

So Neif Army can't finally get across the river Ruhr until the 23rd of February, when the water levels have kind of sort of dropped a little bit.

But once they've kind of got into this, they're now in this open space between the Roa and the Mars and the River Rhine.

Which I guess is sort of 30 miles from memory, driving.

Yes, it is, yeah.

Largely flat.

It's sort of undulating, softly undulating, I would say.

Lots of sort of brick towns on canal.

And cops and farmhouses.

All that.

A place that will be soggy in February, certainly.

But anyway, that's happening into March.

And these are big battles.

Certainly the start of Verita is a proper slugfest, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it really is.

Yeah, it never really stops until they get to the the right you know because every town is defended by the germans they've got to take it there's sniping there's a little tank engagement a bit of artillery they've got to sort of push off you know stop organize themselves get through lots of crocodiles and lots of uh specialist armor and all that sort of stuff 79th armor division everywhere but model uh who is still command of armor group b and von rundsted who is still command of ob west for the third time repeatedly asked to kind of be allowed to withdraw behind the rhine which makes perfect sense because this is just you know there's nothing to be gained from staying that where they are.

But, you know, surprise, surprise, Hitler says, no, got to fight for every yard, all the rest of it.

Jim, something I'm struck by is that throughout the war, as the German manpower quality is sort of shredded and declines, still the same people in charge.

So it's quite interesting that their decision-making deteriorates at the same rate that the quality of their manpower deteriorates.

Isn't that interesting?

They're the people with the experience.

They're people with increased experience as the war goes, more and more experience of how to fight.

But actually, their judgment gets worse and worse and worse.

Or how much is their judgment involved and how much is it just Hitler overriding every decision?

From the very beginning.

It throws sort of something into the calculus, doesn't it?

The fact that the armies aren't any good anymore and that, so the generals aren't any good anymore.

When the armies were good, the generals were good, you know, and also the allies have improved exponentially is the other thing.

That's the other thing.

Yes, I think

that's the key thing.

And they've just got more of everything and they're better at bringing it.

Not only have they got more of it, they're better at bringing it together and they don't use it as recklessly as the Red Army do.

But anyway, by the kind of sort of 15th to 20th of March, they're drawing up on the River Rhine.

And Bill Simpson, Gerald Bill Simpson of the US 9th Army, asked Monty if they can cross at Erdogan, which is

to the south of where the rest of British Second Army and the Canadians are.

And where he's got some intelligence that suggests the Germans have got very troops.

It's open terrain on the other side.

And, you know, he thinks that offers opportunity for rapid exploitation.

But Monty refuses.

And this has been a source of much debate ever since.

Now, okay, let's...

So on the one hand, you've got Eisenhower going, I want a broad front approach and I don't want spearheads bulging out.

On the other hand, you've got Simpson thinking, well, this is a good opportunity.

The point is that Monty's been preparing his battle and he's going to do it his way and it's going to be methodical

and top heavy and he doesn't want outliers.

Exactly.

Well, he's doing what Ike's told him to do.

Monty is doing as he's told.

He's not sending spearheads off.

It's Simpson who's

trying to grind against the general strategy now.

Well, this is...

Who went to West Point of these two people?

Who grew up on American Civil War history out of Monty and Simpson?

Come on.

Do us all a favour here.

Come on.

Yeah.

You know,

and the problem is if you do go over and the Germans then do swarm all around you,

I'm actually with Eisenhower and Monty on this.

Yeah.

I just don't see there's no need.

Yeah.

Well, and the Battle of the Bulgar just happened, after all, in which the Americans, whether off balance, have problems.

Yeah.

we'll get on to this again in a minute but but eisenhower in his mind at this point has already decided that he's not going to contest berlin he's going to let the soviets do that why why waste the lives of his own men in kind of potentially very brutal street battles when you know the russians can bleed themselves to death exactly and as the casualty figures well i don't want to kind of you know steal our own sandwiches here but but as the casualty figures in the battle of berlin will show he's got a point and So why risk it?

Why not just all go over it?

If you're going to have a broad front policy, let's stick to it.

And that's the point.

And this links very neatly, of course, to the bridge at Ramona.

Oh, yes.

But anyway, we'll be getting onto that in a moment.

Yeah, Bradley is a big meanwhile with Bradley.

He has 22 divisions, 12th Army Group.

But his first and third armies have only, they've been mopping up the Ardennes, so they've been tidying that up.

But Collins fighting Joe Collins, whose son, of course, went to the moon.

Yeah.

Of course.

It's his son who's the third man.

Apollo 11, isn't it?

He supported 9th Army's, his 7th Corps supported 9th Army's crossing the Ruhr and opened up a path to Cologne.

so they captured this is they captured the city on the 5th of march which is part of the action we were talking about earlier yeah and then u.s third corps reaches bonn you know so you're right in that you are now in the industrial heartland in the rhine zone the place that's been the target of allied efforts for five years now is the truth and to the south of them so so you've got you've got 9th army which is attached to 21st army group at the moment then you've got first army then you've got third army and then you've got six army group and sixth army group is under Jacob Deavers and consists of the US 7th Army and the 1st French Army.

Yeah.

Or the French First Army, I should say.

So they've also been busy because the second mad cap offensive that Hitler's launched when he realizes Herbst Nibel isn't going to work is Nordfind, which is launched in January.

And this is another thrust which has to be seen off and corrected.

And the bulge that's been corrected from Nordwind is known as the colmar pocket and this clearing the colmar pocket has involved the seventh army to the north and french first army to the to the south side by side and this is an area west of the rhine still around obviously colmar the town of colmar which is a coaling town isn't it in alphas um and is strictly speaking in france so remains the last bit of eastern france to be liberated and of course don't forget there are still these these

of dunkirk dunkirk holds on liberated till beginning of may yeah

So the pocket is a major headache for the Allies, but the counter-attack after Nordwyn was led by the French First Army from the 20th of January 1945, and it was finally cleared after pretty vicious fighting by the 9th of February.

Okay, so we're going to take a very, very quick break.

Now that the French have finally liberated the rest of France, I mean, honestly,

with a little help from their friends, we will take a very short break and resume with First Army at the Rhine.

Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You talk Victory 45 episode 1 with me Al Murray and James Holland.

And we are, of course, we're now poised with First Army at the Rhine, Jim.

Yes.

Well, and particularly Collins's 7th Corps.

We're quite fans of Collins, aren't we?

I mean, you know, former general on Guadalcanal, then moves to the ETO.

He's there for the Normandy campaign.

Lightning Joe Collins.

Yes.

You've just got a couple of people.

Let's scamping, Jim.

What?

There we go.

And anyway, Courtney Hodges.

Do you remember?

He's been in a sort of slight state of torpor, hasn't he?

He's kind of, you know, he's lost his mojo a bit in the back end of 1944.

He's had the Hurtgen Forest.

He hasn't done very well there.

Monty wanted to sack him at one point and then decided actually quite like bossing him around and keep him in place.

And he wasn't great, was he, in the Battle of the Bulge.

But suddenly he's refound his command mojo and suddenly sees this as sort of you know great opportunity that you know righted the bulge they're kind of up at the rhine you know the end is in sight and that night the 5th of march as as collins's men are kind of you know entering into cologne he orders hodges orders champagne with his roast pork for dinner and proposes a toast to an early crossing of the river rhine

and the first army the master tack uh which is tat uh which is tactical headquarters is now in a schloss on a hill looking overlooking stolberg and that's his first move in months from the old HQ back in Spa, you know, where they are now the motor racing circuit is back in Belgium.

So, so he's feeling a little bit reinvigorated by the change of scene, by the kind of successes, by the kind of the center victory in the air, I would say.

But what I hadn't realized was they have all these really, really fantastic code names.

I mean, this is just the best thing ever.

These are t-shirts, right?

They're t-shirts, aren't they?

So, the reason it's master tack for First Army, because that's the code name for First Army: Master.

So, Schaefer, Liberty, Monty, Lion, Bradley is Eagle.

Patton.

It's quite lame, this one.

Lucky?

Simpson is Conqueror.

And Hodges is Master.

I love it.

And they also have, and then they have codes for the core as well.

So Connors is seven cores is G-Hawks.

That's great.

That's very strong, isn't it?

It's fantastic stuff, this.

Three core is century.

Yeah.

And five got V.

V for victory.

Yeah.

Why not?

Why not?

Well, one of the things that's striking at this now in this phase is, as you said earlier, Eisenhower's taken command, really, he's gripping things much more firmly.

So there is now a strategy.

What you don't have is the sort of agreeing with the last person he spoke to that you get in the last quarter of 1944, where basically someone will go and see him, you know, twist his arm and get what they want.

And then, and then he'd go, hang on a minute.

Oh, did I agree to that?

And have to do it all again.

It's absolutely amazing how all of them.

So Eisenhower's suddenly gripping the whole thing.

Bradley's also kind of woken up.

Hodges has woken up.

There was never any problem with Collins or Simpson or any of these guys.

And suddenly these other corps commanders who've been quite quiet in terms of the narrative and not really kind of sort of put their head above the kind of publicity parapet suddenly come into play.

And so not only do you have seven corps in first time, you've also got three corps under Major General John Milliken.

He's actually been around quite a long time.

But as I say,

now is his moment.

Do you think this is like a fifth test when suddenly everyone starts batting really more flashily because they're trying to get selected for the next series?

It may be.

I don't know what it is.

You suddenly,

it just feels like spring is here, the winter's over, we've got rid of the bulge, you know, we haven't, we've gone through the misery of the kind of October, November, where it just rained the whole time and we were in woods.

You know, you can see the clear sky again.

You know, it's flat, open farmland, which just makes everyone feel a little bit happier about themselves rather than being a deep dark wood.

You know, the Rhine is just up ahead.

Days are getting longer.

Clocks have gone forward.

Clocks far forward.

So kind of that kind of thing.

You know, they're getting closer to the spring equinox.

I don't know.

I don't know what it is, but they just sort of seem to have kind of perked up quite substantially.

And, you know, that's very much all to the good.

So Millikan's got his corps.

And these are pretty big corps.

I mean, Millikan's got like four divisions, five divisions.

He's got four infantry divisions and fourth armoured division.

So he's got the first, second division, I think.

He's certainly got the ninth.

I can't remember what the other one is, something like the 78th or something.

Anyway, he's got these four divisions.

So it's really weird because Millikan is actually pretty darn good.

He's a cavalryman-like pattern.

He has been attached to the Third Army and has come for he's not a fan of Hodges.

They kind of don't get along.

He thinks Hodges is too slow and unimaginative.

But Hodges thinks that Millican's too slap-dush and impulsive.

Yeah.

Millican's very much in sort of he's in the pattern style of kind of, yeah.

He's also got some very good subordinates and bulge veterans and substantial veterans.

So he's got John W.

Leonard of the 9th Armoured Division, cool sign.

Notorious.

Notorious.

The aforementioned Brigadier General William B.

Hoag of Combat Command B of the 9th Armoured.

He's a good man.

Hoague's Hoague's also commanded, yep, he's commanded the 5th Corps Engineer Brigade on D-Day.

So he really knows what he's about.

And 3 Corps is part of the River R operation, but now at the beginning of March has to cross the River R,

which flows into the Rhine just to the south of Cologne.

So this is, this is just south of Cologne is where there's a sort of core boundary between Connors' VII Corps and Millikan's III Corps.

And suddenly, you know, everyone's sort of starting to think that, okay, we've got to cross the Rhine and we know that there's not going to be any bridges there.

We've got to get a a move on so on the 7th of march hoags ccb combat command b of the ninth armoured is ordered to capture the bridges over the river r but also close up to the rhine at a little town called remargen remargen is on the western side and this is a stretch of the river rhine where it's steep sides yeah you know it's outpost strosses from from 30 years war and medieval it's princes in castles prince palatinus exactly it's fairy fairy tale rhineland germany rather than sort of yes this is flat Rhineland, Germany.

This is the twinkling, chivalric Germany, basically, of the imagination, isn't it?

Yes.

Anyway, they're supposed to close up to the Rhine at Ramagen.

And at that point, they're then supposed to turn south and link up with Third Army, Patton's mob, near Koblenz.

And the orders are very specific not to cross the Rhine, but to capture as many Germans as possible on the western side of the river.

And Ramagen is a kind of, you know, it's only a small place of 10,000 people.

And it's halfway between Cologne and Koblenz.

So that's what makes it significant.

So it used to have kind of big railway.

You know, it has this big railway bridge there.

And there's a number of bridges on the River Rhine in this section.

There's about 22 of them.

They've all been blown up by the Germans.

So no one is expecting there to be any bridges there at all.

Yes.

So meanwhile, General Bradley, who is the 12th Army Group commander, so he has...

First Army and Third Army under his command, is equally not expecting a swift crossing of the Rhine.

And so the whole idea of Ike's strategy, Eisenhower's strategy, is to pull up to the Rhine, everyone get there, and then have these sequence of planned operations, carefully planned operations, of which the main principal thrust, first thrust across the Rhine, is going to be 21st Army Group, say Monteslaw.

And that's going to be in the northern part.

So that's the plan.

And Eisenhower says in the autumn of 1944, as we approached the borders of Germany, we studied the desirability of committing our air force to the destruction of the Rhine bridges, on which the existence of the German forces west of the river depended.

If If all of them could be destroyed, they would soon have to withdraw.

We entertained no hope of saving these bridges for our own use.

So what have they been doing?

They've been prepping, haven't they?

Exactly.

Yes, they've been cutting bridges.

They've been cutting bridges from the 4th of September 1944 onwards, targeting the 22 railway bridges, particularly, including the Ludendorff railway bridge at Roman.

And they've been targeting these, knowing that they're then going to have to bridge themselves.

But in that time, they've been building up their own arsenal of bridging equipment.

Each of these armies has.

Because after all because they know they're going to have to do it.

Exactly.

They know they have to do it, which is part of the problem with the idea of bouncing it, is that these things require so much organization.

And in fact, I remember when we were walking up from the Mulberry in the summer last year, talking about how whoever made the decision that there should be a 40-tonne Bailey bridge tolerance is influencing the course of events that we are talking about right now.

Whoever made that decision in 1938 in the War Office, you know, whichever bunch of bureaucrats drew that up, they are influencing what is happening right now because that's the bridging you've got.

you need this much of it it costs this much effort this much logistic effort to bring up

yeah and of course that's one reason why you don't have more pershings exactly you can't wing this getting across the rhine and the fact that you know when when we do get to the the major planned crossing montgomery's effort is that it's the royal navy are involved and they're treating it as though it's basically a sort of mini d-day landing like a little coastal landing says a lot really is as to how you're approaching this you've got to get this right right yeah 100 and this goes back this goes back to the decision about simpson and going, you know, dashing across at Erdogan.

Yeah.

Eisenhower wants this halt.

He wants this pause.

He wants to draw all his forces up in a neat line without bulges, without spearheads.

He wants them all on the coast.

Give him a chance to do this methodically.

And he also wants to have the chance to take a breath.

And also it offers him a defensive line because the Germans aren't going to be going to get back across it once they've been squeezed out of the western side of the Rhine, are they?

This is the point, is it offers him a fantastic defensive line, just as it offers them a defensive line, offers offers him an excellent one doesn't it yeah it does and and i think he's very concerned about supplies they got caught short in the autumn yeah don't want to get caught short again they want to be doing this with the full weight of their arsenal and you know the the fact is you know antwerp has been hammered by v1s and v2s for 175 days since the previous october 4 000 v1s and 1700 v2s have been directed towards Antwerp.

Now, as it happens, and there's been no direct hit on Allied shipping up to that point, but there's a sense that there's only a matter of time.

Of course, there is some form, which is Barry in December 1943 and stuff.

Yeah, which has a castle.

Absolutely.

So what else are you going to do?

You've got to get this right.

Which makes the Bridget Ramargan de-risking.

Exactly, which makes the Bridget Ramargan episode so sort of interesting in a way and peculiar.

And also that just shows, you know, the best laid plans of Meissen Men and Ike Eisenhower are one thing.

But, you know, when literally opportunity knocks at Ramargan, doesn't it?

With this, and it isn't, if people have been or not, it's worth a visit because that part of the Rhine, it's beautiful and it is a very peculiar thing.

This bridge, it's striking.

It's one of those they didn't trip across a boring European road bridge that they would have now.

Again, it's a, it's a, it's got little, it's got little turrets and all that sort of stuff on it, hasn't it?

It's a proper, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got a big sort of big stone block, yeah, exactly.

Castle-like towers, it's 300 meters, yeah, it's a double-track railway with wooden waterways either sides.

It's not actually ideal for getting for road traffic, but it's a bridge across the Rhine.

So, so so so well there's this race to the rhine race across the rhine you know actually that is just a complete fabrication i mean it might be amongst individual commanders but but that is not the grand strategy the grand strategy is at the beginning of march to pull up alongside the rhine take a deep breath take your time get all your ducks in a row then cross yeah there is no military or political urgency to get across at the beginning of march that is the fact of it so one of the interesting things about it of course is it was built for the first world war to get troops to go the other way.

Yes, absolutely amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

So, and what's the other thing I think is really interesting is all the bridges along the Rhine here, most of which have been destroyed, have also been built with demolition chambers.

Isn't that something

extraordinary?

But what's quite interesting is that

the bridge at Cologne-Molheim had been blown up on the night of the 14th, 15th of October when Allied bombs hit it and detonated the explosives that are already being laid in the demolition chambers.

And Hitler was so cross about this and he ordered all bridge demolitions to be removed and stored close at hand instead.

You know, so he's just about to be kind of hoisted by the family.

You can't win in the other direction there, though.

You can't win the Führer, can you?

So at Remagen itself, we're going to stick with the Remagen rather than Remagen or Remagen, don't we?

We're going to go Remagen.

Remagen.

Remagen.

At Ramagen.

Remagen.

Oh, God.

At the eastern end.

At the eastern end, under the watch of Haltman Karl Friesenhahn, 120 combat pioneers.

Halptman Willy Bratke has additional security.

There's a flak detachment on the cliffs above, an 88 and 200 people, and they have put explosives on the western bank to blow the approach road to the bridge.

Those are to be blown the moment the enemy appears.

Though, of course, many a slip to its cup and lip when it comes to blowing things the moment the enemy appears.

On the morning of the 7th of March, 67 Corps Headquarters receives news of approaching American troops.

So the local general Otto Hitzfeldt sends his adjutant Mayo Hans Scheller to overlook destruction of the Ludendorff Bridge at at Rehmagen.

But, meanwhile, 14th Tank Battalion in the van of 9th Armoured advances onto Remagen now.

Remagen.

At 1pm on the 7th of March, Brigadier General Hoag of Combat Command B gets a message from Lieutenant Colonel Leonard E.

Engeman that the railway bridge is still standing.

You won't believe it, sir.

How about that?

The railway bridge is still standing.

God damn.

Holy cow.

We got to get some boys down there.

I got to see this for myself.

Hoag hurries forward, sees the bridges still standing.

And of course, remember, Hoague is a sapper.

Yeah.

Yes, he's a sapper.

So he expects the Jerries to blow the entire bridge.

So he's on the kind of, you know, on the high ground above, looking down on it and thinking, this is going to go any minute.

So some people are sent to cross the bridge.

He doesn't ask Schaef or anybody for permission.

Doesn't ask Millika.

He doesn't ask anybody to break strategy.

So Millika doesn't ask Schaif to break strategy.

Off they go.

And suddenly they're hurtling along the side road in their chaffies.

It's amazing.

Well, they're not their chaffies at all.

That was just the only tanks they could get a hold of for the film.

Tragically for the film.

The movie is one of my early memories of watching foot war films with my father yeah my two

going there's a bit where someone's reading a map in the dark and it's like a white piece of paper and he's going oh for god it's going oh for god's sake he can be seen don't wave a map around like that in the dark all right right just please spend some time with it anyway you don't know

that the americans i remember talking to a guy who was in this party mid 20 more than 20 years ago who was in the in the first infantry across right so they get to they get to the bridge around three o'clock yes because this is this is the 27th Armoured Infantry Battalion.

Because

this is the important thing to remember about these combat commands of these armoured divisions.

They are combined arms mechanised outfits.

So these are basically American Panzer Grenadiers.

Yes, they're infantry and half-tracks.

If you want to find a way of looking at it.

In the meantime, Haltman Friesenhahn and his men are trying to get the bridge ready to blow, but they only have 660 pounds of explosive, which is half.

But they have already blown the approach road.

They've got the approach road.

But they've only got half of what they need to blow the bridge, and it's not the explosive they need it's quarrying explosive so which is not perfect for the bridges don't ask me why i'm sure brigadier general hoague could tell you'll know he'll know afterwards we're going and you won't believe it they try to use quarrying explosive to blow the bridge i mean

yeah the numbs

got yeah

those crowds anyway and sheller is going to my oh sheller is going to has ordered to blow the bridge at four so the clock's ticking here hoge then sends pershings from angerman's 14th Tank Battalion to give suppressing fire while Timmermans certainly not Chaffee's.

No, not Chaffee's.

While Timmermans armoured infantry make the crossing and over they go with gunfire everything.

Men hurrying across as quickly as possible.

Expecting it to go, to be blown.

Yeah, expecting it to blow any right in front of them with them on it.

Scheller goes, right, okay, blow it right now.

There's a tunnel on the far side of the bridge, which I remember visiting.

At 3:20, he says, Right, blow the bridge.

Haltman Bracker's men fire from the towers as Haltman Friesenhahn turns the detonating key, but it doesn't go off.

I love it.

So he tries it again and it doesn't happen.

And again, and a third time and it still doesn't happen.

At that point, he goes,

Yep, the circuit's broken.

So he needs a volunteer to rush halfway across the bridge to trigger the backup mechanism.

I mean, it's not really a volunteer, is it?

No, no, but his name's Faust, which I think is absolutely fantastic.

So it's the idea.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm sure he was just ordered.

I'll do it, sir.

I've made a pact with the devil for my soul.

I will be fine.

Anyway, so he goes off, lights a fuse, runs back, and then boom, there's this huge roar, immense mass of smoke and dust.

Everyone holds their breath as the bridge disappears behind smoke and grit and sort of rolling mushroom of explosive smoke rising up into the air, girders, timbers flying everyone.

Everyone's expecting it to be completely sunk into the Rhine when the smoke clears.

But it's not.

No!

And Hoag says, as we started to go across the bridge, an explosion went off about midstream and blew out one big panel.

But all the charges had failed to go off for some reason.

Because the numbskulls are using quarry TNT.

I mean, honestly.

And so it's still standing.

This is why there's a film about this, because this is absolutely, completely cinematically dramatic, isn't it?

It's all there.

Turning the key three times.

Couldn't make it up.

Couldn't make this up.

Sending someone out to do it.

The bridge blowing, but not blowing.

So then Hoag sends some more engineers out.

They find charges.

They chuck them in the river.

They cut them loose, chuck them in the river.

Company of tanks is sent over.

Imagine being that first tank.

I mean, it's one thing being the first tank across Nijmegen Road Bridge.

You know, you know, Peter Carrington thinking you can rumble, but you can't hide.

But it's just, they've tried to blow this.

You might get halfway and find that it's not, that the whole thing collapses with the work.

Just fall the whole thing.

Yeah, cool.

I even health and safety executive would make it.

I've done my best assessment of the Romagon Bridge, and I am unable to allow it.

But I confirm that it is not strong enough.

I'm unable to allow you to send your Pershing tanks across, Brigadier General Hoag.

Anyway, the first of Timmermans' men to get across from the Company A of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion is Sergeant Alexander A.

Drebik.

And his parents have emigrated from East Germany in 1922 when Drabic had been 12 years old.

So he grows up speaking German.

Unbelievable.

Dreybik's been wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, but by this time has obviously returned to duty.

But the crossing prompts this terrible dilemma at a higher HQ.

Because they hadn't planned this at all.

And they're not sure they actually want to be on the other side.

So Hoag, check this out.

He's ordered to abandon the entire mission and head south again to Koblenz instead.

Incredible.

But he's already across.

So he decides not to exactly disobey the order, but also...

So he does send some men down towards Koblenz as he's supposed to, but he also decides to kind of expand the bridge out as well.

Well, we got it now.

That's because this guy's an engineer.

So he's thinking, I've got a river crossing.

I'm going to expand on it.

I can't.

I've got this.

He can't do it.

No.

He just can't abandon it.

Any other kind of soldier would go, oh, okay.

I think.

Okay, then.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

i don't know but but but but anyway so this all this these these great events are all happening on the afternoon of the 7th of march the following day the 8th of march the higher headquarters are still in a state of funk about the whole thing yeah they don't know what to do at all the first army diary is absolutely amazing to what extent our crossing will be permitted to become a major one remains to be seen apparently no decision as yet has been reached in shaif or 12th army group headquarters as to whether full exploitation will be made or whether three corps will simply make the bridgehead secure and then halt the show of monties up north opposite the ruhr is still apparently the big thing.

General Hodges was in touch with General Bradley four or five times during the day.

From their conversations, no clues were received as to our future direction.

Amazing, isn't it?

Isn't it the first army headquarters?

Yeah, yeah.

And then war correspondents, obviously.

Yeah, this is this is this is absolutely brilliant, isn't it?

So Andy Rooney in the stars of the streets.

He writes German artillery shells plopping into the river all around the bridge.

It was an event in progress, and the ninth were jamming across the river as many men and vehicles as possible.

It looked like George Washington Bridge across the Hudson at Russia.

German artillerymen were firing blind from behind the hills on the other side of the river, but there was always a chance they'd get lucky.

And we were plenty nervous running across the bridge, stepping on the wooden ties with six-inch gaps between them.

I'm always plenty nervous when I'm crossing a blown-up bridge.

Honestly.

And then he's on the 9th of March, Hodges is finally a decision made.

Hodges is ordered to hold the bridge, but limit it to an area to be defended comfortably by five divisions and no more.

And I think there's a lot of, you know, bruising from the Ardennes offensive in that decision, isn't there?

And as you say, we've got a strategy, thanks very much.

Please Please don't disrupt it with your initiative.

We're drawing up to the River Rhine, and then we're all going to cross en masse.

And I, you know, this is, you know,

very helpful.

Not very helpful.

They're only allowed to advance a thousand yards per day, which I think is quite an interestingly specific distance.

Not an inch more.

Not an inch more.

I'm afraid you've gone too far.

But the first army diary, they're still in a bit of a quandary about it.

You know, by the 11th of March, you know, by which time, you know, this is sort of five days later.

So the first army diary again says, no word from group whether this bridgehead is to be expanded and made a a main effort, or whether Schaefer is still placing his money on the yet-to-be-won bridgehead north of us in Mani sector.

Whereas there's clearly a strong inference about where this particular diarist wants the emphasis to shift.

Because Monty does get all sorts of flack for this phase of the war, but he isn't making these decisions.

These decisions are nothing to do with him.

No, it's nothing to do with him.

This is a Schaefer.

12th Army Group thing.

It's really a Schaefer.

This is really Eisenhower then filtering down.

But by this time, the 11th of March, march there are four divisions across it's the ninth armoured the ninth infantry 78th infantry 99th infantry remember them from the you know the the krunkelton valge the opening stages right in the north of the battle of the bulge plus two battalions of core artillery nine artillery battalions plus 17 anti-aircraft battalions around the bridge and in fact by the 11th of march there are 672 anti-aircraft guns in 16 gun and 33 automatic weapons batteries amazing isn't it i mean that's incredible.

Yeah.

But I mean it's interesting, isn't it?

Because the bridges are still under, they're still being shelled as people are going across it.

And the Germans decide they need to try and do something.

So there's a special strike force.

Maximum effort.

The Luftwaffe strike force, 30 ME262s and 40 Arado 234s.

So they're putting their latest tech on it.

They've completely failed to strike the bridge, partly because, I mean, it's the heaviest concentration of anti-aircraft units for the US Army in the entire war.

And REF.

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing.

974 Squadron.

Yeah, it's incredible.

It's absolutely incredible.

It is absolutely incredible.

And it's interesting that the 99th Infantry Division is sent down because that's part of Collins' 7 Corps rather than Millikan's III Corps.

But they're sent out because suddenly there's this kind of sort of magnet of this bridge.

And there's quite a good description of Guy Duran, who's a GI in the 394th Infantry Regiment.

As they're approaching Ramargan, he sees the eastern side lit by fire and the town of Ramargan is already kind of smashed and completely destroyed.

He goes past a sign that says this street is subject to enemy fire.

He sort of thinks, you know, no shit, sure.

And he notices the Adolf Hitler Strasser has already been renamed Yankstrasser, which is brilliant.

And as they do cross the bridge, you know, there's gazers of water kind of, you know, rupting into the air as, you know, shells still coming down.

So they've got all these, you know, obviously the German artillery fire is not very effective, but it is still under fire.

It's now the 13th of March.

So it's over, you know, it's a week since it's been captured.

Yeah.

And Beetle, you know, Walter Beadle Smith, who is the chief of staff to Eisenhower, his sort of right-hand man, visits First Army headquarters, but still has no news about future plans.

And even on the 15th of March, Bradley, who's just received his fourth general star, flies in to see Hodges and tells him no major effort on the far bank of the Rhine at Ramargan should be undertaken until all resistance is crushed on the West Bank.

So the stuff in his memoirs post-war is all bollocks.

Yeah.

Nonsense.

Completely rubbish.

Well, it wasn't even written by him.

It was written by Chief.

Yeah, I know, I know.

But still, I'm sure he read it before it was published.

But what's really funny about this encounter between Bradley and Hodges, master tack,

is that Hodges says, you know,

they're being too cautious and they should crack on with it.

Hodges is supposed to be the kind of

cautious person.

Podder.

Yeah, it's quite funny.

I mean, the thing is, there's plenty of good reasons, which is that they aren't prepared for this.

You know, normally all those arguments about phase lines, this doesn't match the phase lines they have, as it were, for what they're trying to do.

And then, you know, logistics is the tail that's wagging the dog.

There's no two ways about it.

And, you know, Operation Plunder, which is coming, is 125 miles to the north, and it's not so simple just to turn things around and switch this sector.

Not at all.

Plunder is going to be a much broader offensive than this, too.

Wider effort to seize more of the river.

Well, it is.

And also, the terrain around Ramagnan is not particularly helpful.

They've just lucked out.

It's just, you know, the British stayed, it didn't blow up.

They got across it in time, you know, etc., etc.

So the Germans still keep trying the air effort.

It's 367 sorties, planes are sent, 106 are shot down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the first week.

A big mortar called Big Carl, 540 millimeter mortars brought up.

Surely Grosser Carl.

They miss.

V2s, 11 V2s are fired.

They'll miss.

Frogman on the 17th ascent of March, but they don't get to the bridge.

I mean, that's a short straw, isn't it?

You know, you get in the river,

you sweep past the bridge, you think, oh, well, that's the end of that then.

One tank falls through the hole caused by the first detonation and an ammo truck truck is hit on the 9th of march and a fuel tank on the 10th of march so the bridge is is actually beginning to suffer now yes um so by the 13th that the pontoon bridge two pontoon bridges which have been put in and are being used instead bailey bridge goes in a ferry service with ducks and lcvps also known as higginsburg

so this is your over our beach inventory yeah so so basically you know the fact that the bridge is no longer viable doesn't matter they're across and they've they've a crossing.

Yeah.

So, yeah, well, I think the key thing is that

the Ludendorff railway bridge enables a crossing, but it's very much the US engineers that allow the bridgehead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So less bridge at Remargan, but

bridges of Remargan.

Yeah.

And amazingly,

by the end of this operation, there's eight bridges put across over a 20-mile stretch between Bonn and Bad Hoeningen.

And seven of these eight bridges are opened by the 23rd of March.

So, I mean, that is amazing, isn't it?

Basically a fortnight chuck all that stuff up.

But that also shows that the Allies have this at their disposal.

You know, they've been bridging since Normandy, haven't they?

So they know it's the only way to go forward.

Yep.

Now, of course, how does the Fuhrer take this, Jim?

Very badly.

I'm afraid the Fuhrer is fainfully upset.

So

the six local commanders are arrested and court-martialed.

Halmund Friesenhahn, luckily, is a prisoner of war, luckily for him, for the Americans.

But four officers, including Maya Scheller, are executed.

General and Maya

is so harsh, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly.

Richard von Bertmer, the nearest divisional commander, is immediately arrested

with the court official.

He snatches a pistol from the court official and just puts it to his head.

He's then formally exonerated postponed in 1968.

And von Runsted is sacked again.

The third time.

And this time he's replaced by Albert Kesselring.

Oh, good.

That's going to help.

Yeah, that's going to help because he loves retreating.

He's really good at it, isn't he?

He always fights brilliant campaigns, feeding people.

But what's really interesting is

the First Army Dari is fantastic.

So on the 15th of March, he goes, We learned pretty definitely that Schaef does not wish the bridge had expanded.

And as a matter of fact, were almost disappointed when they learned the news we were across the river, since it upset their previously made calculations.

General Hodges also discussed with General Bradley the possibility of replacing General Millikan with another corps commander.

Both agreed he was a good officer, but too timid.

I know, I mean,

what the heck?

I thought the whole thing was that Hodges thought he was too static.

It's just he doesn't like him.

He just doesn't like him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He doesn't like him, and he doesn't like the hassle that's been caused by Ramaghan, I don't think.

And so Millikan is fired.

He's fired.

I find this absolutely mystifying that you would sack him at this point.

It's very odd.

I mean, the war hasn't got two months to run in Europe.

I mean, imagine that headquarters having to take on.

So General James M.

Fleet comes in, you know.

But I think Millikan has a, has a, I like him.

I think he's got a certain amount of style because Hodges rings him rather than going to see him face to face.

He rings him at 2.50 p.m.

on the 17th of March and goes, hey, I have some bad news for you.

And Millikan just goes, sir, I have some bad news for you too.

The railroad bridge has just collapsed.

It's absolutely brilliant.

I think it's quite an achievement, the speed with which they do take that bridge.

The guts to get across when, you know, it might blow at any minute.

The swiftness in which they respond to that and bring 672 anti-aircraft guns onto it, I think is, I think that speaks volumes about First Army and particularly three corps.

So I find it absolutely amazing that Milliken gets sacked for that because.

But also what the U.S.

Army's capable of.

Exactly.

Monty's caution is often attributed to the fact that what he's trying to do is not ask too much of his men so he doesn't damage their morale and overstretch things and make it harder for him to then get what he wants out of his armies, right?

That sounds like Eisenhower's taking a leaf out of that book post the bulge to an extent.

But actually, the army he's got is slicker than even he realizes, perhaps.

You know what I mean?

And they're showing it here.

But it is kind of amazing that they take the bridge and they're, well, thanks.

I'm not really pleased about that.

Yeah.

shirt that doesn't fit for christmas just amazing yeah and the whole of first army crosses over the bridges at romagan is is the thing.

Eventually, yep.

On the 25th of March, First Army attacks on a broad 40-mile front.

Germans with a few tanks, limited, utterly weakened infantry, they soon collapsed.

But by now, other crossings have taken place.

Third Army to the south, 21st Army Group to the north.

So find out what happens in our next episode as we bounce the Rhine according to plan this time.

Yeah.

Thanks everyone for listening.

Join us for our next episode.

One way to do that sooner is to subscribe to our Apple Officer Class channel or become a Patreon.

And you know what?

What would be really fantastic would be to come to We Have Waze Fest in September 12th 14th?

Love to see We Have Waze Fest V for victory.

I think I've got quite a few more Americans coming over.

Excellent.

Already read one very, very funny draft of a sketch for

the review.

The big three getting together and comparing notes.

Anyway, we will see you soon.

Thanks for listening.

Cheerio.

Cheerio.