From March 10 to March 17, 1945 a fierce battle raged between American and German forces. The prize of the battle was the only remaining bridge across the Rhine-
The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. In 1960, Fred Zabel relayed to me his experience in the battle. Twenty years later, Don Veator told me his remembrance of the same battle, or at least the most prominent thing. These are their stories as best I remember them.

“I was at the Remagen Bridge, he said with a smile. “The 299th was one of the first units to the bridge. I was working radio relay when the message came through that the bridge was intact. This was big stuff. I woke up the colonel with the news and within minutes we were in a truck headed for the bridgehead. It was about midnight. All through the ride I was furiously tapping out the message to unit after unit from a wireless.
When the truck stopped, I pulled back the canvas and the day’s first light was coming. We were at the bridge…among the first.

“They had been fighting over it for several days, when my team was called to the bridge structure itself. A 200 kg aerial bomb was wedged in the steel structure. The problem was the fuse access cover was against the steel ‘V’ of the structure.
            We decided to weld a couple pieces of I-beam to parallel the structure. When the welders were through, we cut the beams with the bomb using acetylene torches. The crane on the truck lowered the whole mess onto the back of the truck and took it away.
            “All the while we were doing these things up on the structure, tanks, trucks and artillery pieces were rushing across like the structure was perfectly sound. It wasn’t. On the 17th, the whole mess collapsed into the Rhine. Twenty-eight combat engineers were killed and sixty some wounded.”
            “The events at the Bridge were memorable; they say 25,000 men crossed the bridge into Germany before it fell. Five divisions meant a lot to have on the German side of the Rhine.
           

“I can’t say it was the most memorable thing from the war. That happened at D-Day, Omaha Beach. Our Higgins boat stopped way short of the beach. The gang plank dropped and immediately an anti-tank shell exploded up front. Several men were hit and I stepped over and around them to get out. They told us in training not to stop to help wounded comrades, but to press the attack.
            “When I stepped off the gang plank, I sank to the bottom. I was carrying a field radio and an extra battery plus all my own gear. Fortunately, they taught us to porpoise. Grab a breath of air and sink. Grab a breath of air and sink. Eventually you get your head and shoulders above water and you can walk normally.“When my head was above water and walking normally, I saw a general standing knee-deep in the surf, he facing out to sea. He was soaked so I assumed the cigar he had clenched in his teeth was unlit. I think he was Gen. Norman Cota, but I had never met him before. He said ’Good morning, Sergeant.’ I said, ‘Good morning, General.’
            “Once on the beach, my buddy pointed to two tetrahedrons, ‘You take this one; I’ll get that one.’ I slung the strap of a satchel charge over the top of the tetrahedron and backed away to see how my buddy was doing. Just as he flipped the strap of the satchel over the obstacle, it exploded. A shell must have hit the primer cord. Smoke and sand and dust slowly floated away with the breeze but my buddy had disappeared. He just disappeared.”
            Don Veator tried to smile, but couldn’t. He tried to speak, he couldn’t. Thirty-five years later the incident haunted his memory like it was yesterday.

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