Hello Mabo, yes the fighting in the movie happened and is quite accurate, this is the surprise because it was long supposed not to happen but it was wrong there was a fight the same according to the movie !!!.
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Grimball’s tanks quickly overtook Timmermann’s men advancing on foot and raced through the town toward the bridge. The A Company followed Remagen’s main road, encountering only minor resistance from the few German soldiers still in town and ineffectual fire from the 20mm flak guns from the top of the Erpeler Ley. Captain Bratge’s 36-man company melted away, with only Bratge and several men escaping to the Erpel side.
At 3:15 p.m., as the American tanks reached the western end of the Ludendorff Bridge, Scheller gave the command to detonate the demolition charge under the west approach ramp. Sending a fountain of debris in the air, the resulting explosion created a 30-foot trench in the earthen ramp, sufficient to halt the tanks but also providing good shelter for Timmermann’s men.
As Grimball’s tanks and Timmermann’s infantry began exchanging fire with the Germans on the east bank, news began circulating that a captured German soldier reported that the Ludendorff Bridge was going to be blown up at 4 p.m. This was highly unlikely since the bridge’s demolition was solely based on Scheller’s judgment and not on a schedule. Nonetheless, the rumor reached Hoge, who immediately ordered Engeman to take the bridge.
Engeman passed the word down to Major Deevers, commander of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, who ordered Timmermann to take his company across the bridge. To give them cover, American mortars began firing white phosphorus rounds at the German side of the bridge while the tanks engaged the Germans in their defensive positions.
Men and equipment of the First U.S. Army in the Erpeler Ley tunnel on the eastern side of the Ludendorff railroad bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen Germany. By 4 p.m., Lt. Karl Timmerman and his men had secured the bridge and the tunnel, not realizing it was more than 380 meters long and several hundred German civilians and soldiers were hiding deep in the darkness.
Around 3:30 p.m., with American shells blanketing the area between the east end of the bridge and the tunnel, Scheller ordered Friesenhahn to blow the bridge. From his position just inside the tunnel, Friesenhahn personally triggered the ignition switch, but nothing happened. He then called for volunteers to set off the secondary charge by hand. Corporal Anton Faust ran out of the tunnel, dashed the 100 yards under fire to the east end of the bridge, and set off the charge by hand.
The bridge seemed to jump into the air, but when the dust settled, the bridge was still standing. Timmermann’s men, who were about to enter the bridge, dove for cover. When Timmermann gave orders to continue, the men hesitated. It took great effort to get them to enter the bridge they expected to collapse at any moment.
Staff Sergeant Joseph DeLisio’s 3rd Platoon led the way. Directly behind the 3rd Platoon came three combat engineers from the 9th Armored Engineer Battalion, First Lieutenant Hugh Mott, Staff Sergeant John Reynolds, and Sergeant Eugene Dorland. As DeLisio’s men rushed from girder to girder, the engineers began locating explosive charges, cutting the wires, and tossing the charges into the water.
German soldiers on a half-sunken barge approximately 200 meters from the bridge opened fire on Timmermann’s men but were quickly silenced by Pershing tanks.
As G.I.s got closer to the east end of the bridge, machine gun fire erupted from one of the towers ahead of them. The flak batteries on top of the Erpeler Lay also opened fire, but most anti-aircraft guns could not depress low enough to be effective.
DeLisio charged into one of the towers, where he found several German soldiers attempting to clear a jammed machine gun. After DeLisio fired several shots, the Germans surrendered. Sergeant Chinchar and privates Samele and Massie entered the second tower, and the German soldiers there also surrendered.
Sergeant Alexander Drabik, a squad leader in the 3rd Platoon, was the first American soldier across the Rhine. “We ran down the middle of the bridge, shouting as we went. I didn’t stop because I knew that if I kept moving, they couldn’t hit me. My men were in squad column, and not one of them was hit. We took cover in some bomb craters. Then we just sat and waited for others to come. That’s the way it was,” Drabik later recalled. Timmermann was the tenth man across and the first American officer to step onto the east bank of the Rhine.
By 3:50 p.m., all of Timmermann’s company was across the bridge. Despite a flurry of fire directed at them, not one of the G.I.s was hit crossing the bridge. While Timmermann deployed his three platoons around the east end of the bridge, Lieutenant Mott and his two sergeants methodically continued searching for additional demolition charges.
Timmermann sent Sgt. DeLisio with four soldiers to check out the tunnel. Several shots rang out from the tunnel and after DeLisio and his men pumped several shots in return, several German soldiers ran out with their hands up. DeLisio advanced a few meters into the tunnel, destroyed the ignition switch box, and returned to Timmermann to report that the tunnel was clear. He did not see several hundred German civilians and soldiers further down the tunnel hunkering down in the darkness.
Timmermann was painfully aware his lone company was in a dangerous position. There was still sporadic fire coming from the top of Erpeler Ley. Timmermann sent Lieutenant Burrows with his 2nd Platoon to clear the top of the cliff. The slope was extremely steep, and several G.I.s fell and were seriously injured. Several more were wounded by German fire. “Taking Remagen and crossing the bridge was a breeze compared to climbing that hill,” Lieutenant Burrowed later recalled. After clearing the top of the Erpeler Ley, Lieutenant Burrows pushed his platoon to the spot overlooking the east end of the tunnel and halted there.
At 4:15 p.m., as Engeman was pushing the other two companies from the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion across the bridge, a liaison officer from the 9th Armored Division’s headquarters reached Hoge. His orders, dated 10:50 a.m., were to continue south along the Rhine’s west bank to “seize or, if necessary, construct at least one bridge over the Ahr River in the Combat Command B zone and continue to advance approximately five kilometers south of the Ahr; halt there and wait for further orders.”
On his initiative, Hoge continued moving the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion across until he could confirm his orders. At 4:50 p.m., Hoge met Leonard at Birresdorft, five miles west of Remagen. Apprised of the new development, Leonard directed Hoge to secure the bridgehead. The closest units, the 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion, the 1st Battalion from the 310th Infantry Regiment, one tank destroyer company, a reconnaissance troop, and an engineer platoon, were redirected to the Ludendorff Bridge.
While Hoge was conferring with Leonard, German officers bottled up inside the Erpeler Ley tunnel were getting desperate. Out of contact with higher headquarters, Major Scheller grabbed a bicycle and rode off to find the nearest German unit with a radio. Discovering Scheller gone, Bratge sent a motorcycle messenger for help. However, fire by American soldiers from above the eastern end of the tunnel cut Bratge’s messenger down before he got away.
By 5:30 p.m., with the Americans controlling both ends of the tunnel and realizing the hopeless situation, Bratge and Friesenhahn ordered their men to lay down their weapons. Intermingled with civilians, German soldiers began leaving the tunnel with their arms up. Among German equipment captured by Americans at the east end of the bridge was one Flakwerfer 44 Föhngeräte multiple rocket launcher from Lieutenant Karl Peters’ battery.
Without heavy weapons, the American bridgehead at the east end of the bridge was in a precarious position. A plow-equipped tank from the 14th Tank Battalion bulldozed the crater in the western approach ramp while the combat engineer platoon placed additional planking over the bridge’s roadway. After midnight, in heavy rain, a tank company and one of the tank destroyers made it across before another tank destroyer slipped off the roadway, halting the traffic for several hours. The one-way traffic resumed at 5:30 a.m. on March 8 once the disabled vehicle was winched out.
The word about the bridge capture quickly went up the chain. “Shove everything you can across it, Courtney, and button the bridgehead tightly,” Bradley ordered Hodges upon receiving the news. In turn, Bradley reached out to Eisenhower. “Hold on to it, Brad,” Eisenhower responded, “Get across with everything you need —but make certain you hold that bridgehead.”
All attention now shifted to the Ludendorff Bridge. Hodges redirected Millikin’s 9th and 78th Infantry Divisions to Remagen, as well as III Corps’ and First Army’s artillery, air defense, and engineering assets.
Discovering the loss of the Ludendorf Bridge, Major August Kraft, commander of the 3rd Battalion from Landes Pioneer Regiment 12, and regimental commander Major Herbert Strobel organized a scratch force of some 100 engineers and air-defense gunners. Bringing along explosives, Strobel’s force began moving toward the bridge shortly after midnight. They ran into the forward pickets of the 14th Tank Battalion and 1st/310th Infantry Regiment. Strobel’s force was dispersed in a series of confused clashes in the dark, and the majority was taken prisoner. By 7 a.m. on March 8, the dismounted 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion was also on the east bank and took over the northern sector of the bridgehead at Erpel. Three field artillery and one air-defense artillery battalions took up positions on the west bank of the Rhine.
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