Far East Cynic

The Remagen Bridge

During our time in Germany and Belgium, the weather was usually less than great. ( Read: rainy and cold). However on the Friday before we left-the weather cleared for a few hours. We were lucky,  we had planned to drive down to the Rhine River. There was method in my madness-I wanted to see the Ludendorff Bridge.

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This is one of two pillars that remain of the bridge at Remagen. Remagen is a town along the Rhine where the US Army seized a bridgehead across the Rhine. The surviving towers of the old bridge now house a museum. The picture you see above is of the near tower. Here is the one that the 9th Armored fought to get to:

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The park and the museum is located along the Rhine but it’s also a residential area. We parked on the street and walked into the Rhine Promenade:

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The view up and down the Rhine was pretty good that day:

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Across the river one could see a German memorial of some kind-those hills must have been brutal to establish a beach head on:

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The bridge collapsed under the weight of all the bombs and artillery fire 10 days after it was taken. The towers and this bit of span are all that is left:

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