German Traitor's Downfall

For 239 hours and 20 minutes the triple-span Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen had served its American captors well. But it had taken a terrible beating for most of that time. First there had been the charges set off by the Germans when the Americans came to grab the bridge. Then, for three or four days of terrible urgency, it bore the quaking weight of tanks, big guns, heavy trucks, the tread of thousands of men as they hurried across the Rhine. Hour after hour shells had screamed through its beams; several had gouged big chunks out of the uprights.

Last week the bridge caught particular hell. It was then less important than the ponton bridges the Americans had slung together downriver. The 1,200-foot bridge no longer carried heavy traffic and was frequently blocked off for repairs. But the Germans were determined to avenge the Ludendorff's betrayal of their cause. In six days they sent 104 dive bombers, singly and in threes, to blast at the bridge. It trembled to a thunderous barrage of ack-ack all around it.

Near the end of the span's tenth day in U.S. hands, some 200 Army engineers were working among its girders and underpinnings, continuing the repairs they had been rushing for several days. There had been no more bombing for 36 hours. There was no traffic on the bridge. Without warning, the 512-foot central span teetered drunkenly, swayed to the south, then collapsed.

Americans died by the dozens in the crash of tons of steel. Others drowned in the Rhine's swift current. Many were swept to the first ponton bridge and dragged to safety.

A few hours after the bridge fell came a final ironic note in its role in World War II. The German communique announced that three majors and a lieutenant had been put to death for their failure to destroy it.

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