GERMANY
TROOPS LOADING INTO AN LCVP to cross the Rhine (top). Engineers constructing a ponton treadway bridge over the Rhine (bottom). A steel treadway bridge was completed by 1800 on 23 March 1945, and the following day a heavy ponton bridge was completed. By noon on 25 March a second treadway bridge was completed. The crossing of the Rhine in the Third Army area gained complete tactical surprise and the enemy offered only scattered resistance. By the evening of 24 March three divisions held a bridgehead ten miles wide and nine miles deep. These divisions were closely followed by two more, making a total of five on the east bank of the Rhine.
GERMANY
INFANTRYMEN BOARDING AN LCVP to cross the Rhine (top). An assault boat raft ferrying a 90-mm. gun motor carriage M36 across the Rhine (bottom). Troops of the Third U. S. Army first crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim on the night of 22–23 March. Utilizing assault rafts and attacking without artillery or aerial preparation, six battalions were across the river before daybreak with a loss of only twenty-eight men killed and wounded. Following the assault boats were landing craft and DUKW’s. The LCVP’s were manned by naval personnel who arrived at the river an hour after the assault began.
GERMANY
