The Race for the Rhine Bridges, 1940, 1944, 1945

by Alexander McKee

The River Rhine and its deita in Holland, protecting Germany's vital industrial area of the Ruhr, helped dictate the course of events in three land campaigns of the Second World War. Some towns and bridges were so important that they were fought for two or even three times in the space of five years. There were three battles for Amhem, not one, involving the armies of four different nations. In covering for the first time all three campaigns, the author is able to put the most famous of these battles in perspective, as a text-book example of how not to handle airborne forces. The final campaign in the spring of 1945 saw the crossing of the historic German Rhine on a long front from Strasbourg to Emmerich by American, French, British and Canadian troops. The book is based on copious documentation, much of it contemporary and unpublished, and includes many vivid narratives by 'key' witnesses. We share the feelings of German paratroopers, the 'It's suicide' reaction of the Guards tank crews, and the stunning effect on the American soldiers as Remagen Bridge collapses behind them.

Genres: History, Military History, World War II, Military Fiction

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1971

About the author

Alexander McKee was no "yes-man", he dared to criticise many military, political, economic, media and academic icons and he always kept an open mind. He was fanatical about making his works as accurate as he possibly could. He was ever alert to plain-wrong, biased, distorted or sloppy reports and hidden agendas; wickedly delighting (the more so as a self-educated man) in criticising and exposing assertions that did not fit the evidence. Among his targets were those who tended to emphasise media-image-managment, the accumulation of personal wealth and career progression over both personal integrity and respect for other people's contributions. He gleefully highlighted all the many lapses of integrity that he found. Equally, many established experts, often highly educated people and indeed experts regarding the theoretical aspects of their disciplines, but whom he considered scandalously remiss when they complacently failed to complement such theoretical understanding with practical knowledge as a way to test their theories empirically. Consequently, some of them came in for some harsh criticism on occasion. One gets the impression from his work that some of them appeared reluctant to venture outside the academy at all; out into the "real world": let alone to mix with ordinary people. Implicitly, he urged them to converse with the fishermen, the builders, the soldiers, the doctors, the nurses, the shipwrights and the firemen to glean practical understanding from these practical people, who had to be willing and able to carry out the ultimate tests on their theories to provide demonstably working solutions in order to fulfill their typical working roles. Then he urges such experts in the theory to re-test their theories against the empirically derived knowledge gleaned from their excursions among the working classes, and to do so conjunction with their own senses, out in the "real world": rather than limiting themselves and risking their reputations on the results of thought experiments alone. He dug deep into eye-witness testimonies and spent countless hours searching libraries and museums for the documentary evidence surrounding each his-story. One may find this slightly comical that viewed against the background of established caricaturisations, when the elevated "pillars of wisdom", went "building castles in the air" around about the "ivory towers" and he found strong contradictory "real world" evidence he often lambasted them mercilessly, although it does sometimes seem to be overdone. In contrast, he made the point that some of the sloppy documentary historical works such as that of Sir Robert Davis, that temporarily led his own research astray (and much to his annoyance caused him to repeat untruths in public lectures) while causing the propagation of serious errors until he uncovered them, were nevertheless probably a consequence of the pressures of work, owing to the high quality of the rest of the publication.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

McKee takes up starting positions at Antwerp and doesn't stop racing until the guns fall silent.
So we basically get the whole ETO with the occasional throwback to the German river crossings of 1940 for comparison.

So what does he add? He was there as a eyewitness (sometimes) or chronicler (most times), but always as the voice of the generation for whom "Victory in WWII" wasn't a foregone abstraction, but a goal with stakes.
***1/2

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole a very good book. It tries to show the battles for the Rhine bridges from the Germans seizing them at the start of the war then the allies taking them at the end.
I would have liked more than 1 chapter on the Germans seizing them but it does give a good insight into their tactics. The rest of the book covers the allies plans and attacks to seize them back and the German counter attacks.
Worth a read especially to learn the true “Bridge too Far” and “Bridge at Remagen”.