Engineer Memoirs
Brothers Lt.
Carroll Dunn, U.S. Army, and Capt. G. Raymond Dunn, 4th
Cavalry,
in a bunker near Aachen.
They didn't blow the dam then?
Actually, we tried earlier to blow it by aircraft bombs but were not successful. To suit
their own purposes and time, the Germans opened the gates and flooded the area
downstream, very adversely affecting our ability to cross.
As I remember, in late February of 1945 we returned from the Battle of the Bulge to
the same area that we had occupied in November and prepared for that attack across
the
The flooded area not only included the river and its flood plain but large
drainage ditches on each side of the river. We also had to make provisions for getting
across those ditches.
We did develop some temporary-expedient bridge that was light enough for the troops
to carry that provided a foot crossing over these drainage ditches. Then we used the
assault boats to get the infantry across the flooded area of the river. This was followed
up by floating bridges built by supporting engineer troops so that we could get tanks
and vehicles across. The next major use of bridging came in the crossing of the Rhine
about a month later and considerably north of this area in the German plain north of
Cologne.
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