title: British hip hop

text: British hip hop in the 1980s was not just confined to music and break-dancing, but also involved the spread of New York City-style graffiti – another integral element of US hip hop culture — to London and other UK inner-city areas, both on walls and trains. The most direct influence was, however, on graffiti painted in London Underground trains. Teenagers from inner London and other European cities who were into electro-hip hop and had family and other links to New York City had by the mid-1980s taken up some of the traditions of subway graffiti and exported them home, although legendary New York writers like Brim, Bio, and Futura had themselves played a significant role in establishing such links when they visited London in the early-to-mid-1980s and 'put up pieces' on or near the west London end of the Metropolitan Line. Almost as significantly, just when subway graffiti was on the decline in New York City, some British teenagers who had spent time with family in Queens and the Bronx returned to London with a "mission" to Americanise the London Underground through painting New York City-style graffiti on trains. These small groups of London 'train writers' adopted many of the styles and lifestyles of their New York City forebears, painting graffiti train pieces and in general 'bombing' the system, but favouring only a few selected underground lines seen as most suitable for train graffiti. Although on a substantially smaller scale than what had existed in New York City, graffiti on London Underground trains became seen as enough of a problem by the mid-1980s to provoke the British Transport Police to establish its own graffiti squad modelled directly on and in consultation with that of the New York City MTA. At the same time, graffiti art on London Underground trains generated some interest in the media and arts, leading to several art galleries putting on exhibitions of some of the art work (on canvas) of a few London train writers as well as TV documentaries on London hip hop culture like the BBC's "Bad Meaning Good", which included a section featuring interviews with London train writers and a few examples of their pieces.


title: British hip hop

text: While many early rappers from the UK, such as Derek B, imitated the styles and accents of their US heroes, there were many who realised that to merely transpose US forms would rob UK hip-hop of the ability to speak for a disenfranchised British constituency in the way that US hip-hop so successfully spoke to, and for, its audience. Attempts were made by UK rappers to develop styles more obviously rooted in British linguistic practices — Rodney P of the London Posse deliberately chose a London accent – although many succeeded only in adopting a slurred hybrid that located the rap "somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean".


title: British hip hop

text: The first record label devoted to releasing UK hip hop acts was founded in 1986. Simon Harris' Music of Life label was home to rapper Derek B, the first UK rapper to achieve chart success. He even collaborated with Public Enemy on his album "Bullet from a Gun" and was the first British rapper to appear on "Top of the Pops".


title: British hip hop

text: Building on Derek B's success, Music of Life went on to sign groups such as Hijack, the Demon Boyz, Hardnoise (later Son of Noise) and MC Duke. Their "Hard as Hell" series mixed homegrown talent like Thrashpack and the She Rockers with US artists such as Professor Griff. Music of Life was swiftly followed by other labels such as Mango Records and Kold Sweat. Another successful British hip-hop artist that emerged from Music of Life was Asher D, whose Jamaican origins showed through in his vocal style.


title: British hip hop

text: Moving away from its US roots, British hip hop started to develop its own sounds: acts like Hijack, II Tone Committee, Hardnoise, and Silver Bullet developed a fast and hardcore style, while many other acts took influences from elsewhere. Caveman and Outlaw Posse developed a jazz influenced style, whilst MC Mell'O' mixed jazz and hardcore. London Posse, Black Radical Mk II and DJ Ruf Cut And Tuf C were more influenced by reggae and disco whilst the Wee Papa Girl Rappers, Cookie Crew and Monie Love achieved chart success with more radio-friendly hip hop. However, despite the chart success of some British-born hip hop artists – for example Monie Love, Slick Rick, Young MC and MF Doom, who all moved to the US – the majority of the scene was still underground and small scale.


title: British hip hop

text: Kinetic Effect joined the scene in the early 1980s and was part of rap outfit 2 the Top as D-Koy; later, in 1991, he teamed with Insane Macbeth to record "Borderin' Insanity" (released in 1993) and in 1995, he recorded "Man Bites Dog"/"The Effect of Fear" Their song "The Rhythm I Give 'Em" made the UK Top 10 Hip Hop chart.


title: British hip hop

text: In 1987, Positive Beat Records came out of the hotbed of early UK hip hop, Ladbroke Grove in London with two releases. The label followed up the single "It's Getting Rough" by Rocky X and D-D Dance with the Various Artists' "Known 2 Be Down" album. This featured Sir Drew (of KREW and Newtrament), MC Flex, She Rockers, Rapski and more of West London's finest rap talents.


title: British hip hop

text: Other notable labels at the time included Liberty Grooves in Tooting, South London. The label itself started in late 1989 with the first release in 1990 by Whirlwind D & Johnny F of Solid n Mind. Other artists included Gutter Snypes, True Style and DJ Noize. Liberty Grooves was also a shop and many notable artists such as MC Mell O and Braintax would perform there.


title: British hip hop

text: In 1988, Rapski released "The Connection" on 12". The track was taken from "Known 2 Be Down" and was an early example of mixing hip hop and reggae in a (London) style. More was to come in the early 1990s in the form of MC Reason (a.k.a. Voice of Reason) with "Symbolise"/"HouseQuake" and Jonie D with "Which Base"/"Ride On" which was performed live on ITV in 1991.


title: British hip hop

text: A mindset began to develop – typified by the Gunshot tune "No Sell Out" (1991), or Son of Noise's "Poor But Hardcore" (1992) — that distrusted successful artists who did not utilise the hardcore style most associated with the scene. Silver Bullet's chart success was applauded due to an uncompromisingly rapid delivery, whereas Derek B and Rebel MC were scorned when their more pop influenced styles earned them success. Such artists were often branded "sell outs". As the scene grew, it became less common for British rappers to imitate US accents (those who did were often ridiculed) and British rap became more assured of its identity.


title: British hip hop

text: "Hip Hop Connection" — the first major British hip hop magazine – was founded in 1989 and by the early 1990s the British hip hop scene seemed to be thriving. Not only was there a firm base of rappers in London such as Blade, Black Radical Mk II, Overlord X and Bushkiller (including Sirus) — but many distinct scenes developed nationally.


title: British hip hop

text: Birmingham and the West Midlands gave rise to Credit to the Nation, whose MC Fusion would espouse conscious anti-racist, sexist and homophobic lyrics. The band would also find some brief mainstream success with their indie rock crossover sound. Leeds spawned Braintax and Breaking the Illusion (who together founded Low Life Records) as well as Nightmares on Wax. Greater Manchester gave birth to the Ruthless Rap Assassins, Krispy 3 (later Krispy), the Kaliphz, Jeep Beat Collective and MC Tunes.


title: British hip hop

text: Bristol's scene has a long history going right back to the early 1980s where links were made with outfits from New York. The Fearless Four came over in 1984 along with graffiti legends the Tats Cru and Rock Steady Crew. Bristol (specifically the St. Pauls area) produced The Wild Bunch (later better known as Massive Attack), Nellee Hooper who went on to produce for Soul II Soul. The city later became the home of trip hop with artists like Tricky and Portishead.


title: British hip hop

text: Caveman signed to a major label — Profile Records, the label home of Run–D.M.C. — and Kold Sweat came into their own, discovering groups like SL Troopers, Dynametrix, Unanimous Decision and Katch 22, whose "Diary of a Blackman" was banned by Radio 1 for using a sound clip from the National Front.


title: British hip hop

text: In 1991, Hijack released "The Horns of Jericho" (Rhyme Syndicate Records, 1991) on Ice-T's recently formed Rhyme Syndicate label. The first single, "The Badman Is Robbin'", was a top 40 hit and they went on sell more than 30,000 albums.


title: British hip hop

text: British hip hop was affected by the record industry clamping down on sampling, beginning to charge for the use of samples and prosecuting those who used them without permission. Larger US acts could afford to license samples and still turn a profit for their labels, a luxury not available to many smaller UK artists. One such victim of this was Milton Keynes group the Criminal Minds. Their first two releases, the 1990 mini-album "Guilty as Charged" and a 1991 EP "Tales from the Wasteland" were bogged down by potential sample clearance problems and thus were only ever made available in small numbers. As breakbeat hardcore music started to become very popular in the UK in the early 1990s, the Criminal Minds turned their attention to making this type of music instead.


title: British hip hop

text: The UK hip hop boom never achieved its predicted commercial success. Hijack's "The Horns of Jericho" was never released in the US, while record companies dropped artists, citing poor sales and lack of interest. Mango Records closed down, and the British public began to turn their affections to jungle, a fusion of breakbeat hardcore, hip hop and reggae. Other acts and styles developed from the hip hop scene, resulting in new genres to describe them – for example Massive Attack with trip hop, or Galliano, Us3 and Urban Species with acid jazz.


title: British hip hop

text: In the period between 1992 and 1995, the only groups to make much impact were Gunshot and the Brotherhood.


title: British hip hop

text: Gunshot's 1992 album "Patriot Games" was a landmark with tracks such as "Mind of a Razor" and "World War 3" becoming British hardcore classics. Formed in the '80s, the Brotherhood released their first record, simply called "Brotherhood EP", as a white label in 1991. They went on to release "Wayz of the Wize" in 1992, then "Untitled 93" and "XXIII" in 1993, and "Hip Hop N' Rap" in 1994, all on the Bite It! label. None of the records sold in huge numbers but they managed to gain airplay on the Tim Westwood show and DJ 279's show on Choice FM, gaining them a solid following across the UK. Bite It! also released tracks from artists such as Pauly Ryan and the Scientists of Sound.


title: British hip hop

text: Following an initial flurry of interest from major record labels in the 1980s, by the early 1990s the scene had moved underground after record companies pulled back. In the mid-1990s hip hop in the UK started to experiment and diversify – often mutating into diverse genres entirely, such as trip hop and began making inroads into the US market.


title: British hip hop

text: As the old rappers left the scene, a new generation, raised on hip hop and electronica, was coming of age: The Herbaliser released "Remedies" (Ninja Tune, 1995), Mr. Scruff released the "Frolic EP Pt 1" (Pleasure Music, 1995), Mark B released "Any More Questions?" (Jazz Fudge, 1995) and DJ Skitz released "Where My Mind Is At/Blessed Be The Manor" (Ronin Records, 1996) featuring a young rapper called Roots Manuva on guest vocals who had previously released the single "Next Type of Motion" (Sound of Money, 1995).


title: British hip hop

text: Record labels that attempted to merge British hip hop style and sensibilities with modern dance music began to emerge, like Mark Rae's Grand Central (home to Aim, Rae & Christian, and Fingathing, among others) or DJ Vadim's Jazz Fudge. Increasingly, these artists managed to avoid the issues surrounding sampling by making music themselves (bands such as the Stereo MCs began playing instruments and sampling their own tunes) or searching out more obscure records where a most cost effective licensing deal could be arranged.


title: British hip hop

text: British hip hop began to go through a renaissance, its style shifting from the hardcore template of its youth and moving into more melodic territory.


title: British hip hop

text: The Brotherhood managed to broker a major deal with Virgin Records in 1995. Continuing their relationship with Trevor Jackson as their producer, they released 3 singles 'Alphabetical Response', 'One Shot', 'Punk Funk' and their album "Elementalz", all in 1996. Their work was met with critical acclaim and they toured solidly with American artists including Cypress Hill, The Roots and WuTang, but big record sales seemed to be very elusive and they parted ways with Virgin in 1998.


title: British hip hop

text: In late 1996, Will Ashon started up his new Ninja Tune backed label Big Dada and planned a roster of performers. Bandit of Birmingham's MSI/Asylum crew informed Will of Juice Aleem that he was contemplating who could truly represent the ethos of the new label. Ashon was impressed with the demo and agreed to have Aleem on board. The results of this were the first release of the now famous record label: in 1997 Juice featured on Big Dada record label's first ever release[2], "Misanthropic", under the pseudonym "Alpha Prhyme", a collaboration between himself and Luke Vibert.


title: British hip hop

text: In 1998, Mark B and Blade released "Hitmen for Hire EP", which featured guest appearances from Lewis Parker and Mr Thing (of the Scratch Perverts). The EP was a success, and led to the successful 2001 album "The Unknown", which despite never charting in the UK top 75, was still a top 100 success and an even bigger success within its genre. Also, the album spawned the 2001 top 40 single "Ya Don't See the Signs", which was a remix by Feeder frontman Grant Nicholas, after the title track was a top 75 hit and Blade with Mark B supported Feeder. The same year, Bristol's Hombré label released the "2012 EP" from Aspects, a benchmark release within the movement. Roots Manuva, Blak Twang, Mud Family, Ti2bs, Task Force, Phi Life Cypher, MSI & Asylum, Jeep Beat Collective and Ty all came to the public's attention, while veteran acts Rodney P, Mike J, and MC Mell'O' returned to the scene. In 1999, MF Doom released his debut studio album "" which has since been ranked as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time.


title: British hip hop

text: A new generation of artists emerged following the turn of the century, including Jehst, Skinnyman, Nicky Spesh, Foreign Beggars and Usmaan. At the same time, a new style of electronic music emerged in the early 2000s, derivative of UK garage and jungle, with influences from dancehall, drum and bass and hip hop; this new genre was dubbed "grime" (sometimes called eskibeat or sublow) and effectively superseded UK hip hop in both popularity and the mainstream conscious. Grime is generally considered to be distinct from hip-hop due to its roots primarily being genres such as UK garage and jungle. In 2001, Roots Manuva claimed that British hip hop "is more healthy" than American hip-hop, and is more about making the music than is it about exploiting wealth or hitting it rich.Success followed The Streets' 2002 album "Original Pirate Material", and he became one of the first of the new breed of British hip hop artists to gain respectable sales, though his verbal style resulted in him being shunned by many artists in the scene. Such success has caused a surge in media exposure of other British hip hop acts. Welsh rap group Goldie Lookin Chain also achieved chart success with their tongue-in-cheek take on hip-hop. Key records such as Skinnyman's "Council Estate of Mind", and Klashnekoff's "The Sagas Of..." were released, cementing the reputations of the artists and opening up the floor for new artists to emerge. Labels Low Life Records, run by prominent political rapper Braintax, and Young N' Restless started and became the starting point for many. At the same time, just as garage was losing momentum, grime was creating interest. Wiley's "Treddin' on Thin Ice" was a cornerstone of the genre, and one-time friend Dizzee Rascal won a Mercury Music Prize for his debut "Boy in da Corner". From then on, grime artists were the only MC's for interested record labels, and UK Hip-Hop's momentum dried up.A new generation of young socially conscious hip-hop musicians emerged as a counter to the grime scene that many in the UK Hip Hop scene perceived as commercial. These rappers strived to bring attention to both positivity and lyricism as well as the injustices of war, gentrification and racism, following in the tradition of conscious rappers such as Nas, Mos Def and Talib Kweli. Amongst this new generation included artists such as Klashnekoff, Akala, Lowkey and the Poisonous Poets.


title: British hip hop

text: The mid-2000s saw the emergence of road rap, a genre that took influences from American gangsta rap and focused on crime, gang, or violent themes. Road rap was pioneered by artists and groups such as PDC and Giggs' SN1 crew.


title: British hip hop

text: By the late 2000s, grime music had entered into a period of stagnation. This led to an emergence of acts that, while influenced by or initially started out making grime, were moving into a more commercialised, hip-hop influenced form of music. Artists from this new wave included N-Dubz, Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, and Chipmunk (later known as Chip) who emerged in the late 2000s to great commercial success. Tinchy Stryder scored two number ones with songs "Number 1" and "Never Leave You" and became the best-selling British solo artist of 2009. The following year continued the success of the previous, with acts like Professor Green and Tinie Tempah breaking through to even bigger commercial success and also critical appreciation. The debut album from Tinie Tempah called "Disc-Overy" went to number one in the UK Albums Chart and was certified platinum on 1 March 2011. He also won a Brit Award for his number one single "Pass Out". Rapper Plan B found success with his 2010 Hip Hop and Soul fusion album "The Defamation of Strickland Banks", followed by the soundtrack album "Ill Manors" in 2012, both of which peaked at number 1 in the UK Albums Chart. In 2014, Scottish alternative hip-hop trio Young Fathers won the Mercury Music Prize for their album Dead. The album entered the UK chart at 35 after they won the award. Riz Ahmed, also known as Riz MC, was featured in the song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" in "The Hamilton Mixtape", which topped the "Billboard" 200 chart in 2016. At the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), "Immigrants" won the award for Best Fight Against the System.


title: British hip hop

text: The early 2010s saw the emergence of UK afrobeats, led by artists such as Mista Silva, Kwamz, Fuse ODG, and Timbo. Around the same time, artists such as Sneakbo and Timbo were incorporating melodic rap and Caribbean influences into their music. The foundation set by these artists would later be a major influence on Afroswing, a genre that emerged around 2014 derivative of UK afrobeats while carrying influences from grime, dancehall, hip hop, and R&B.


title: British hip hop

text: UK drill is a subgenre of drill music and road rap that originated in the South London district of Brixton from 2012 onwards. Borrowing heavily from the style of Chicago drill music, UK drill artists often rap about violent and hedonistic criminal lifestyles. Typically, those who create this style of music are affiliated with gangs or come from socioeconomically-deprived neighbourhoods where crime is a way of life for many. UK drill music is closely related to road rap, a British style of gangsta rap that became popular in the years prior to the existence of drill. Musically, UK drill often exhibits violent language and provocative lyrics.


title: British hip hop

text: The early 2010s also saw the emergence of an underground UK hip hop scene emulating the earlier wave of 2000s rappers such as Jehst, Task Force, King Kashmere, MysDiggi and Skinnyman. With complex lyrics and rhyme schemes and '90s New York boom bap influenced production, High Focus Records was instrumental in bringing this sound to a wider audience. The label was founded in 2010 by London rapper Fliptrix and key members of the larger High Focus crew have included The Four Owls, Dirty Dike, Ocean Wisdom, Jam Baxter and Dabbla.


title: British hip hop

text: Artists from the label have managed to build a sizeable following despite remaining underground, having performed to crowds of 25,000+ across Europe, played the famous Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK and seen many tracks reaching multiple millions of views on YouTube. In 2015, The Four Owls collaborated with highly respected US producer DJ Premier for their track "Think Twice" . BRIT Award winning singer-songwriter Rag'n'Bone Man also released two albums on the label in 2011 and 2014 – "Put That Soul on Me" (a collaboration with Dirty Dike) and "Dog n Bone" with Four Owls member and rapper/producer Leaf Dog. These albums are what eventually led to his signing with major label Columbia Records, however Rag'n'Bone Man has continued to feature on High Focus records releases such as the track "Mask" from Jam Baxter's album Touching Scenes in 2019.


title: British hip hop

text: Blah Records is also highly influential. The label was founded by Lee Scott (rapper) and Molotov in 2006 and currently managed and owned by Lee Scott and Salar. Key members of the Blah family include Lee Scott, Salar, Black Josh, Milkavelli, Jam Baxter and Cult of The Damned.


title: British hip hop

text: The mid-2010s saw the emergence of Abstract Orchestra, a British hip hop Orchestra that "explore the shared territory between jazz and hip hop by taking modern classics such as Madvillain and J Dilla’s back catalogue and filtering them through classic arrangement techniques." The group is influenced by the style of hip hip associated with Detroit in the US and have recorded with Illa J and Slum Village. They perform with UK MC's Micall Parknsun, Joker Starr and Yungun.


title: British hip hop

text: By 2014, grime music was also experiencing a resurgence. While hip hop did not immediately benefit from this, the rise of grime has been credited for re-opening the doors for competing genres such as hip hop and afroswing that were also on the rise. Acts that would rise within the hip hop scene within the following years include Dave, Kojey Radical, Slowthai, Little Simz, and Loyle Carner. Dave released a "Blackbox freestyle" in 2015 which helped him rise to prominence. The following year, Dave was noticed by Canadian rapper Drake, who later featured on a remix of his song "Wanna Know".


title: British hip hop

text: Skepta, who also emerged from the grime scene, began collaborating with American hip hop group ASAP Mob. He featured with ASAP Rocky on the song "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)", the second single from his third studio album "Testing" on 26 June 2018. It was the third collaboration between both artists, following Skepta's appearance on "" and ASAP Rocky's appearance on Skepta's "Vicious EP" in 2017, which also featured ASAP Nast, Lil B, and Section Boys. The song was successful in a number of countries, peaking at number 45 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 18 on the UK Singles Chart. It was later certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Skepta also collaborated with American rapper Playboi Carti on the single "Lean 4 Real" from his debut studio album Die Lit, also released in 2018.


title: British hip hop

text: In 2017, Dave did a freestyle on American radio station Power 106 Los Angeles which has accumulated over 1,000,000 views on YouTube. In 2018, Dave achieved his first UK number-one hit with "Funky Friday" which featured British rapper Fredo. Dave's debut album, "Psychodrama" (2019), debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and became the most-streamed first-week British rap album in the UK with a total of 23.6 million streams. The album was highly acclaimed and won Dave a Mercury Prize.


title: British hip hop

text: Slowthai released his debut studio album, "Nothing Great About Britain," in 2019. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. He performed at the 2019 Mercury Prize ceremony, where he controversially held a fake severed head of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on stage. Little Simz also released "Grey Area" in 2019 to much acclaim.


title: British hip hop

text: Road rap (also known as British gangsta rap or simply UK rap) is a genre of music pioneered in South London, primarily in Brixton and Peckham. The genre was pioneered by groups such as PDC, SMS, SN1, North Star, MashTown and U.S.G. and artists such as Giggs and K Koke and later Nines and Sneakbo. The genre came to the fore as a backlash against the perceived commercialisation of grime in the mid-late 2000s in London. The genre came to prominence around 2007 with the rise of Giggs. Road rap retained the explicit depictions of violence and British gang culture found in some early grime music and combines it with a musical style more similar to American gangsta rap than the sound system influenced music of grime, dubstep, UK garage, jungle, reggae and dub.


title: British hip hop

text: Gangs played a large part in the genre, with gangs such as the Peckham Boys (with its various sets such as SN1, PYG, and OPB), based in Peckham and GAS Gang, based in Brixton, with members becoming notable in the road rap scene during the 2000s.


title: British hip hop

text: The road rap scene centres around mixtape releases and YouTube videos with some of the genres more popular acts getting mainstream recognition. The genre has been criticised for the relentless nihilism and violence in its lyrics as well as its links to gangs and gun crime with many rappers serving prison sentences. In keeping with grime, road rap has suffered from pre-emptive policing with Giggs claiming that the Metropolitan Police have set out to deny him the opportunity to make a living from music having banned him from touring. In 2011, Stigs was served the first ever gang injunction that banned him from rapping about anything that may encourage violence.


title: British hip hop

text: In the early 2010s, the American genre drill began to emerge in the UK, pushed by groups such as 150, 67, and Section Boyz. UK drill has been referred to as subgenre of road rap due to the influence it's had on the genre. Road rap also went on to influence afroswing, which emerged in the mid-2010s.


title: British hip hop

text: In several interviews, M Huncho has described his more tone-down, melodic style and moderately humbler approach when it comes to lyrics as his own derivative take on UK trap music, in a genre he has personally dubbed as "Trap Wave". Wolverhampton artist Scarlxrd implements an energetic aesthetic and tone with explosively brazen screaming vocals, and dark yet reflectively intense and meaningful lyricism in an essentially self-pioneered style known as "trap-metal" or "ragecore"; a fusion of trap music and screaming vocals. Scarlxrd has cited some of his main inspirations and influences as including the likes of Eminem, Bring Me the Horizon, Limp Bizkit, DMX, Slipknot, Travis Scott and Linkin Park, among others.


title: British hip hop

text: Since grime's post-millennial boom period coincided with UK hip-hop's, the eagerly anticipated commercial breakout of the latter did not happen. Instead, acts such as Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, N-Dubz and Chip were signed to major labels and their traditional sound tweaked to fit a pop sensibility. However the lineage of these, and many UK rappers, is unquestionably grime rather than UK hip-hop.


title: British hip hop

text: There is a common belief within the underground hip hop community that true hip hop is music relevant primarily to the disenfranchised listeners, rather than the mass market. Because of the belief that mainstream acts are paid large sums of money by the major labels to make music tailored to the current mass market, these artists often face a backlash and accusations of 'selling out' from the underground community.


title: British hip hop

text: The growth of British hip hop was given a boost when in 2002, the BBC launched a digital radio station 1Xtra devoted to "new black music" including hip hop, R&B, soul, UK garage, dancehall, grime and drum and bass, however 1Xtra does not play exclusively British hip hop. The cable and satellite channel, Channel AKA (formerly Channel U, now known as Now 70s) also had the profile of British hip hop and grime.


title: British hip hop

text: YouTube was also a very important outlet for upcoming and significant artists. Channels include Link Up TV, GRM Daily, SB.TV, Pressplay Media and Mixtape Madness.


title: British hip hop

text: Women have contributed to hip hop's evolution in Britain from the beginning. Female British rappers include Alesha Dixon, Baby Blue, Estelle, Lady Leshurr, Lady Sovereign, Little Simz, M.I.A., Monie Love, Nadia Rose, Shystie, NoLay, Stefflon Don, Mercury prize winners Ms. Dynamite and Speech Debelle and music producer Mizz Beats. Other British female rappers have included Cookie Crew, She Rockers, Wee Papa Girl Rappers, C-Mone and Envy.


title: British hip hop

text: Neneh Cherry, born in Stockholm, moved to England when she was 14 years old, and contributed to early British hip hop. "Raw Like Sushi" (1989) was solely produced by British producers and was a massive hit in both the UK and US. Cherry continues to produce and release music today.


title: British hip hop

text: Women in hip hop often confront a large amount of sexist stereotyping; however some female British rappers such as Lady Sovereign and M.I.A. have achieved success both in the UK and US. Artists such as Ms Dynamite, M.I.A. and Speech Debelle have also become known for political and social commentary in their music. Singer, songwriter and rapper Estelle said of the difficult position of female rappers: "I think they get a tough ride because some of them don't see themselves above and beyond the bullshit and no one's really given them that break."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The Battle of Remagen was an 18-day battle during the Allied invasion of Germany in World War II from 7 to 25 March 1945 when American forces unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine intact. They were able to hold it against German opposition and build additional temporary crossings. The presence of a bridgehead across the Rhine advanced by three weeks the Western Allies' planned crossing of the Rhine into the German interior.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: After capturing the Siegfried Line, the 9th Armored Division of the U.S. First Army had advanced unexpectedly quickly towards the Rhine. They were very surprised to see one of the last bridges across the Rhine still standing. The Germans had wired the bridge with about of demolition charges. When they tried to blow it up, only a portion of the explosives detonated. U.S. forces captured the bridge and rapidly expanded their first bridgehead across the Rhine, two weeks before Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's meticulously planned Operation Plunder. The GIs' actions prevented the Germans from regrouping east of the Rhine and consolidating their positions.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The battle for control of the Ludendorff Bridge caused both the American and German forces to employ new weapons and tactics in combat for the first time. Over the next 10 days, after its capture on 7 March 1945 and until its failure on 17 March, the Germans used virtually every weapon at their disposal to try to destroy the bridge. This included infantry and armor, howitzers, mortars, floating mines, mined boats, a railroad gun, and the giant 600 mm Karl-Gerät super-heavy mortar. They also attacked the bridge using the newly developed Arado Ar 234B-2 turbojet bombers. To protect the bridge against aircraft, the Americans positioned the largest concentration of anti-aircraft weapons during World War II leading to "the greatest antiaircraft artillery battles in American history". The Americans counted 367 different German Luftwaffe aircraft attacking the bridge over the next 10 days. The Americans claimed to have shot down nearly 30% of the aircraft dispatched against them. The German air offensive failed.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 14 March, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered Schutzstaffel (SS) General Hans Kammler to fire V2 rockets to destroy the bridge. This marked the first time the missiles had been used against a tactical objective and the only time they were fired on a German target. The 11 missiles launched killed six Americans and a number of German citizens in nearby towns, but none landed closer than some from the bridge. When the Germans sent a squad of seven naval demolition swimmers wearing Italian underwater breathing apparatus, the Americans were ready. For the first time in combat, they had deployed the top-secret Canal Defence Lights which successfully detected the frogmen in the dark, who were all killed or captured.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The sudden capture of a bridge across the Rhine was front-page news in American newspapers. The unexpected availability of a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine more than two weeks in advance of Operation Plunder allowed Allied high commander Dwight Eisenhower to alter his plans to end the war. The Allies were able to rapidly transport five divisions across the Rhine into the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland. The bridge had endured months of aircraft bombing, direct artillery hits, near misses, and deliberate demolition attempts. It finally collapsed at 3:00 pm on 17 March, killing 33 American engineers and wounding 63. But by then U.S. Army combat engineers had finished building a tactical steel treadway bridge and a heavy duty pontoon bridge followed by a Bailey bridge across the Rhine. Over 125,000 troops established a bridgehead of six divisions, about 125,000 troops, with accompanying tanks, artillery pieces, and trucks, across the Rhine. The Americans broke out of the bridgehead on 25 March 1945, 18 days after the bridge was captured. Some German and American military authorities agreed that capturing the bridge shortened the war, although one German general disputed this. The Ludendorff Bridge was not rebuilt following World War II. In 2020, plans were initiated to build a replacement suspension bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. There is no other river crossing for 44 km (27 mi) and few ferries. Local communities indicated an interest to help fund the project and an engineer was commissioned to draw up plans.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Romans originally built a settlement at Remagen in the first century AD. Over that long period of time, it had been destroyed multiple times by invading armies from several nations. The town was rebuilt each time. In March 1945 about 5,000 people lived in the small resort town. The Rhine near Remagen was about wide. The Ludendorff Bridge had been built by Russian prisoners of war during World War I to help transport supplies from Germany to France.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The bridge connected the village of Erpel on the eastern side with Remagen on the west bank. It had been named after the World War I German General Erich Ludendorff, who had been a key proponent for building this bridge. It carried two rail lines and pedestrian catwalks on either side across the Rhine. The total length was , while the main steel structure was long. The arch spanned and at its highest measured above the water. Two trusses on either side of the central arch were both . An elevated overpass on each end of the span connected the approach to the bridge and allowed a rail line or roads to pass underneath, parallel to the river. The bridge was normally about above the Rhine. Since it was built for military purposes, it had solidly built stone towers on either side of the rails on both banks, equipped with fighting loopholes and accommodations for up to a battalion of troops. On the eastern side, a tunnel was cut at almost 90° through Erpeler Ley, a steeply sided hill that overlooks the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The designers built cavities into the piers where demolition charges could be placed, but when the French occupied the Rhineland after World War I, they filled these cavities with concrete. After the Germans reacquired the Rhineland and control of the bridge, in 1938 they attached 60 zinc-lined boxes to the bridge girders, each capable of containing of explosives. The system was designed to detonate all 60 charges at once, though by 7 March 1945, the charges had been removed and were stored nearby. They placed additional charges on the two piers. Within an inspection shaft in the west pier, the Germans placed of explosives, and on the east pier they attached two charges of to the girders connecting the bridge to the pier. The approximately of charges were attached to an electric fuse and connected by electrical cables run through protective steel pipes to a control circuit located in the entrance to the tunnel under Erpeler Ley. As a backup, the Germans attached a primer cord to the charges under the eastern pier that could be manually ignited.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: During the autumn of 1944, the Allies had repeatedly attempted to destroy the bridge to disrupt German efforts to reinforce their forces to the west. On 9 October 1944, a raid by 33 bombers damaged the bridge and it was reported as destroyed, but the bridge was back in use again on 9 November. A few weeks later on 28 December 1944, 71 B-24 Liberator bombers were dispatched to strike the bridge. They hit it with four bombs but the Germans quickly repaired it. The 446th Bombardment Group attacked the bridge again on the next four consecutive days from 28 to 31 December 1944. More bombers struck at the bridge during raids in January and February 1945. On 5 March 1945, B-24 bombers from the 491st Bombardment Group attempted one more time to destroy the bridge, but failed.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Operation Lumberjack was planned to prepare the way for Field Marshal Montgomery's massive Operation Plunder, an operation that rivaled the Normandy landings in size and complexity, eventually involving over a million troops and more than 30 divisions. Montgomery's typically cautious plan was to cross the Rhine in late March and invade central Germany. It included a large array of transport aircraft to ferry paratroopers and glider-borne infantry across the Rhine to set up the river crossing.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Montgomery's ground assault plan included the British 21st Army Group, consisting of the British Second Army, First Canadian Army and the attached US 9th Army. They were charged with crossing the Rhine north of the Ruhr following the airborne assault. To the south, Montgomery would be supported by Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group, including the First Army under the command of Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges. Hodges was given the objective of capturing dams on the Rur River and then trapping the Germans in a pincer move west of the Rhine. Plans for Operation Plunder had begun in England in August 1944, almost since Operation Market Garden failed.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: After pushing the Germans back during the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies quickly advanced into western Germany. General Eisenhower established a twofold mission. The first was to prevent German forces defending the west bank of the Rhine River from escaping to the east bank. The second was to allow the Allied forces to select a river crossing where they could concentrate the attack leaving minimum forces defending the remainder of the front. The Allies held little hope they would be able to capture a Rhine River bridge intact. Instead, they brought up huge amounts of bridging equipment to the front. But Eisenhower left a standing order that if any unit found a bridge intact, they were to "exploit its use to the fullest, and establish a bridgehead on the other side".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 1 March 1945, of the 22 road and 25 railroad bridges across the Rhine, only four remained standing: the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne (destroyed by the Germans on 6 March); the (blown up by the Germans on the evening of 8 March); and the at Urmitz (destroyed by the Germans on 9 March); the Americans would capture the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on 7 March. In early March, units assigned to Operation Lumberjack, including the U.S. Army's 9th Armored Division, were tasked with mopping up elements of the German Army trapped on the west bank of the Rhine and to prevent a counterattack against the Ninth Army's flank.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: To the south of the First Army, Lieutenant General George Patton's Third Army would also support Montgomery's advance across the Rhine. But the First Army had been delayed by two weeks when the Germans released water from the Rur river dams, flooding the valley below and slowing down the advance of Hodges' units.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: During the two weeks that the valley was flooded, Hitler refused to allow Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, to withdraw German forces to the east side of the Rhine. Hitler believed that this move would only delay the inevitable fight and ordered Von Rundstedt to fight where his forces stood. By the time the flooding subsided and the U.S. Ninth Army was able to cross the Rur on 23 February, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. The German divisions on the Rhine's west bank were cut to pieces. About 280,000 German troops were captured and another 120,000 were killed, wounded, or missing in action.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Major General John W. Leonard, commanding officer of the 9th Armored Division, later recalled that on 6 March, III Corps commander Major General John Millikin, referring to the Ludendorff Bridge, told him over the phone, "You see that black line on the map. If you can seize that your name will go down in history." In the last week of February, Colonel Charles G. Patterson, the anti-aircraft artillery officer for III Corps, led a meeting for brigade and group commanders during which they discussed what they would do if they were lucky enough to capture a bridge intact.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 2 March, Millikin assigned the 14th Tank Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Leonard E. Engemann to the north flank and attached it to the 1st Division. The 9th Armored's Combat Command B attacked towards the Erft river, and Combat Command A advanced towards the Ahr river. They were to then move south to capture Remagen and Sinzig before linking up with the flanks of Patton's Third Army.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the right flank of the First Army south of Bonn, the 9th Armored Division moved swiftly, and the closer they got to the Rhine, the more quickly they advanced. The speed of their movement towards the Rhine surprised the Germans.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the First Army captured Cologne and reached the west bank of the Rhine, it was greeted as a major success of the Allied campaign, but German engineers dropped the Hohenzollern Bridge on 6 March, shortly before the 3rd Armored Division arrived.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: General Eisenhower offered his generals some latitude in choosing the exact points for crossing the Rhine, though two areas where the Rhine valley was relatively broad were generally considered favorable. The first was between Cologne and Bonn in the north, and the other was between Andernach and Koblenz in the south. Both had some challenges, but offered relatively rapid access to the autobahn and into the Lahn river valley connecting to the Frankfurt–Kassel corridor. The least favored crossing points were in the area around the railroad bridge at Remagen. The upstream confluence of the Ahr River south of Remagen added considerable speed and turbulence to the Rhine at Remagen. The Americans in the area around Remagen were not even supposed to cross the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Geographically, the northwest shoulder of the bridge was situated on a shallow salient exposed to the eastern bank of the Rhine. There was only one primary road into the town of Remagen from the west, and that road did not parallel the normal Allied axis of supply. From a logistical viewpoint, the location of the bridge was badly situated near the southern boundary of the First US Army.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The ground on the eastern side of the bridge rose steeply from the river. Inland, the steeply sloped terrain and gullies provided natural tank traps against advancing armor. The rough, wooded Westerwald forest rose from the Rhine to elevations ranging from about inland. The primary road network on the eastern side was severely limited, consisting of only a river road and two narrow mountain roads, any of which could be easily blocked by the Germans.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: General Gustav von Zangen's Fifteenth Army staff believed that the Allies would cross the Rhine using the open terrain of the Rheinbach Valley near the Ahr River. Zangen thought that the Rheinbach Valley offered the Allies a natural funnel for military operations. He argued with German Army Group B commander Field Marshal Walter Model, "The Americans would have to be stupid not to take advantage of this hole and push tanks toward the Rhine. I think they will use this valley—like water flowing downhill".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Zangen believed that the Rhine River towns of Sinzig and Remagen were likely targets of Hodges' First Army. Zangen tried and failed to persuade Model to block the Americans by withdrawing two corps from the West Wall defenses along the German frontier and placing them at Remagen to protect the Ludendorff Bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: A number of command changes in February and early March complicated German command of the Rhine crossings. Before the U.S. advance on the Rhine, the 22 road and 25 railroad bridges across the Rhine were the responsibility of the German Wehrkreis, or military districts. These soldiers did not report to an Army command but to the military arm of the Nazi Party, the Waffen-SS. During February, responsibility for the Ludendorff Bridge was transferred from Wehrkreis VI to Wehrkreis XII. In late February, German forces were reeling backwards and they had instituted a number of command changes to try to stem the Allied advance. Responsibility for the bridges, including the Ludendorff Bridge, was shifted to the Army, although the Wehrkreis officers tried to retain their command authority. The anti-aircraft units around the bridges did not report to the army, the Wehrkreis or the Waffen SS, but to the Luftwaffe.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 1 March during U.S. Operation Grenade, the Fifth Panzer and Fifteenth Armies switched zones and responsibility for the bridges. Lt. Gen. Walter Botsch, Commander of LIII Armeekorps, was assigned to defend the Bonn-Remagen area. He visited the Rhineland to inspect the troops and on 5 March found that the Ludendorff Bridge was defended by only 36 men, most of them convalescents recovering from injuries, along with a few engineers and anti-aircraft gun crews. Botsch promised Captain Willi Bratge, the combat commander for the bridge, that he would send a battalion of men to help defend the bridge, but his request was turned down. He also requested without success laborers, additional explosives, radios, and signal equipment. He was promised a heavy anti-aircraft battalion, but it never arrived.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: By 6 March, the 9th Armored was already just from the Rhine. On the same day, Botsch was so quickly transferred that he did not have time to brief his replacement, Generalmajor Richard von Bothmer. Bothmer was unable to visit Remagen, as he was concentrating on defending Bonn. Instead, he dispatched a liaison officer to Remagen the evening of 6 March, but he was caught up by the American's rapid advance and was captured when he accidentally entered their lines. When retreating Germans informed Bratge on the evening of 6 March that the Americans were nearing Remagen, Bratge tried to contact Botsch, unaware that he had been reassigned.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Hitler had issued orders that the Siegfried Line was to be held at all costs. The rapid Allied penetration of the border fortifications had disrupted German communications, command structure, and their entire defense of the west bank of the Rhine. It would have been logical to fall back to the east side of the Rhine and regroup, but Hitler absolutely refused to allow a retreat and irrationally demanded that his Army recapture the territory it had lost. Units that were threatened with the possibility of being overrun or surrounded could not fall back to a more defensible position. To protect themselves from Hitler's wrath, a court-martial and a firing squad, commanders falsified reports to cover actual losses. To shift the blame to someone else, they issued orders that could not be realistically fulfilled. The German troops, thoroughly routed by the beating they had been receiving, could not hold on to the area they controlled, much less retake ground. As a result, the Americans advanced even more rapidly towards the Rhine. An unintended consequence was that German forces paid less attention to the bridges across the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 6 March, General of the Cavalry Edwin Rothkirch, commanding officer of LIII Armeekorps with responsibility for the Remagen area, wandered into U.S. lines and was captured. In the midst of this confusion, General der Infanterie Otto Hitzfeld, the new commanding officer of LXVII Corps, was told at 1:00 am on 7 March that he was now responsible for defending the Ludendorff Bridge. Hitzfeld dispatched his adjutant, Major Hans Scheller, to take command of Remagen. Scheller left at 3:00 am and took a radio unit of eight men but during their trip they had to route around American tanks and ran low on gas, forcing them to detour further so they could refuel. The radio unit got separated and Scheller didn't arrive until 11:15 am, less than two hours before the Americans. The German commandant at Remagen, Captain Willi Bratge was at first relieved when Scheller announced he was assuming command, but then learned that Scheller had not brought the battalion of reinforcements with him that Botsch had promised to send.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: During 6 March, the III Flak Korps anti-aircraft gun crews emplaced on top of the Erpeler Ley, strategically overlooking the Ludendorff Bridge, had been ordered by the Luftwaffe to help defend Koblenz. The replacement unit was not motorized and was placed on the outskirts of Remagen. As the Americans advanced towards the Rhine on the night of 6–7 March, 14 men from the anti-aircraft gun crews deserted. Bratge only learned about the replacement unit's presence on 7 March when he saw what was left of the unit manhandling its guns across the bridge. Aware of the Americans' impending arrival, he angrily ordered the unit's Luftwaffe commander to get the weapons moved to the top of Erpeler Ley as quickly as possible, but the units were not yet in place at 2:00 pm when the first Americans arrived.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Bratge commanded only 36 convalescing soldiers, some of whom could not even fire a weapon. The bridge was also defended by an engineer company of 125 men commanded by Captain Karl Friesenhahn, 180 Hitlerjugend, a Luftwaffe antiaircraft unit of 200 men, 20 men from Battery 3./FlakLehruVersAbt 900 (rocket battery), 120 Eastern "volunteers," and roughly 500 civilian Volksturm, totalling about 1000 troops. Most of these were ill-equipped and poorly trained.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 6 March, the last 800 troops of the 277th Volksgrenadier Division crossed the bridge. On the morning of 7 March, German engineers put down wood planks to allow vehicles to use the bridge. Captain Bratge attempted to persuade the soldiers crossing the bridge to stay and defend it, but most were leaderless stragglers and their only concern was to get across the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The German defensive doctrine called for positioning the majority of forces at the front lines, leaving minimal troops to reinforce rear areas.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the afternoon of 7 March 1945, Lt. Col. Leonard Engemann led Task Force Engemann towards Remagen, a small village of about 5,000 residents on the Rhine with the objective of capturing the town. The task force, part of Combat Command B, consisted of C Troop of the 89th Reconnaissance Squadron manning M8 Light Armored Cars and M3 Half-tracks; Company A of 27th Armored Infantry Battalion (27th AIB) equipped with M3 Half-tracks, commanded by Major Murray Deevers; one platoon of Company B, 9th Armored Engineer Battalion (9th AEB) led by Lt. Hugh Mott; and three companies of the 14th Tank Battalion (14th TB): Company A (led by 22-year-old Lt. Karl H. Timmermann); Company B (led by Lt. Jack Liedke); and Company C (led by Lt. William E. McMaster).


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The three tank companies of the 14th TB each consisted of three platoons. 1st Platoon of Company A, 14th TB, led by Lt. John Grimball, had been assigned five of the newest heavy-duty T26E3 Pershing tanks, although only four were operational on 7 March. The other platoons were each equipped with five M4A3 Sherman tanks, and the company also had a command unit of three more Sherman tanks. Their orders were to capture the town of Remagen, and then continue south to link up with Patton's Third Army, but were not given any specific instructions regarding the Ludendorff Bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: At 12:56, scouts from 89th Reconnaissance Squadron arrived on a hill on the north side of Remagen overlooking the village and were astonished to see that the Ludendorff Bridge was still standing. It was one of three remaining bridges across the Rhine that the Germans had not yet blown up in advance of the Allied armies' advance. Lt. Timmermann and Grimball followed the scouts on the rise to see for themselves and radioed the surprising news to Task Force Commander Engemann. Arriving on the rise, Engemann could see retreating German vehicles and forces filling Remagen's streets, all heading over the bridge, which was full of soldiers, civilians, vehicles and even livestock. Previous attacks by Allied aircraft had destroyed the vessels used to ferry civilians and workers across the Rhine. All were now forced to use the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Captain Bratge was in Remagen on the western approach to the bridge directing traffic onto the bridge. Timmermann called for artillery to fire on the bridge using proximity fuses to slow down the German retreat, but the artillery commander refused because he could not be sure that U.S. troops would not be hit by the shells.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When Operations Officer of Combat Command B Maj. Ben Cothran arrived and saw that the bridge was still standing, he radioed Brig. General William M. Hoge, commanding officer of the Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division. Hoge joined them as quickly as he could. Engemann was cautiously considering his options when Hoge ordered him to immediately move into town and to capture the bridge as quickly as possible. Timmermann had been promoted only the night before to commander of Company A, and Engemann ordered him and his company of dismounted infantry into Remagen supported by A Company/14th Tank Battalion. Hoge had no intelligence on the number and size of German forces on the east bank. The standing bridge could have been a trap. Hoge risked losing men if the Germans allowed U.S. forces to cross before destroying it and isolating the American troops on the east bank. But the opportunity was too great to pass up.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Battalion Commander Major Murray Deevers asked Timmermann, "Do you think you can get your company across the bridge?" Timmermann replied, "Well, we can try it, sir." Deevers answered, "Go ahead." "What if the bridge blows up in my face?" Timmermann asked, but Deevers did not answer.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: At 1:50 pm, the troops of A/27/9 AIB set out for the town. Thirty minutes later, Engemann led the 17 tanks of A/14/9 AIB forward. The troops and tanks arrived at about the same time and advanced quickly through Remagen against light resistance. The Germans relied for local defense on Volkssturm, citizens who were conscripted close to their homes in the belief that they would defend their towns and villages. German defensive policy did not include planning for defending rear areas in depth. There were no antitank ditches or mines, barbed wire, or trenches on the route to Remagen. The few defensive obstacles that had been constructed were too weak to block tanks or had been placed in open terrain, and the roadblocks they had built usually allowed plenty of room for vehicles to pass. The only defense that slowed the Americans down was a machine gun manned by infantry over the town square, which two of the Pershings quickly dispatched. Relatively unmolested, the Americans arrived in strength at the western end of the bridge and the tanks began covering the bridge and the east shore with tank rounds, destroying a locomotive attached to a string of freight cars on the rail line parallel to the river.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: At about 3:00 pm, U.S. soldiers learned from a German soldier captured on the edge of Remagen that the bridge was scheduled to be destroyed at 4:00 pm. Timmermann called for artillery to fire on Erpel with burning white phosphorus shells to create a smoke screen.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Soon after the American troops arrived on the ridge overlooking Remagen, German forces on the west bank near the town were alerted to the approaching enemy armor and raced back across the bridge. Bratge wanted to demolish the bridge as early as possible to avoid capture, but he had to first get written authorization from Major Hans Scheller, who had only assumed command at 11:15 am. By the time the Americans arrived, most of the civilian "Volkssturm" had melted away, leaving the main German force on the eastern side of the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Written permission was required because on 14–15 October 1944, an American bomb had struck the chamber containing the demolition charges on the Mulheim Bridge in Cologne, prematurely destroying the bridge. Hitler was angered by this incident and ordered those "responsible" for the destruction of the Mulheim Bridge to be court-martialed. He also ordered that demolition explosives should not be laid in place until the very last moment, when the Allies were within of the bridge. The bridges should only be demolished following an order in writing from the officer in charge, and only as a last resort and at the last possible moment. This order left officers responsible for destroying bridges nervous about both the consequences if they blew up the bridge too soon and if they failed to blow it up at all.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When Major Scheller saw how inadequately the bridge was defended, he attempted to commandeer passing German troops including a vehicle carrying five men and a machine gun, but the driver simply accelerated the vehicle across the bridge. Scheller concluded the bridge could not be defended and was ready to destroy it when Lieutenant Karl Peters pleaded for extra time to get his unit across the bridge. Peters, commanding "3rd Battery of FlakLehruVersAbt 900 (o)" (a multiple rocket launcher battery of "stationary Anti-Aircraft Training and Testing Battalion 900"), was in charge of the new, top secret Henschel Hs 297 rocket launcher system. It could fire 24 high-velocity anti-aircraft rockets with tremendous accuracy and he could not allow them to fall into enemy hands. Scheller knew artillery was in short supply and held up blowing the charges.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Captain Karl Friesenhahn was the technical or bridge commander and in charge of the demolition charges. Captain Willi Bratge had requested of military explosives, but at 11:00 am on 7 March he received only half the amount requested, . Worse, he found he had been sent "Donarit", a much weaker ammonium nitrate-based industrial explosive used in mining. With no other option, he placed all on the southeastern pier of the bridge. At 2:00 pm, as the first elements of the U.S. forces came close to the western approach, he detonated a charge under the stone archway that connected the approach embankment with the bridge, blowing a crater in the road bed, hoping it would slow down tanks and infantry. Scheller and Bratge entered the railroad tunnel where the electric switch controlling the detonators was located. Friesenhahn followed them, but before he could get to the tunnel, the concussion from an exploding shell knocked him unconscious. He regained his senses 15 minutes later and continued towards the tunnel. Bratge yelled at Friesenhahn to blow up the bridge. Friesenhahn replied they had to get the order in writing from Scheller, who was at the other end of the tunnel that curved at almost 90° under Erpeler Ley. Bratge ran to find Scheller, got the order in writing, and when he returned to tell Friesenhahn to detonate the charges, Friesenhahn in turn required Bratge to give him the order in writing.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: German machine gun crews in the towers that guarded the western approach to the bridge opened up on the advancing American troops. At 3:20 pm, Friesenhahn made the last connections to the detonator and twisted the handle, but nothing happened. He tried again and all they heard was the sound of American shells hitting the area around them. Both Friesenhahn and Bratge knew the dire consequences to them personally and to the German defensive situation if they failed to destroy the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Friesenhahn decided that the electrical circuit must have been broken by the shelling and sought volunteers to repair it, but machine gun and tank fire persuaded him there was insufficient time. Corporal Anton Faust volunteered to leave the tunnel under Erpeler Ley to manually light the primer cord to the explosives attached to the eastern pier that had been placed earlier in the day. He ran through the small arms fire, exploding tank shells, smoke, and haze, lit the primer, and ran back to the tunnel.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: At 3:50 pm, 10 minutes before they believed the Germans were scheduled to blow the bridge up, the guns of Company A, 14th Tank Battalion, drove the German defenders from the bridge road surface and from the stone piers of the bridge. In addition, the tanks engaged the flak guns on the east bank which were opposing the crossing.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Company commander 2d Lt. Timmermann led an under-strength squad of men from the 27 AIB onto the west side of the bridge, despite the risk that the bridge could be destroyed with them on it. Just as the Americans approached, Corporal Faust set off the secondary explosives. Both the Germans and the Americans watched the smoke and haze clear from the explosion and were shocked to see the bridge was still standing. Only the charge on the southeast pier, two-thirds of the way across, had exploded, but the weak industrial explosive had failed to bring down the well-built steel bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The explosion blew large holes in the planking covering the rails above the pier, twisted some of the steel supporting girders, and cut a gap in the truss supporting the southern side of the bridge. Timmermann saw Germans running around and assumed they were preparing a second blast. Members of the first platoon gained control of the two bridge towers on the west bank and captured two German machine gun crews. They then used the towers to provide covering fire for the troops crossing the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Timmermann deployed half of his men to the south side where German machine gun fire from the stone tower on the far right end was most intense to provide covering fire. He ordered the other half of his men to remove the demolition charges from the western half of the bridge. Sgt. Mike Chinchar led an infantry platoon down the catwalk on the left side of the bridge, dodging from one bridge pillar to the next.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Timmermann was unexpectedly joined by a three-man detachment from 2/B/9 AEB led by Lt. Hugh Mott, accompanied by Sgt. Eugene Dorland and Sgt. John Reynolds, who climbed under the bridge and began cutting the wires leading to the remaining demolition charges.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The railroad tracks on the bridge were covered with wood planks, allowing vehicles to pass. Once on the bridge, the American infantry came under fire from German snipers on a partially submerged boat on the east bank and MG 42 machine gun fire from the eastern towers of the bridge, as well as from houses in Erpel. A 14th Battalion Sherman tank destroyed the boat. All the tanks joined in shelling the opposite side of the river and the infantry covered the bridge and eastern side with machine gun fire, enabling ground troops to get on the bridge. The tanks successfully provided fire support to the infantry and suppressed fire from the German positions.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The U.S. troops dodged German machine gun and small arms fire on top of and under the bridge, moving from bridge girder to girder, cutting demolition wires and tossing explosive charges into the river, not knowing if the Germans would detonate the rest of them at any second.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Lt. Timmermann was among those removing the charges. CBS Radio war correspondent Everett Holles wrote about Timmermann removing the charges in his book, "Unconditional Surrender".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: As they crossed the bridge, they found that the catwalk near the eastern pier on the upstream side of the bridge was gone.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Drabik ran the entire bridge with only one pause as the Germans tried to blow up the bridge. His squad, with other soldiers, secured the eastern side of the bridge by running through the settling dust and smoke from the explosion. The American troops got across the bridge to the east bank in less than fifteen minutes. Drabik was the first American soldier to cross this bridge, and the first enemy since the Napoleonic Wars to cross the Rhine and capture German territory. Drabik and his entire squad made it across the bridge without injury. Drabik later said:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Sergeant Joe DeLisio ran through the intense German gunfire and Lt. Karl H. Timmermann and the others followed him. Bratge tried to organize a counterattack to throw the Americans back across the bridge, but the American tanks' shell fire stopped him. He looked for Scheller and found he had already escaped out the far end of the tunnel.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Lt. Timmermann, who had been born in Frankfurt am Main about from their position, was the first American officer to cross the bridge. Following him, Sgt. Dorland reached the far shore and destroyed the main demolition switch box. Sgt. DeLisio captured a German machine gun team in the eastern tower. The rest of A/27 AIB followed them, and after the eastern shore was initially secured, Lt. Mott led B Company, 9th Engineers, in finding and eliminating more live demolition charges on the bridge. A platoon led by Lt. Emmett Burrows climbed Erpeler Ley and cleared out the snipers, after which he and his men were hit by concentrated artillery and mortar fire. They then climbed down the hill towards the town to the far entrance of the railroad tunnel.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Inside the tunnel, Bratge tried to round up all available men and organize an escape towards Osberg where they could form a counterattack, but were surprised to find the Americans had already gained control of both tunnel entrances. The Americans fired machine guns and threw hand grenades into the tunnel, killing a young boy and wounding several civilians. They begged Bratge to tell the Americans to stop firing, and then on their own fashioned a white flag and surrendered. The remaining sappers and convalescing troops followed them out, and Friesenhahn and Bratge were the last two captured within the tunnel.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Lt. Mott and his two sergeants found about of unexploded charges on top of one of the piers. They discovered that one of the steel pipes containing the wires connecting to the main charge had been severed, possibly by artillery. Combat engineers also found a demolition charge of TNT had not exploded when the blasting cap failed. A Polish worker later said another worker had tampered with the blasting caps, though his claims could not be verified. The Americans later conducted an intensive search for additional German demolitions and found another in wells inside the piers.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Major General John Millikin, commanding officer of III Corps, had previously ordered Leonard to direct Combat Command A of the 9th AID south on the west bank of the Rhine, across the Ahr River, and connect with Patton's Third Army. Hoge did not have orders to cross or capture the bridge, but he decided to disobey his orders and reroute those forces across the bridge to reinforce the bridgehead instead. With some forces already on the bridge, Hoge got new orders to stop what he was doing and move his unit south to Koblenz. Hoge waited for a platoon to reach the far bank, hoping the bridge would stand, and then called 9th Armored Division commander Maj. Gen. John W. Leonard to inform him the bridge had been captured. If his gamble failed, Hoge risked a court-martial. He later described his feelings in that moment:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Colonel Harry Johnson, Leonard's chief of staff, relayed the news up the chain of command to Colonel James H. Phillips, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army III Corps at about 5:00 pm. Millikin ordered that the 47th Infantry Regiment be motorized and dispatched to Remagen as soon as possible. Millikin attached the 7th Armored Division to III Corps so they could relieve the 9th Infantry Division who were already crossing the Rhine. He also ordered the 2nd Infantry Division to relieve the 78th Infantry Division so it too could cross the Rhine and defend the bridgehead. First Army commander Courtney Hodges confirmed Millikin's decision to continue to enlarge the bridgehead.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Hodges relayed the news to General Omar Bradley's 12th US Army Group headquarters at 8:15 pm. General Harold "Pinky" Bull, Eisenhower's G-3, was at Bradley's 12th Army Group headquarters when they learned the bridge had been captured. Bull was skeptical of any plans to use the Remagen crossing, and he told Bradley, "You're not going anywhere down there at Remagen. You've got a bridge, but it's in the wrong place. It just doesn't fit in with the plan." Bradley replied, "What the hell do you want us to do, pull back and blow it up?"


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Bradley contacted SHAEF commander Dwight Eisenhower at his forward headquarters in Reims, France, where Eisenhower was having dinner with several airborne commanders. Eisenhower's aide called him to the phone, where he learned of the bridge's capture. He told his guests, "That was Brad. He's got a bridge across the Rhine. And he apologized for it, said it was badly located at Remagen." Five divisions had been designated to seize Cologne which had already surrendered. Eisenhower told Bradley to redirect those divisions across the bridge at Remagen. Eisenhower then tactfully called Montgomery to relay the news, since it affected Montgomery's massive, long-planned Operation Plunder.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Official orders were passed to Hoge to seize the bridge. By dusk, the combat engineers had partially filled the crater in the approach ramp with a tank dozer and once the sun went down, used the darkness to begin hasty repairs of the bridge. Until midnight of 7 March, the east bank was secured by only about 120 troops from Company A, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion and 1st Platoon, Company B, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, 9th Armored Division. If the Germans had mounted an effective counterattack against this small force, they might have prevented the Americans from establishing the bridgehead.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: "Stars and Stripes" combat correspondent Andy Rooney was away when he heard the bridge had been captured. He was the first reporter at the bridgehead, followed shortly afterward by Howard Cowan of the Associated Press. Forty years after the event, he wrote about his luck: "It was a reporter's dream. One of the great stories of the war had fallen into my lap." Cowan was the first reporter across the bridge. When news of the bridge capture reached American newspapers, it was front-page news. Rooney rated the capture of the bridge as one of the top five events of the entire European war, alongside D-Day.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Soon after its capture, a large sign was erected at the bridge's entrance which read, "Cross the Rhine with dry feet-courtesy of the 9th Armored Division."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: After the bridge was captured, U.S. Army military engineers and technicians from the U.S. Army engineers from the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion and specialized welders and steel workers from 1058th Bridge Construction and Repair Group immediately started work to repair battle damage, fill holes in the deck, and reinforce the bridge. At 4:30 am on 8 March, the 1st Battalion/310th Infantry Regiment/78th crossed the Ludendorff Bridge, followed in the next two days by the rest of the division. The 78th were joined by the 79th and the 99th Infantry Divisions.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The commanding officer of 7th Armored Division, Major General Robert W. Hasbrouck, was instructed to immediately move a combat command, reinforced by one battalion of infantry, to an area near Remagen where it would relieve the 60th Infantry Regiment/9th Infantry Division. The 310th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division, was the first unit to follow the 9th Armored Division across the Rhine. To maximize effective command and control, Millikin decided to initially attach all units as they crossed the river to Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division. Before long, Hoge was effectively in command of all or a portion of three divisions: the 9th, 27th, and the 78th.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: III Corps had previously attached a treadway bridge company to the 9th Armored Division's column, but the 9th needed more bridge-building resources. Over the next two days, First Army headquarters rounded up three heavy pontoon battalions, the 51st and 291st Engineer Combat Battalions, two treadway companies, and a DUKW amphibious truck company. All were assigned to III Corps and given the task of building two tactical bridges across the Rhine. The two small roads leading into Remagen from the west and south were rapidly choked for miles with hundreds of amphibious trucks, bridging equipment, anti-aircraft batteries, tanks, supply vehicles, trucks with trailers, and thousands of troops who were diverted to take advantage of the unexpected bridgehead. The approaches to the bridge were frequently backed up with troops waiting for their turn to cross the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: First Lieutenant Jack Hyde of the 9th Military Police Company was the 9th Division's officer in charge of the flow of men and materials across the bridge. He established a rigid traffic control and holding patterns that his unit enforced. Only four months before while a second lieutenant during the Battle of the Bulge, he had refused General Patton access to a restricted area. Patton demanded to be let through, and when Hyde refused, Patton asked for Hyde's name. Given Patton's penchant for a violent temper, Hyde expected a dressing down, but Patton instead made sure that Hyde was promoted to first lieutenant. Hyde was awarded the Silver Star later in March for his bravery and gallantry under fire on the approach to the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When they initially captured the bridge, the American engineers were not sure it could support the weight of the tanks, but they only had about 120 troops on the east side and they needed to reinforce them immediately. At about midnight the engineers opened the bridge to armor. At 12:15 am on 8 March, two platoons of nine Sherman tanks from Company A, 14th Tank Battalion, gingerly crept across the bridge in close formation following white tape left by the engineers outlining the holes. When they successfully reached the east bank, they moved into blocking positions to secure the bridgehead. Immediately behind the Shermans, an M10 Tank Destroyer from the 656th Tank Destroyer Battalion fell part way into the hole in the bridge deck left by the German demolition charge. The engineers briefly considered pushing the tank destroyer into the river, but decided they might further damage the bridge. They worked all night to jack the tank up and at 5:30 am finally got a tank on the east side to come back and pull the tank destroyer across the hole.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: While the bridge was blocked to vehicles, the remaining troops in Combat Command B crossed on foot. The east side of the bridge and the town of Erpel was secured overnight by the nine Sherman tanks and the troops of Combat Command B. Although the Americans had crossed the bridge successfully, their toehold on the eastern bank was tenuous. The Germans still maintained control of the heights overlooking the bridge and the area around the slim bridgehead. If the Germans had been able to organize a coordinated, concentrated counterattack within the first 48 hours, it is entirely possible they could have pushed the Americans back across the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: During the first 36 hours after capturing the bridge, the Americans moved additional units across the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the 1st Battalion, 310th Infantry Regiment crossed the bridge at 5:00 am, they turned south. They immediately ran into a strong German force that prevented them from advancing, leaving the Germans in position on the heights overlooking the bridgehead. Although the Ludendorff railroad Bridge was not well situated due to the poor road network around it, by the evening of 8 March, over 8,000 soldiers had crossed the bridge and the U.S. had expanded its bridgehead to deep and wide. On the morning of 9 March, the first ferry was crossing the Rhine carrying troops and vehicles.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: After the U.S. Army captured the bridge, during the next week they lined up anti-aircraft artillery of every description, virtually bumper to bumper to protect the bridgehead. On the afternoon of Wednesday, 7 March, Captain Carlton G. "Pappy" Denton, Commander, Battery D, squeezed his 482nd anti-aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion to the head of Combat Command B. They arrived at the bridgehead at 3:00 am on 8 March. The Army called on all of the automatic weapons battalion-sized units from each division in III Corps. Colonel James Madison, in charge of III Corps' 16th Antiaircraft Artillery Group, dispatched two batteries.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: By 6:00 am on 9 March, there were five U.S. anti-aircraft battalions watching for aircraft. Each battalion was equipped with four batteries of M3 halftracks, each armed with a M45 Quadmount anti-aircraft weapon system, each utilizing a quartet of Browning M2HB machine guns, with a total of upwards of eighty Browning machine guns defending the captured Ludendorff Bridge. During the day, the 109th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion was positioned on the west bank and the 634th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion occupied the east side. By noon, they had their SHF-band (3 GHz) SCR-584 radar and directors aligned and ready to fire on German aircraft.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Colonel Patterson, in charge of the anti-aircraft artillery for III Corps, described the anti-aircraft defenses as the "million dollar show," because "it cost the American taxpayers a million dollars in antiaircraft ammunition" every time a German aircraft dared attack the bridge. "We had anti-aircraft from water level all the way to the top of the mountain where the railroad bridge went across. My instructions to the gunners were, "Don't worry about identification. If anything approaches Remagen Bridge, shoot it down."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: U.S. Army Air Forces fighter aircraft from the 404th Fighter-Bomber Group and 359th Fighter Group maintained a strong defensive umbrella over the bridge to try to stop Luftwaffe attacks. They also conducted numerous raids on German vehicles, armor, railroad lines, and marshalling yards in the vicinity of Remagen, knocking out trains, transports, tanks, supply trucks, and reinforcements headed towards the bridgehead. On 14 March, they destroyed 21 aircraft, mostly Ju 87D Stuka dive-bombers and twin-engine Junkers Ju 88s, and damaged 21 more. On 15 March, they destroyed 256 motor transports and damaged 35 tanks and 12 armored vehicles.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the evening of 9 March, the troops on the east bank were bolstered by the 309th Infantry Regiment, the remainder of the 310th Infantry Regiment, and the 60th Infantry Regiment. On 10 March, the 311th Infantry Regiment attacked north towards Bad Honnef, while the 309th Infantry Regiment advanced northwest, encountering very strong resistance near Bruchhausen. The 47th Infantry Regiment to the east encountered significant resistance, forcing a slight withdrawal, but assisted by 310th Infantry Regiment, they again moved forward. To the southeast, the 60th Infantry Regiment advanced, and in the south, Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, moved forward south of Linz. The Allies encountered heavy resistance in places and received fire from small arms, self-propelled weapons, mortars, and artillery. The remainder of the 9th Infantry Division crossed the Rhine on the evening of 10 March.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the Ludendorff Bridge was captured on 7 March, Major Scheller tried to reach his superiors by radio and telephone, but neither was operational. He set off on a bicycle, the only available means of transportation, to report in person and got to the 67th Corps Headquarters around midnight. "Hauptmanns" Bratge and Friesenhahn, along with the other Germans inside the tunnel, were captured by U.S. soldiers who had climbed over to the far side of Erpeler Ley. Due to the inability to communicate with other forces, the Germans in the immediate area were left to counterattack with whatever local forces they could gather. There weren't any reserves readily available and most of the essential combat units that were in the area were still on the west bank, trying to get across the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: For most of the first day, Army Group B commander Field Marshal Walter Model was unaware the bridge had been captured. Like most of the German leadership in the area, he was on the move, in his case trying to save portions of the LXVI and LXVII Armeekorps which had been pushed up against the west bank of the Rhine by the 4th Armored Division above Andernach. On the night of 7 March, Model finally learned that the Allies had crossed the bridge and put General Joachim von Kortzfleisch, commander of Wehrkreis III, in charge until General der Infanterie Gustav-Adolf von Zangen could extricate the Fifteenth Army from the west bank of the Rhine. Kortzfleisch cobbled together about a hundred Luftwaffe anti-aircraft forces, Hitler Jugend, Volkssturm, and police units who attacked through the night, trying to blow the bridge up without success.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the morning on 8 March, Maj. Herbert Strobel, in charge of the engineers, received conflicting orders. Generalleutnant Richard Wirtz, his engineering officer, ordered him to continue ferrying operations to rescue German troops isolated on the west bank. Generalleutnant Kurt von Berg, in charge of Combat Area XII North, ordered him to gather every man available and counterattack. Strobel chose the latter course of action and assembled his engineers, including those manning ferries, to attack and blow the bridge. Wirtz countermanded him and ordered the ferries back into operation. When Berg found out, he was furious. Strobel managed to assemble about 100 engineers and attacked early that morning. Some of the engineers carrying explosives reached the bridge but were immediately captured.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The Germans were determined to eliminate the bridge and isolate the American units on the eastern shore. General of the Cavalry Edwin Rothkirch, commanding officer of LIII Armeekorps, had been captured on 6 March. On 9 March his superior, General Hans Felber, 7th Army commander, appointed Fritz Bayerlein in his place. Bayerlein, who had served as Gen. Erwin Rommel's chief of staff in Africa, was the former commander of the Panzer Lehr Division during the Battle of the Bulge. The Panzer Lehr, filled with some of the best instructors pulled from Germany's tank schools, had developed a reputation as the toughest and most feared Panzer division of the Wehrmacht, and Bayerlein had a reputation for promptness and efficiency.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Model gave Bayerlein 24 hours to come up with a plan. He gave Bayerlein command of the 11th Panzer Division, a force of 4,000 men, 25 tanks, and 18 artillery pieces led by General Wend von Wietersheim; the 9th Panzer Division, totaling about 600 men, 15 tanks, and 12 artillery units; the 106th Feldherrenhalle Panzer Brigade with five tanks; and a regiment of the formerly highly regarded Panzer Lehr Division, which was a shadow of its former self, comprising only about 300 men and 15 tanks. But the 11th Panzer was to the north in Düsseldorf. The lack of fuel made moving forces difficult and the route to Remagen was jammed with traffic and subject to attack by American aircraft.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Bayerlein wanted to wait for all of the units to arrive and attack in force, but Model countermanded him and required him to counterattack immediately with what units he had on hand. On 9 March, the 67th Infantry Regiment tried to stop the American progress, but their attacks were too weak and piecemeal to ensure success, as "overcast skies and limited visibility restricted aerial support during the day." Once the 11th Panzer arrived, their armored units broke down frequently, making an effective defense more difficult.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Based on intelligence received through Ultra intercepts, the U.S. III Corps G-2 intelligence officer believed that the Germans were assembling a large force to wipe out the bridgehead, but unknown to the Allies, the units that the Germans called on to push the Americans back were only "impressive on paper". None of the sizable German units attacking the bridgehead were cohesive and many were severely understrength after being reduced during the Battle of the Bulge. From 10 to 13 March, the German forces included mostly the remains of 11 divisions.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Reinforcements included the 3rd Panzer Division and about 200 men from the 340th Volksgrenadier Division, but they were largely untrained and composed of mostly inexperienced replacements found from among the Wehrkreis units up and down the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Illustrating the difficulties German forces faced in getting their armor to the front, it took ten days to bring the first five Jagdtigers of the 2nd company 512th Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion to the front due to communications breakdowns and the threat from fighter-bombers. The 1st Company lost four Jagdtigers in rearguard actions, three due to mechanical breakdowns. When they finally engaged the American armor around Herborn, Jagdtigers began to attack U.S. tanks at long range and claimed it destroyed 30 U.S. tanks, but no strategic victory was gained.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Bayerlein could not muster the forces at his disposal into an effective counterattack. The Panzer Lehr Division was composed of three replacement formations, but their resources were much greater on paper than in reality. For example, the 653rd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion should have been able to deploy two dozen Jagdpanther tank destroyers, but could seldom get more than a third of them into the field at any time. Along with the 9th and 11th Panzer Divisions, they were tasked with stopping the Allies, but Model held back the 11th Panzer on 10 March when the Panzer Lehr did not arrive. When the 9th and 11th Panzer finally attacked the American 311th Regiment at Bad Honnef downstream from Remagen on 11 March, they were ineffective and consumed dwindling supplies of gasoline without result.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 13 March, Beyerlein planned to attack the Americans near Bruchhausen with three battalions containing about 1500 effective troops, facing five American battalions in reserve numbering about 3000 GIs.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 8 March Alfred Jodl told Hitler that the Allies had captured the Ludendorff Bridge intact. Hitler was furious.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote frequently in his diary about the bridgehead at Remagen.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Hitler ordered the bridge destroyed at all costs. Over the next ten days, the German High Command tried nearly every weapon at their disposal to destroy the bridge. In an indication of their dire military situation, Hermann Göring initially sought volunteers from among Messerschmitt 262A pilots for suicide missions to attack the bridge, but the aircraft's bomb targeting sight prevented their use in this way. To supplement the propeller-driven aircraft, Göring formed Gefechtsverband Kowalewski, which included about 40 Arado Ar 234 B-2 turbojet bombers of III./Kampfgeschwader 76 (76th Bomber Wing), normally based in Norway. The bombers were escorted by about 30 Messerschmitt Me 262A-2a jet fighter-bombers from II./Kampfgeschwader 51 led by Hansgeorg Bätcher—formerly the commanding officer of III./KG 76—on their 7 March mission. This was the first time they were used to attack a tactical target. When fully loaded with external bombs, the bombers were capable of flying at over , faster than almost all Allied aircraft except the latest Tempest Mark V, and so fast that the American anti-aircraft units had trouble tracking them. Over six days, III Gruppe./KG 76 flew nine sorties against the bridges. While extremely fast for their time, they were not accurate and dropped their bombs without success. The Germans lost seven jet aircraft, including two shot down by Allied aircraft.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The Luftwaffe's 14th Flieger Division under Oberst Lothar von Heinemann attacked the bridge with a variety of propeller-driven aircraft, including Messerschmitt Bf 109s, Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, and even the antiquated Ju 87D "Stuka" dive-bombers. The Stuka was able to approach the bridge at high altitude and dive almost perpendicular on the bridge. Although accurate, it was slow. The Eifel hills around the river, about high, required the pilots to either dive on the bridge from high altitude, avoiding the hills, or fly at low altitude from up or down river. The heavy U.S. anti-aircraft defenses required the German pilots to take violent evasive action, reducing their accuracy. On Thursday, 8 March 10 Ju 87s from Nachtschlachtgruppe 1 (Night Attack Group 1) attempted an attack, but lost six of their number.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Later that day at 4:44 pm, eight Stuka dive bombers and one Bf 109 fighter made a low-level attack straight up the river to attack the bridge, and the U.S. 482d AW shot eight aircraft down. Thirty minutes later, eight more Stukas attacked, this time straight along the river at , without evasive action, and the anti-aircraft fire of the 90mm guns of 413th AAA Gun Battalion again brought down all of the aircraft. The intense, concentrated anti-aircraft fire repeatedly prevented the Germans from knocking out the bridge. The American anti-aircraft fire was so intense as the tracer bullets concentrated on the aircraft that the air around the planes was lit up with a pink glow.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On Friday 9 March, the Germans sent 17 aircraft to attack the bridge, but their bombs missed. The American forces reported that they had probably downed 13 of the 17 German aircraft. The aircraft also attacked the many vehicles and troops crowding the roads around the bridge with some success. The Luftwaffe also utilized Kampfgeschwader 200 (200th Bomber Wing), a special purpose unit, that among other tasks, was quite experienced operating jet aircraft and captured Allied machines. On 9 and 10 March, nine Fw 190G-1 fighter-bombers from 11 Staffel./KG 200 were dispatched from Twente to Frankfurt to operate against the bridge by night. They duly attacked, but scored no hits. The Americans estimated that from 7 to 17 March they shot down 109 planes, and probably destroyed 36 others, out of a total of 367 sent to attack the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Between 7–14 March, while under attack by 11 weakened German divisions, the five U.S. divisions of the U.S. V and VII Corps captured 11,200 German prisoners of war and lost only 863 soldiers.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 14 March Hitler ordered SS General Hans Kammler to attack the bridge with V2 ballistic missiles. The German General Staff was shocked that Hitler would order the use of the inaccurate weapons on German soil when they would very likely kill German citizens and troops. On 17 March, Batterie SS Abt. 500 at Hellendoorn in the Netherlands, about to the north, fired eleven V2 rockets at the bridge. It was their first and only use against a tactical target and the only time they were fired on a German target during the war. The inaccurate missiles landed as far away as Cologne, to the north. One struck the town of Oedingen, destroying a number of buildings, killing three U.S. GIs and a number of German residents, and wounding many others. One missile struck the 284th Combat Engineers Command Post in Remagen at 12:20 pm, missing the bridge by about . Those present said it felt like an earthquake. The blast damaged or destroyed buildings in a radius, killing three soldiers and wounding 30 more.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The Germans floated a barge down the river carrying explosives but the U.S. forces captured it. They floated mines down the river, but they were intercepted by a series of log and net booms that the 164th Engineer Combat Battalion had built upstream to protect the tactical bridges. Hitler summoned special operations commander Otto Skorzeny, who on 17 March sent a special naval demolitions squad using Italian underwater breathing apparatus to plant mines. Before they could set out, they learned that the Ludendorff Bridge had collapsed, and Skorzeny ordered the seven SS frogmen to instead attack the pontoon bridge between Kripp and Linz. The water was extremely cold, about . The Americans had by then advanced so far up the Rhine that the swimmers had to enter the river upstream from the bridge. They floated downstream using oil drums for support, but they were discovered by the 738th Tank Battalion who operated the top-secret, 13 million candlepower M3 Lee tank-mount Canal Defence Lights (tanks mounting an armored searchlight), employed for the first time in combat during World War II. Two frogmen died of hypothermia, two were killed, and the other three were captured.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Of all the weapons used by the Germans to attack the bridge, only artillery did much damage. The Germans had more than 100 artillery pieces in the area around the bridge, including 50 105 mm light howitzers, 50 150 mm heavy howitzers and 12 210 mm heavy howitzers. Targeting the bridge's eastern approach was complicated by the steep slopes of Erpeler Ley close to the eastern shore, but the German artillery were easily able to hit the Ludendorff Bridge itself and the western shore and approaches to it and the tactical bridges. A German forward artillery observer had infiltrated Remagen, enhancing their artillery's accuracy. On 8–9 March, they successfully hit the bridge 24 times. On 9 March, they hit an ammunition truck on the bridge, leaving a hole in the deck and putting the bridge out of operation for several hours. On 10 March at noon, they struck a gasoline truck. For the next two days, the Americans diverted all gasoline and ammunition convoys to ferries. The falling shells killed troops, destroyed many buildings in Remagen and large numbers of vehicles, and made the jobs of the combat engineers very hazardous.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On Sunday, 11 March, the Germans rerouted Karl-Batterie 628, a two-gun section operating the , Karl Howitzer 60 cm super-heavy mortar towards Remagen. The weapon itself weighed and fired a shell weighing up to . Karl-Batterie 628 arrived on 20 March. The range for its lightest shell of was just over , but after only 14 rounds that missed all of the bridges and only damaged a handful of random houses, the weapon had to be moved to the rear for repairs. Karl-Batterie 428 was also ordered towards Remagen on 11 March, but was rerouted to the 1st Army sector instead.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Bayerlein's ground offensive was completely ineffective. Field Marshal Model was so unhappy with his performance that he transferred all of the LIII Armeekorps' armor to Carl Püchler's LXXIV Armeekorps.