page_title: Battle of Remagen
section_title: Frogmen dispatched
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Remagen / German counterattack / Continued attacks / Frogmen dispatched
caption_attribution_description: An M3 tank fitted with an armoured searchlight turret, known as a Canal Defense Light. IWM Collection description is "Grant CDL (Canal Defence Light) with searchlight and dummy gun mounted in turret."
context_page_description: The Battle of Remagen during the Allied invasion of Germany resulted in the unexpected capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine. 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 2,800 kilograms 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.
  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.
context_section_description: 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 7 °C (45 °F). The Americans had by then advanced so far up the Rhine that the swimmers had to enter the river 17 kilometers (11 mi) 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.
caption: The British-invented M3 Canal Defence Light used to illuminate the bridge and river area at night
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