They must've wanted to see how a river crossing was done so badly.
Private Bob walt...
We had two hours to build, two hours to traffic and two hours to strip. The timings were critical as we had to apply for ‘closure’ to river traffic. Bad things happened with those BFO German barges if you got the timings wrong. I suspect it was this ‘closure’ notice that alerted SOXMIS to the crossing.
Most times we just trained and didn’t traffic the bridge.
However, whenever the Regiment had ‘customers’ it seemed to be my troop that got the job. Our 100% record (up to that point) had some bearing on that.
Once the bridge was built the biggest risk was the customer.
We always guided traffic across the bridge.
That night, 3 (US) Corps were a ******* menace.
There was a white line painted down the middle of the bridge. Some of the septics thought it was a lane marker and insisted on driving up over the engine decks as a result, dangerously close to the pilot stand. One bloke turned right half way across the bridge and suspended the cab of his rig over the Weser. Luckily, because it was an artic he didn’t get wet.