FIRST ACROSS THE RHINE

The 291st Engineer Combat Battalion in France, Belgium and Germany. Landing in Normandy shortly after D-Day, the 291st quickly earned a reputation as a tough, hard-working US Army engineer combat unit. In December 1944 the lightly armed unit found itself virtually alone astride the route of the Ardennes Offensive's northern Panzer spearhead. The 291st blew up bridge after vital bridge in the face of the assault, and thus helped to deny Germany victory. Weeks later, the 291st was selected to throw the first bridge across the Rhine, in the face of enormous resistance. It built the longest combat bridge in Europe in record time and opened the German heartland to the western Allied juggernaut.