Rhine Crossing: Reinforcements

Corp augmented the 89th Division with a Group of three artillery battalions to strengthen the fires of the Division's five organic artillery battalions. It designated the Corps 1107 Engineer Group of five Engineer battalions to support the 89th crossing by providing and operating the essential water lift (powered rafts, duks, assault boats, etc.). The engineers would also build a treadway (pontoon) bridge across. the Rhine between St. Goar and St. Goarshausen as soon as the tactical situation permitted. Further, the Corps provided the 748 Tank Battalion as a combat reinforcement Already attached since early March were the 811 Tank Destroyer Battalion, 550 Antiaircraft Battalion (AW) and Company A, 91st chemical Mortar Battalion.

Altogether, the Division plus supporting and attached forces numbered well over 23,000, men. This powerful augmentation represented Corp's judgment that a contested crossing of a great river line (the gorge of the Rhine, with its turbulent current, steep banks and close precipitous hills) represented a most difficult and perhaps hazardous operation.

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