TROOPS LOADING INTO AN LCVP to cross the Rhine (top). Engineers constructing a pontoon treadway bridge over the Rhine (bottom). A steel treadway bridge was completed by 1800 on 23 March 1945, and the following day a heavy pontoon bridge was completed. By noon on 25 March a second treadway bridge was completed. The crossing of the Rhine in the Third Army area gained complete tactical surprise and the enemy offered only scattered resistance. By the evening of 24 March three divisions held a bridgehead ten miles wide and nine miles deep. These divisions were closely followed by two more, making a total of five on the east bank of the Rhine.] [Illustration] [Illustration: GERMANY INFANTRYMEN BOARDING AN LCVP to cross the Rhine (top). An assault boat raft ferrying a 90-mm. gun motor carriage M36 across the Rhine (bottom). Troops of the Third U. S. Army first crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim on the night of 22–23 March. Utilizing assault rafts and attacking without artillery or aerial preparation, six battalions were across the river before daybreak with a loss of only twenty-eight men killed and wounded. Following the assault boats were landing craft and DUKW’s. The LCVP’s were manned by naval personnel who arrived at the river an hour after the assault began.] [Illustration] [Illustration: GERMANY JEEPS AND TANKS CROSSING THE RHINE at Boppard, Germany. On 24 March 1945 a crossing in the rugged Rhine gorge north of Boppard was made and by 25 March a bridgehead eight miles wide and three miles deep was held. A treadway bridge was constructed at Boppard.] [Illustration: GERMANY AN INFANTRYMAN COVERS A GERMAN as he surrenders. In the First Army area an attack from the Remagen bridgehead was carried out, and preparations were made to advance to the Kassel area.] [Illustration: GERMANY ARMORED TROOPS MOVING TO THE FRONT as prisoners are marched along the autobahn to the rear (top). Infantrymen entering Frankfurt (bottom). The bridgeheads along the Rhine were expanded and on 26 March Third Army troops entered Frankfurt. The advance moved northward toward Kassel. The Fifteenth Army was instructed to take over the west bank of the Rhine from Bonn to Neuss by 1 April, to assume command of the division which was guarding the Brittany ports, and to be prepared to occupy, organize, and govern the Rhine provinces as the 12th Army Group attacks progressed eastward.] [Illustration] [Illustration: GERMANY FRANKFURT ON THE MAIN RIVER, showing the Frankfurt cathedral. By 28 March Frankfurt had been half cleared of enemy troops and Hanau completely cleared. Part of a large enemy pocket west of Wiesbaden had been mopped up and contact was made between the First and Third U. S. Army troops.] [Illustration: GERMANY