In the last months of the war, the Rhine River was the last great natural barrier between the advancing Allies and the soldiers of Hitler's Germany. The Germans destroyed all the bridges but one, near the village of Remagen, which was kept open for numerous retreating Germans. The Remagen bridge had been prepared by two independent circuits for destruction with the order was given.
A US unit found the bridge intact and rushed across it from the west bank to the east, under machine gun fire from two stone towers on the eastern side, and under sniper fire from a barge on the western bank.
Defying Hitler's orders, the major in charge of the German defenses, Schaller, ordered the bridge blown, but the detonation didn't cause a collapse because the only explosive available to the Germans at the time was inferior. Hitler threw everything he had at the structure, including supersonic V-2 rockets and a jet bomber. The bridge finally collapsed but not before enough GIs had gotten across the form a beachhead on the eastern bank. Out of options, Major Schaller ordered a retreat. Hitler had him executed. Six weeks later the war ended.
You can learn more about the details of this event -- which included far more than simply crossing the Rhine -- than you can from watching the whole feature film called "The Bridge at Remagen." The only problem I had with it is that, at times, the narration sounds like something you might hear at a high school football game. The animation is splendid except for the POV shots from behind a German machine gun or an American Thompson that look far too much like a first-person video game. I can do without yet another adrenalin rush, thanks.