Assault Boats on the Rhine

On the night of March 22, 1945, infantry of the 5th Division, Third Army, pushed off from the west bank of the Rhine near Oppenheim in plywood assault boats. There was no artillery preparation and no smoke. Patton wanted to be across before Montgomery's set-piece crossing to the north, and by morning he was, at a cost of twenty-eight men.

The next night the main effort began. Operation Plunder put British, Canadian and American troops over the river between Rees and Rheinberg behind the heaviest barrage of the campaign and a smoke screen that had hidden the bank for days. The U.S. Ninth Army's 30th and 79th Divisions crossed at 2 a.m. on March 24.

Within days the bridgeheads joined up. On April 1 the Ruhr, the last industrial heart of the Reich, was encircled.

The whole sky is smoke, lit from underneath. The sun hangs low in it like a coin, and its reflection lays a track across the river that the lead boat is cutting through. A soldier stands in the bow, the only upright figure, and the men behind him are packed low. Far right, a single church spire breaks the burning line of the far bank — the one fixed point the coxswains had to steer for.