Larks sang in the spring sky and the shaky-legged lambs frisked in the German fields. In some of the smashed beer houses were broken pianos, drums, brass horns. But the most fascinating thing in sight was the rolling ribbon of the Autobahn —the four-lane superhighway connecting Frankfurt am Main and the Ruhr.
Advancing in the Remagen bridgehead, Lieut. General Courtney H. Hodges' First Army men brought the highway under artillery fire, then inched forward to machine-gun range. Thus they cut an important Nazi lateral communication line ori the east bank of the Rhine. Finally a 78th Division platoon, led by a...