DNIEPER SPANNED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1944, Page 3

DNIEPER SPANNED

SUBMERGED BRIDGES RUSSIAN INGENUITY ISTANBUL. One of the big contributions to the Russians' successful breaching of the Germans' Dnieper line was the Red Army's use of "submerged bridges." When they reached the banks of the Dnieper, supposedly impassable under fire, the Russians constructed, under cover of night and camouflage, special pontoon bridges equal in length to the width of the river. These bridges were built alongside the Russian-held bank. At the zero hour the upriver ends of the bridges were swung out into the current and made fast to the other shore under the protection of night, or morning mist, or artillery fire, then submerged about a foot so as to be invisible.

Men, guns and eyen tanks were able to cross the river over these bridges when German planes came to bomb them. The- submerged bridges undoubtedly helped to make the Russians' summer offensive- possible. Without this ingenious device the Russians might have had to wait months for otherwise impassable rivers to freeze over.