I have two original colour slides that were taken by a German Engineer of a blown up bridge in France. The bridge was blown up on the retreating Army in 1940. Can any one ID it. i know there is not a lot to go on, but on one of the slides there is one other bridge and a town [ to the left ] , on the other slide you can see people looking at the bridge, i have put xxx near them. Keith
Orleans. pics here http://www.melun77.com/pagesmelun1940/orleans1940/pagemelun1940-orleans.html Pont Joffre http://morgann.moussier.free.fr/orleans/histoire/reconstruction.html http://archives.orleans.fr/article.php?laref=87&titre=le-pont-joffre http://www.panoramio.com/photo/70900112
Wow Owen that was quick. Thanks. I have sent the archives at Orleans a pm to see if they would like a scan of them. Keith
From French Wikipedia - excuse my translation: The decision to destroy the George V and Joffre bridges was taken June 10 1940 by the Colonel commanding the No.6 Depot of Engineering. Two trenches 0.70 m deep, reaching the keystone, are dug on the night of the 14th/15th on the George V bridge. Similar trenches of 0.50 m are made on the Joffre Bridge, reaching the cornerstone of the arch keystones ( I don't know what a 'voutelette' is?). The work is made difficult by the intense movement of convoys of refugees and soldiers. In the draft note presented to the lieutenant in charge, the firing could only be made by written order, but in case of the presence of the enemy, the Engineering officer could blow the bridge on his own initiative. This is actually what happened. No written order was received. On June 16, around 15:30, a German armored car appeared on the Rue Royale and crossed the bridge. A shootout occured, intensifying rapidly. At 1600 hours, the charges were blown. For unknown reasons, only one device worked, that of the second span, causing a gap of about 15 mètres. Shortly after entering Orleans, the occupying forces briefly restored the passage over the missing span, establishing a wooden deck. The highways are substituted by a temporary metal bridge that the Germans christened Adolf Hitler Brücke and to facilitate communication between the two banks of the river, they built a wooden walkway bridge named Hermann-Göring, upstream of the destroyed Joffre bridge - commissioned on July 23, 1940.
Pont George V was blown at same time as Joffre, but there is also the Pont René Thinat and a railway bridge next to it - don't know if they were there in 1940?
Came in the post, some original Colour slides of a blown up bridge. Repaired by a German Air Force construction battalion LW .ww2. you can see some cammo nets on it. This is a hard one to ID. Could be France ? and might be more than 2 spans. No date came with these slides.
This is the pile driver that you can see in one of the photos, might give a clue as you can see more of the countryside. Keith