Real leadership.
In March 1945, “Lightning Joe” Collins’s men of the Army’s VII Corps crossed into Germany.
They were driving east, toward Germany’s industrial heartland in the Ruhr Valley.
Then it was on to Berlin.
Their last obstacle was the Rhine River, Germany’s natural defense against invasions from the west.
The Rhine ran deep and fast, with an average width of 1300 feet.
Fording the river was impossible.
Retreating German troops had destroyed most of the Rhine River bridges.
But the Allies needed to get across the river fast.
So, when Collins reached the Rhine near Bonn, he challenged combat engineers to build a pontoon bridge across the river in ten hours.
If they succeeded, they’d break the pontoon bridge construction record of twenty-five hours which had been set during World War I.
And Collins would buy a round of beer for every man involved in a successful effort.
So, at 6:15 a.m. on March 21, six hundred men began assembling the floats and planks needed for a pontoon bridge.
And they finished ten ours and ten minutes later.
Their bridge spanned 1,308 feet and used 107 floats, providing a continuous deck for vehicles and pedestrians.
And the first vehicle crossed the completed bridge at 4:25 that very afternoon.
Collins — jubilant — overlooked the last ten minutes of construction time and declared the builders had met his challenge.
And he hosted a party for all six hundred men at a Bonn beer hall the next day.
Collins had gotten his nickname, “Lightning Joe,” in the fight on Guadalcanal.
There, his “dash and aggression,” and his praise and encouragement of his men under extreme conditions, had earned him a Silver Star.
His leadership at the Rhine was just one more example of how to bring out the best in people.
At a time when mediocrity, or worse, grabs all the headlines, it’s good to remember what real leadership looks like.
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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