The Watch on the Bridge

The Watch on the Bridge, first published in 1959, is a fast-paced novel set in Europe near the closing days of World War II. While much of the book focuses on a U.S. soldier and a German woman he befriends, there are many combat scenes as observed from both the American and German sides.

From the book's cover notes:February, 1945, and the German Wehrmacht everywhere in retreat before the advancing British and Americans, falling back on the Rhine, ready to cross that historic barrier, blow the spans that traversed it and then, in safety, recuperate for the struggle that would decide the fate of the Fatherland itself. It was natural for all eyes to turn to the north, to the wide reaches of the lower Rhine where the ultimate assault would be mounted. But this is a story of another sort and place: of a town standing beside the rushing waters of the upper Rhine and of a bridge, a four-hundred-yard steel ribbon over a river that flowed deep and swift between the cliffs. It is the story of how that doomed country cousin of a bridge became, in the span of minutes, the most important bridge in world history.


The Bridge is a novel of many and varying characters, from the Generals of both sides down to the carpenters and slave laborers working on the bridge itself. But chiefly it focuses on a few individuals to whom the bridge became a symbol of all that was worth striving for in life. Among them, Douglas Stanton, called Doke, a casualty certified as recovered from his wounds and fit for duty, is sent to rejoin a "recon" troop, although his courage has left him and he is terrified that his luck has run out; and Major Clay Stanton, West Pointer and career officer, who has tried to get his younger brother off the hook. In the tremendous swirl of battle and death each came to know and understand more about the other—and himself.