First Across the Rhine - The Story of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion - by Col. David E. Pergrin with Eric Hammel - Publisher: Pacifica Press - 1989. Is a first-person narrative by the commander of the celebrated 291st Combat Engineers, who paved the way from Normandy shortly after D-Day and raced across France and Belgium in the summer of 1944. In December of '44 they found themselves virtually alone as they stood astride the route of the panzer spearhead - The Battle of the Bulge. Weeks later the 291st was selected from among all the US Army engineer bns in Germany to throw the first bridge across the mighty Rhine River, in the face of enormous resistance.