FAIR READY TO OPEN: GUARDSMEN INSTALL FOOTBRIDGE

Guardsmen with the Missouri Army National Guard's 1140th Combat Engineer Battalion have erected a temporary 80-foot pedestrian bridge over Cape LaCroix Creek in Arena Park for the SEMO District Fair.

The bridge was completed late Thursday and should be open by Sunday.

Lt. Col. Mike Gunther, executive officer of the 135th Combat Engineer Group in Cape Girardeau, said the District Fair Board recently asked the Guard if a bridge could be built so people could cross the creek from the south parking lot during the fair.

A wooden foot bridge that the Guard built about 200 feet downstream from the site of the temporary bridge was damaged several years ago by flash flooding. It had been used during the fair by fair-goers and during the rest of the year by guardsmen undergoing physical training in Arena Park. The damaged bridge was removed by the city last week.

While most people who walk across the bridge next week will see it only as a portable, steel truss bridge, Army veterans of World War II will quickly recognize it as one of the famous Bailey bridges that enabled the mechanized allied forces to speed across Europe following the D-Day invasion.

"During World War II the Bailey bridge was the number-one bridge that kept the allied forces on the move across Europe," said Major Dwight Lusk, administrative officer of the 1140th in Cape Girardeau and officer-in-charge of the bridge construction crew. "Very often, these bridges were put up by the combat engineers while under hostile fire from the enemy. At that time the Bailey bridge was the fastest (construction time) bridge we had to replace those blown up by our people or by the enemy.

"I'm sure there are still a lot of World War II veterans around who either built, guarded, walked or drove across a Bailey bridge while they were in Europe."

Lusk said the Bailey bridge is named after its inventor, Sir Donald Coleman Bailey, an English civil engineer. In 1941, Bailey gave his first sketch of the bridge to the British War Office, which paid him the equivalent of $48,000 in 1985 American currency. The Bailey bridge used in World War II was designed to be moved, rebuilt or replaced in several hours, even under enemy fire. It was used widely and well by allied armies in northwest Europe and Italy between 1943 and 1945.

Speaking of the importance of the Bailey Bridge, British Field Marshal Lord Bernard Law Montgomery stated, "Without the Bailey bridge, we should not have won the war. It was the best thing in that line we ever had."

For his contribution to the allied victory in World War II, Bailey was knighted in 1946 by King George VI.

Lusk said the bridge has distinctive features. It is built by manpower alone and is made entirely from prefabricated parts, the most notable of which are its light-steel panels or trusses linked by pinned joints. "Assembling the Bailey bridge is almost like putting together an Erector Set; you build it one piece at a time," he said.

Each panel or truss weighs over 600 pounds. Each of the transoms or I crossbeams that carry the walking or vehicular panels weigh 800 pounds. Using carrying sticks, eight guardsmen can lift both bridge components to the assembly site.

The bridge is also unique in that it is assembled one section at a time on one side of the stream, then pushed by troops on a series of rollers to the other side. Lusk said the weight of bridge sections that are being assembled act as a counter-weight to keep the completed end of the bridge elevated until it reaches the far side of the stream. At that point the bridge is lowered onto another set of rollers.

When the assembled bridge is across the stream, it is jacked up, allowing the roller plates and cribbing to be removed, then lowered onto steel bridge abutments.

"In a combat situation a fully-manned (66 men) and trained bridge crew can put one of these bridges together in two and one-half hours after all of the components are laid out on the ground," Lusk said. "It's going to take us longer because we only have about 15 to 20 people here, and not all of them have experience working on a Bailey bridge team. That's why we agreed to help out. It will give the men some valuable bridge-building experience."

Lusk said all of the guardsmen who built the bridge are full-time guardsmen from each of the 1140th's four companies throughout Southeast Missouri.

"Some of the men here today have worked with Bailey bridges for many years, while others are seeing a Bailey bridge assembled for the first time," he said.

Lusk said the bridge is normally stored at the 1140th's weekend training site near Lake Wappapello. "We have other Bailey bridges stored at other locations," he said.

If a major earthquake occurs in the area, Lusk said Army and National Guard Bailey bridges would be used to replace bridges damaged or destroyed by the quake. "We have several more of these bridges stored in the northern half of the state that can be brought into this area when needed, and more can be shipped into the state, if necessary. It's a very portable and mobile type of bridge," he said.