As Germans frantically tried to reset the bridge charges, Lieutenant Timmerman sent his men onto the bridge and followed close behind. Joe DeLisio moved ahead of the others, ran past the eastern towers from which Germans were firing, climbed atop one tower, and single-handedly captured five Germans. To avoid leaving DeLisio isolated on the eastern side, Drabik ran across under fire and became the first man to reach the far side, followed closely by nine others, including Timmerman. Their aggressiveness and camaraderie carried the first U.S. soldiers across the bridge at Remagen. Commanders up to Bradley and Eisenhower immediately diverted available units toward Remagen, and before daylight on March 8th the 311st crossed with orders to turn right and attack, becoming the first regiment in its entirety to cross the Rhine. Although Germans fought desperately from the eastern cliffs and tried by shelling, bombing, ramming, and frogmen to destroy the bridge, it remained standing. Its loss embarrassed the German military, led Hitler to shift reinforcements to Remagen and condemn five Nazi officers to death, and shattered German confidence in the Rhine as a barrier behind which they might hold off the Allies and negotiate. For the Americans, the seizure was estimated to have saved 5,000 dead and 10,000 wounded, the bridge remained in constant use until it collapsed on March 17th killing 28 U.S. soldiers, six more bridges were quickly built across the Rhine, Eisenhower shifted his main attack from Montgomery in the north to Bradley in the south based on the 78th's successes at Kesternich and Remagen, and the end of the war came within grasp.