By late March 1945, all bridges spanning the German Rhine had been destroyed. Allied engineers built numerous pontoon bridges to replace them. In many cases the so-called Bailey bridging system was used. Donald Bailey (1901–1985), a civil servant in the British War Office, developed the idea for a military bridging system based on the modular principle. It was used from 1942 onwards. Bailey bridges consisted of standardized steel parts, with five different basic components forming the basis of the system. All parts could be moved by human power. The key part was a welded frame, called a "panel." Six men were needed to carry one of these steel frames. The frames were joined together with bolts and cotters. When assembled, they formed a long girder that could span a river or a ravine. Connecting several frames side by side and above one another increased the load-bearing capacity of the girders. Two such girders were connected by numerous transoms; on top of these came an additional steel support layer, onto which wooden planks were placed as decking to be used as a track.

British 30th Corps started its Rhine crossing on March 23rd, 1945. Immediately after the crossing of combat troops the sappers of the Royal Engineers - under constant, although scattered German fire - first built a light bridge downstream from Rees. The first bridge at Rees was a flimsy affair - the „Class 9 Folding Boat Equipment“ rested on foldable pontoons made of canvas and plywood. It could take all vehicles weighing up to 9 tons that infantry units were equipped with. This first bridge lead to the large „Mahnenburg“ farm on the east bank. The construction started at 8.00 AM on March 25th and was finished at 2.00 AM on March 26th. This bridge was named „Waterloo Bridge“. The next bridge - also downstream from Rees - was a class 12 Bailey bridge, capable of carrying vehicles weighing up to 12 tons. It was also finished on March 26th and named „Lambeth Bridge“.

The city of Rees was embattled for two days. While the fighting was still going on in Rees, British sappers started building a bridge from the bank opposite the town. This was to be a class 40 Bailey bridge – which meant that it could carry vehicles weighing up to 40 tons. However, from their positions in Rees, German forward artillery observers could report on the work to their batteries further east which then directed their fire against the British bridge building activities. Initially, that gave the engineers considerable trouble. However, the bridge was finished in the early hours of March 27th - by then the fight for Rees was over. The first class 40 bridge at Rees was named „London Bridge“. In a parallel effort - downstream from Rees - Canadian engineers built another class 40 Bailey bridge. It was ready for operation at 18.00 h on March 28th. The Canadian sappers named it „Blackfriars Bridge“. Soon after, work on a „Class 40 High-Level“ Bailey bridge at Rees started - this one was finished at 18.00 h on March 29th. The name of this bridge was „Westminster Bridge“ and it was designed to stay operational in case of high water levels which were to be expected in the spring. All in all, there were five floating bridges available at Rees at the end of March.

Starting at the beginning of April, British sappers erected two more bridges across the Rhine at Rees. These were to be a „semi-permanent bridges“ and the Bailey bridging system was used for these. The semi-permanent bridge to be built at Rees was of the „BPJ“ type. BPJ stood for „Bailey Pile Jetty“ and meant that the piers carrying the bridge were built at 40 feet centres with steel and Bailey parts (as opposed to timber being used to build piers). To build BPJ-type piers the sappers drove two steel pillars - in parallel position - into the river bed. A 100 feet span was incorporated in the middle of the river to provide a navigation channel and a clearance under the span sufficient to allow barge traffic to pass. Two parallel bridges were built at the same time - thus creating a double roadway, one track for vehicles up to 70 tons, the other one for vehicles up to 40 tons. The approach from the bund to the river on the west bank was placed on timber piers - and it was this extension over land together with the bridge across the river which made the „Tyne and Tees Bridges“ – at 1517 metres (1660 yards) - the longest Bailey construction ever built. It was opened for traffic on May 23rd, 1945.

The first bridge in the sector of 12th Corps was a FBE 9 (Folding Boat Equipment) that could carry vehicles up to 9 tons. This light bridge was built near Vynen on the West bank of the Rhine and lead into the area where 227th Brigade of the 15th Scottish Division was fighting its way inland towards the villages of Mehr and Haffen. The bridge was started at H+11, that is at 1 PM on March 24th, and was finished after ten hours. It was named „Draghunt Bridge“. Another bridge was also built in the sector of 227th Brigade. This one, a Class 12 Bailey pontoon bridge led from the Marienbaum area (west of the Rhine) across the river towards a large farm complex on the east bank of the Rhine. The farm was called „Gut Huebsch“ (Huebsch Estate). „Gut Huebsch“ no longer exists – the Rhine is still running in its old course but on both banks the scenery underwent many changes because of surface extraction of gravel. The scenery today looks still typical for the German lower Rhine region: dykes along the river, a flat landscape, meadows lined with trees. But this is deceptive – many landmarks and buildings that existed in the 1940s are now gone.

The most important bridge for 12th Corps was built in the sector where 44th Brigade had crossed the Rhine. It was a class 40 Bailey pontoon bridge that led from Xanten-Beek to the village of Bislich on the east bank. It is considered to be the first operational heavy bridge built by the Allies after the Rhine crossing. Thus, it became a vital link between the western and eastern banks of the river, enabling 12th Corps to bring across heavy vehicles for the advance of its troops into the Reich. Named „Digger Bridge“, it was the only British bridge in this sector that led to a proper village – the village of Bislich on the east bank had some relatively decent roads leading east and became a traffic hub for 12th Corps reinforcements. On the morning of March 26th, Prime Minister Winston Churchill crossed „Digger Bridge“ while visiting Montgomery and his troops on the Rhine front. After „Digger Bridge“ was completed a second bridge across the Rhine was built at Xanten/Bislich. This second bridge was called „Sparrow Bridge“, honouring Sapper Sparrow who had drowned while working on the first bridge in this location. The new construction was an „all-weather Bailey pontoon bridge“ that would be able to cope with rising water levels that usually occur in the springtime.

„Dempsey Bridge“ is the least known of the major British bridges built across the Rhine in 1945. Semi-permanent bridges were to replace the floating bridges in order to allow shipping on the Rhine after the war had ended. Construction work started on March 29th. The design of "Dempsey Bridge" was quite special - it was built as a Bailey Timber Pile (BTP) type. All in all 58 piers were constructed on both banks and in the river bed. Before opening the bridge on May 28th, 1945, a 38,5 ton Churchill tank drove over the new bridge as a trial. It had an overall length of 1260 metres. The bridge had a navigation channel with a span of 32 metres and sufficient clearing for the barges of that era, thus it allowed shipping on the Rhine. In February 1946, a cargo barge tried to pass the bridge and crashed into a number of wooden piers in the river. 150 metres of the bridge collapsed, the ship sank, one of its crew died. The damage to the bridge was so severe that it was eventually dismantled.

After British Commandos had taken the ruins of Wesel on March 24th, US engineers started building bridges at Wesel - the area was the boundary between British Second Army and US Ninth Army which had crossed the Rhine just upstream of Wesel. British 12th Corps troops were to have exclusive running rights on these bridges for four days after their completion. On March 25th the soldiers of the US Corps of Engineers started building three bridges at Wesel - they were all located between the destroyed road bridge and the ruins of the railway bridge. The first bridge was a so called "Treadway" bridge on rubber pontoons. It was ready for traffic on March 26th. The second US bridge was of the "Heavy Pontoon"-type - this class 40 bridge was finished on March 26th as well. The third bridge built by US Army engineers at Wesel was a class 40 Bailey bridge. It was started on March 25th - just like the Treadway and Heavy Pontoon bridges. These US bridges were for the time being used by British units crossing the Rhine. In the morning hours of March 31st the three US bridges at Wesel came under control of US Ninth Army - however, the running rights for British 12th Corps were not completely lost - the British retained the right to use these bridges for 5 hours in every 24 hours.

On March 29th, construction of the first semi-permanent military bridge over the Rhine began near Wesel. To increase their transport capacity, the Americans initially built a single-track railway bridge in the bridgehead near Wesel. It was erected 75 meters downstream of the destroyed road bridge. The railway bridge was supported by 30 wooden and steel piers. It spanned a distance of 580 metres over the Rhine and more than 150 metres over the Lippe River. A wide passage was left between two piers in the middle of the river to accommodate any ship traffic that might arise later. At 1:00 AM on the early morning of April 9th, the first train crossed the bridge. Exactly 75 meters upstream from the collapsed road bridge, construction of a semi-permanent road bridge began on March 31st. This bridge on wooden piers also spanned the Rhine and Lippe rivers and measured approximately 600 metres, crossing the Rhine, and another 130 metres, crossing the Lippe. It also had a navigable span and could support 40 tons of two-way traffic, and up to 70 tons of single-lane traffic. In the early afternoon of April 18th, the bridge was opened to traffic and named the "Franklin D. Roosevelt Bridge" after the President of the United States, who had died just days earlier. From October 1945 to January 1946, the British expanded it into a large double-track Bailey bridge and renamed it the "Montgomery Bridge." It remained in operation until the “Rheinbabenbrücke” – a road bridge - was rebuilt in 1953.

Upstream from Wesel, after the Rhine crossing by Ninth US Army a total of eight pontoon bridges were built. Work on a "Treadway Bridge" near Wallach leading to Spellen began at 6:30 AM on Saturday, March 24th. It was operational by 4:00 PM. However, the Americans had some trouble with this first bridge - shortly after it was put into operation, a loaded pontoon ferry went out of control and rammed the bridge. It was not operational again until 2:00 AM the following morning. Another American bridge under construction was hit by German artillery fire on the afternoon of March 24th. A 40-metre-long section of this "Treadway Bridge", which was leading to Mehrum, was destroyed and the bridge could not be opened to traffic until 8:30 AM the following morning. Just an hour later, it was rammed by an US Navy “Sea Mule” tugboat and collapsed. The third bridge in this area was a "Heavy Pontoon Bridge," a more solid bridge resting on heavy metal pontoons, built on March 25th near Wallach and leading to a village called Ork. Further upstream, a "Treadway" bridge was built for the US Army, leading from Rheinberg-Milchplatz to Eppinghoven-Stapp near Dinslaken. This bridge was rammed by three landing craft late in the evening of March 24th, and it took until noon the following day to repair it. Shortly afterwards, it was hit by artillery fire, killing one officer, wounding several soldiers and destroying seven rubber pontoons. The damage was not repaired until the afternoon of March 26th. Starting on March 26th, the Americans also built two Bailey bridges – one at Mehrum and another one at Spellen. Both were operational by March 28. The Bailey bridge at Spellen was dismantled in April and re-erected further upstream at Orsoy opposite Walsum. It was operational by mid-April and was a welcome addition to the Heavy Pontoon bridge which had already been built at Orsoy.

After the city of Emmerich, located downstream from Rees near the Dutch border, was captured by Canadian troops on March 31st, three bridges were constructed to support the advance of the Canadian forces into Holland. The first one was ready for traffic on April 1st - it was a low-level class 40 bridge and was named "Melville Bridge". Just a 100 metres downstream a class 15 Bailey named “Contractors Bridge” was built – it was, however, dismantled after some weeks. A third Bailey bridge was a class 40 "high-level bridge" which could be operated safely in case of a rise of water levels in the spring. It was finished by April 5th and named "MacLean Bridge".

From April 11th to May 8th, British sappers built a single-track railway bridge near the vegetable oil factory in Spyk near Griethausen, downstream of Emmerich. They used an old railway line between Griethausen and Elten, which had been closed in 1926. Until then, there had been a railway ferry at this location, the so-called "Spyck-Welle Ferry." This new railroad bridge was considered important and sappers were temporarily moved from the bridge building site at Rees to support the effort at the railway bridge at Spyck. Priority was given to a railway connection across the Rhine because trains could carry larger amounts of supplies and were regarded as more efficient than convoys of lorries. The British engineers in 1945 linked their bridge and their own tracks to the existing tracks of the major railway from Amsterdam to Cologne that is still in use today. However, the route built by the British led south, towards Wesel and Cologne. The new railway bridge rested on wooden piers and provided a passage for shipping. As it was opened on May 8th, 1946, it was named "Victory Bridge" The structure was damaged by ice formation on the Rhine in the winter of 1945/46 and had to be demolished.