Pont de Port-Galland, Road bridge over Ain River in Saint-Maurice-de-Gourdans and Loyettes, France.
The Pont de Port-Galland is a road bridge over the Ain linking Loyettes with Port-Galland, a hamlet of Saint-Maurice-de-Gourdans in the Ain department. Its paved deck carries a low green railing of horizontal top rail and evenly spaced vertical posts on one side, and a black metal barrier with vertical bars on concrete bases on the other. Beneath the deck a concrete girder runs lengthwise, resting farther back on a massive rectangular concrete pier beside the river.
On 1 September 1944, during the Battle of Meximieux, German forces destroyed the Chazey bridge, and fighting shifted to Port-Galland and Saint-Maurice-de-Gourdans for control of this crossing. The Martin company of the Ain maquis took part in defending the bridge, which the Germans ultimately failed to take.
The bridge reconstruction in the 1960s was documented in an institutional film that captures the period of post-war infrastructure development in France.
The bridge carries the road between Loyettes and the hamlet of Port-Galland in Saint-Maurice-de-Gourdans. The deck has a green railing along one edge and a black metal barrier with concrete base sections along the other, so pedestrians keep to the side with the railing. The river can be viewed from the banks at either end.
German forces never managed to capture this strategic crossing point during World War II, preserving its role in local transportation networks.
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